Page 74 of Can't Get Enough

“Love yous,” they both chorus.

As soon as I’m in my car I set the plate on the passenger seat and take my phone back out.

Me:Hey! I’m down. Give me twenty?

Maverick:I’ll wait for you.

CHAPTER 23

HENDRIX

Tonight is Soft Girl Saturday.

Now I could be out for dinner or at a party or a premiere. Even a strip club. Atlanta excels in bouncing titties and bare ass with wings on the side. I could be out in them streets, but I’mtired. I want a low-key night where I pamper myself. After the week… the month—okay, the year I’ve had—Ideserve.

The sound of my girl Tems crooning drifts through my apartment, her song as sultry as a Caribbean breeze. Cradling a glass of wine, I walk out onto the balcony overlooking Sky Square. It’s Georgia in late July, so it’s hot, but at nearly ten o’clock, it’s cooled a little. Enough for me to lounge on my balcony, leaning on the rail and watching the people taking to Skyland’s cobblestone streets on a Saturday night. I’m wearing my skimpy silk pajamas with the spaghetti strap top and the short bottoms. My hair is deep conditioning, the natural curls soaking up every bit of moisture they can before I braid them up and throw my hair in a new protective style next week. My brightening under-eye patches are on. I’ve done my glass-skin routine so my face looks like a glazed doughnut.

I’m chilling and in for the night.

The only thing I neglected in this completely indulgent evening of self-care is food.

I pull up a delivery app on my phone.

A notification from Black Business interrupts my order, and I seeZere’s name before it scrolls away. Curiosity piqued, I pull up the social media site.

It’s a photo of Zere and some guy I don’t recognize, but feel somehow that I should. He’s about her height. A white man with light brown hair, athletic build. The headline below the photo blares speculation.

Hard Launch? Is Zere Moving on with a New Mogul?

The former supermodel stepped out last night with LA-based real estate mogul Charles Filmore. Spotted leaving Hollywood’s Sugarfish, the two looked very cozy and neighboring diners reported they held hands on the table. This sighting comes a mere two months after the model-turned-television-personality released a statement about the end of her three-year relationship with tech mogul Maverick Bell.

Another mogul, huh? Girl, you got a type. We see you. Get that bag, boo.

Zere and I haven’t spoken much lately. We’ve both been doing other things, but there are a few network executives reading our pitch and we have meetings in New York next week.

“And it’s my birthday,” Zere had said on our last call. “You can stay for my party. Please come.”

I had said yes, and I hope I don’t come to regret it. It occurred to me to ask if Maverick would be attending her party, but that might raise suspicions. Why would I need to know if her ex-boyfriend will be there?

I glance back down at the Black Business post. Considering Zere’s glowing smile and the hand tucked into the real estate mogul’s as he helps her into his Maserati, maybe she wouldn’t care that Maverick and I are friends.

Maybe she wouldn’t care if we were more…

My stomach growls, reminding me there are more pressing things than the drama between Zere and Maverick.

“Like food,” I mutter. “How have you gone so long without eating, girl?”

Probably because I worked all day and didn’t shut it down until this evening. My finger hovers over the icon of my favorite wing spot, when the phone rings.

Maverick’s name on the screen gives me pause.

I’m tempted not to answer, even as every fiber of my body begs me to grab that call before he hangs up. There is a civil war between the clear-thinking career woman who knows she needs to avoid romantic involvement with Maverick, and the touch-starved girl who talks to him every night under the flimsy guise of casual friendship.

“Hey!” I say, my voice artificially bright. “What’s up?”

“Wagwan,” Maverick answers.

I can’t help but laugh at his use of the customary greeting we hear so much onTop Boy, which basically means “what’s up?”

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