Page 113 of Pride and Protest
Liza was shocked. “Janae, you never called that man?”
“Okay, Liza! Don’t drag me, honestly! A man not calling has literally never happened to me.”
“Get out of here with your beauty queen problems,” Liza teased.
“I told him everything about my past and about my son, and my struggle with alcohol, and how I chickened out on him too,” Janae whispered.
“Oh, Janae, I can’t believe you told him,” Liza said. “How did he take it?”
“He was amazing. I went to see his dad. He told me he wanted his father to see”—Janae paused, getting teary—“the woman he’s going to marry.”
“Did you tell Ma?” Maurice asked.
“Oh god no. Letmeenjoy it for a minute.”
“You know that she’s going to be the happiest woman alive for all of the wrong reasons?” Liza said.
“Can we get her in some woke classes?” Maurice asked.
“I think it’s too late for her. Save yourself, Reece,” Liza shot back.
They laughed, and Janae asked the attendant if there was a speaker system. They played Janae’s favorite Go-Go from the Backyard Band over the airplane speakers as they touched down in DC.
JOHN WAYNE
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: I thought you should know
Dorsey, I almost fell over in my chair! You sneaky bastard! Was Liza the mezcal girl? One of the No Women? I’m so happy you came to your senses. I got a weird feeling about you two during the snowstorm. Janae and I even talked about it. You two just couldn’t stop circling each other! But you shot yourself in the foot so bad when you first met we thought there was no coming back from it. Ha! That’s the real story! We are going to have epic double dates!
David
Dorsey saw Liza on the tarmac first, her ivory and blue high-waisted linen pants blowing in the wind and his shirt still tied at the waist. Did she know how many women would kill to look so effortlessly elegant?
Gigi whistled. “She can have those pants. Who was I kidding? I can never do justice to them again.”
Dorsey privately agreed. The pants obeyed the lines of Liza’s body, and they looked tailored to her. Her family looked mostly intact as they tumbled out of the plane, perhaps a bit less gracefully. Maurice looked like he’d taken a beating, and LeDeya looked like she’d taken a tongue lashing. Their bags and pockets were full to bursting with the gourmet snacks from the jet.
They had all rallied to protect their family. Fifty-six thousand dollars was such a small sum to be anyone’s life savings, but they had done everything in their power to retrieve it. If his family were still intact, he liked to think they would do the same.
LeDeya had made a mistake that young, naïve, idealistic people make. But like Gigi’s mistake had, it would make her better. There was no one savvier than Gigi, and over time LeDeya would be a formidable entrepreneur. Maurice was brave and perceptive, and Janae was kind and intelligent. He quite liked this batch of Bennetts.
Bev would be... a challenge, but he suspected actions spoke louder than words to a woman like her.
All four of them had a strange look in their eyes when they reached Dorsey, and before he could process what was happening, he was being swallowed by simultaneous hugs. Their thanks and exclamations all ran together, and he couldn’t make sense of any one thread of conversation. He looked only at Liza. A single tear slid down her cheek and he would have given anything to wipe it away. This big, messy family wanted him—without wishing he were different. A grape crushed against his shoulder and a bag of snacks popped against his rib. Okay, this hug was just about over.
“Okay,” he said after a beat, trying to signal the end of thismultiparty suffocation. “Okay, okay,” he said again, though the beginnings of a smile worked on his face. They let go and looked around for their car. Liza walked behind everyone and bumped Dorsey’s shoulder silently as they walked toward the town car. Town cars were now forever combined with the memory of the night she had let him taste her. She must have been thinking the same thing, because her heated eyes met his.
During the car ride, the Bennetts retold in raucous detail the events of the day. LeDeya was sullen for most of the trip and scrolled through her phone while they all told the story. It wasn’t until the end, when they mentioned Liza trapping WIC in the elevator, that LeDeya laughed. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she laughed nearly all the way home.
When her family filed out of the car, Liza nodded to them and closed the car door. She buckled herself back in, and Dorsey smiled.
“You need to get some sleep,” he said.
“I can’t sleep. I have an idea.” She paused. “To get your job back.”
