Page 28 of Cause When You Love Someone
She frowned when I lifted her upright. “No. I don’t want to go home.” She pleated her arms across her cleavage. “At least let me tell my friends I’m leaving.”
I glanced at the women Clarke pointed to. She was concerned with her friends, and they didn’t even look back before climbing into their Uber.
“Send them a text,” I suggested as I led her to my Kawasaki Ninja.
“Wait! You want me to ride that? My condo is forty minutes from here, and I have to pee!” Clarke whined and gripped my hand. “Lord, my head is already spinning.”
“You came out and got drunk to bury whatever you’re feeling and look how that turned out.” I shook my head. “Do you feel better?”
The shackle of her squint sealed me in place as she said, “I do now.”
“I bet.” I cut free a laugh. “Put the helmet on, get on the bike, and get comfortable.”
Clarke did as I said, and once we were on the road, she rested her head against my back. Every so often, she squeezed my sides. In return, I reached back and tapped her thigh. Any plans of steering clear of Clarke outside of work slipped away with every out-of-work encounter. The day we met, I spotted the facade she upheld, and now, I wanted to pull it apart, then piece her back together.
We made it to my house about twenty minutes after leaving downtown, and I didn’t have the chance to give Clarke a tour of my home before she tossed her purse on the couch.
“Where’s your bathroom?” she quizzed.
“Down the hallway, second door on the left.”
Since the trip to my neck of the woods was supposed to be a pitstop, I waited by the door with my keys in hand. However,after standing in the same spot for minutes, I decided to check on my houseguest.
“Clarke.” I tapped on the bathroom door. “You good?”
“I’m fine,” she answered too fast for me to believe, but I didn’t pry.
While she handled her business, I went to my master bedroom and changed into a pair of lounge shorts, a black tank top, and a pair of Birkenstock slides.
By the time I made it to the front of the house, I found Clarke stretched out on my couch. Her dress had crawled up her thighs, and the safety pin hairclips that kept her mane off her face sat on the end table. Her tresses rained down the arm of the couch, and her lips were puckered, even in her sleep. The dramatic, overstimulated beauty that met me in my dreams lately appeared to be at peace. She looked beautiful—innocent.
A flood of ideas of what could have happened had we met under different circumstances played in my mind. By the way I judged her after our first conversation, I’d be lying if I said we would have been anything more than passing strangers.
Instead of disturbing Clarke, I decided to call and check on Isabella.
“What’s good, little one? Did Mariah make it home yet?”
She smacked her lips. “Yeah. She’s outside, smoking with Khalil.”
I wanted to complain that she still wasn’t in the house with her kid, but instead, I accepted the situation for what it was.
“Did everything go good with the drop off?”
“It went okay,” she whined. “The lady who came over kept asking if I could put in a good word with Loso for her. Please don’t send that one over here again.”
I chuckled at her dramatic attitude. “All right, I got it. Let me call you back. I have company, and I don’t want to be rude.”
“You can’t be serious. It’s not like you have Beyonce or C. Rose over there.”
I gloated at the idea that the know-it-all knew very little. I wanted to tell her who I was working with, but I knew that would start arguments about her coming to work with me.
“Ish, one more thing. I won’t be able to go to the cooking class in Haywood next weekend.”
“The cooking class is in Chandler,” I corrected her. “Why can’t you go?”
“A spot in the braiding class at the YMCA opened. I’ve been on the waiting list for six months, so I have to show face if I want to claim the seat.”
Isabella’s ambitious nature provoked my lips to relax into a smile.
