Page 107 of One Good Reason

“If not, I can eat anything.”

“I’ll see.”

Standing at the sink, I washed my hands and dried them off before toeing back into the room in search of my phone. After securing us a reservation for Nobu, I hopped in the shower.

“For somebody to be so hungry, you sure didn’t order much,” I fussed after the server walked away from the table. The whole ride over to Nobu, Talitha had gone on about how hungry she was only to get here and order fucking Yellowtail Jalapeno. That few pieces of sushi weren’t going to do anything but piss her off.

I knew it and so did she, that’s the reason she laughed it off and picked her up cocktail. “You got the ribeye… I’ll just eat off yours.”

“Bullshit.” I chuckled. “You will do no such thing.”

“I can’t have any of your food, Law?” she asked and batted her eyes.

“No love, you can’t. You should’ve ordered more food.” I was lying, I would feed it to her if she asked.

“If you say so.” She giggled and blew me a kiss.

Talitha’s ass was lucky that I was hungry as hell because when she strutted out of the bathroom, I almost bent her over the dresser. She was looking so good I damn near had to catch my breath at the sight of her.

When we had sex earlier, her hair had gotten messed up. Instead of curling it again, she’d tossed it up in a slick ponytail. Instead of wearing the usual red lipstick, her lips were coatedwith some type of nude gloss. The white satin dress she wore draped low in the front and had her entire back exposed. Her jewelry tonight was modest as she wore her usual Rolex and a pair of Bottega tear drop earrings. It was something about the way the color white made her chocolate skin shine so bright that had my dick bricked up in my jeans.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, noticing that my eyes hadn’t left her.

“You look remarkable, love.”

“As do you,” she flirted.

“You can’t flirt with me like that in public.”

Placing her glass on the table, she leaned in and asked, “Why not?”

“My dick is already hard,” I admitted, making her toss her head back and laugh.

“Surely you got enough earlier.”

“Wanna see?” I challenged.

“Lawton Harvey, stop it,” she cooed.

“I’ll leave you alone. Are you having fun?”

“I am but it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention that my heart is heavy. Like, I almost feel guilty for enjoying myself here with you when I know Gema is back at home with my Mama and her husband.”

“You can’t feel guilty love. What happened was out of your control. As much as you would like, there is nothing that you can do. It pained me to sit there and watch you cry knowing I couldn’t stop it. So, I did the best thing I knew to do. Change your environment and give you peace, even if only for a moment. You feeling guilty means I’m not doing my job.”

“No, you are,” she sighed. “It’s just–” She paused like she was unsure of what to say next.

“Just what?” I asked, encouraging her to express herself.

“I feel like I keep failing, Law. And I know I keep saying the same thing and you’re telling me I’m not but it’s how my heart feels. I worked my ass off to give Gema a better life. She’s the happiest that she’s been in years and the moment it feels like we’re finally okay, this happens.

For so long I shied away from relationships because not only was I scared of getting hurt but me being afraid to be happy was a big part of it. My past makes me feel like I don’t deserve good things.”

Our plates being lowered onto the table ceased the conversation momentarily. When the server walked away, I asserted, “We all deserve something good, Talitha.”

“Try explaining that to my five-year-old self. Gema and Papa Joe never ceased to tell me how extraordinary I was, they poured into me daily. But the love and admiration they gave wasn’t what I needed. I needed it from my Mama, and she chose to give it to Joe Lee.

It’s like I’ve battled for her love and attention my entire life, even with me getting it from my grandparents. I wanted it from her, and I can admit that now because I’m grown, and I’ve been in therapy for it.

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