Something Like Love (Serendipitous Love Book 6) Read online

  Harriet’s smile grew. “Oh, do you cook Astrid?”

  “Some,” I answered. “I actually eat a lot of salads. Fresh vegetables, fruits. Lots of smoothies.”

  She nodded. “Mmmhmmm. That’s why your skin looks so good. Look at her – flawless. And good and brown,” she said, tossing a disdainful glance at caramel toned Phillip that made me cringe, but he seemed unperturbed, and kept digging into his plate. “I used to eat like that, didn’t I baby?” she nudged Frank, who gave her a hard side eye.

  “Woman, you ain’t never met a pot of vegetables you wouldn’t stick a piece of salt pork in, and you told me the other day you ain’t want nothing on your plate that hadn’t been cooked dead.”

  Eddie and Erika both laughed, as Harriet gave them dirty looks. “I said used to Frank.”

  “Whatever you say baby,” he chuckled, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

  Now, sitting here at the table, I realized just how much Eddie looked like his father. The only differences were a slightly different hair texture, a straighter nose, and a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper. Looking at Eddie, and then looking at Frank was like looking at present and future.

  Eddie’s future was a good look.

  “Phillip, could you chew a little slower,” Harriet scolded. “Eating like the big dog is gonna come and take your rations, Jesus.”

  Erika sucked her teeth. “Mama, could you at least try to not be rude to him? Phillip is my husband now, remember?”

  “Trying not to,” was the answer to that, and Erika sighed.

  “It was twelve years ago, Mama. Could you let it go, please?”

  “That boy shamed you!”

  “Ain’t nobody shamed!” Erika groaned. “We were kids, kids do stupid stuff. Since then, Phillip has been a friend to me – he’s the one who encouraged me to go back to school after… you know. And it’s not as if you were trying to get me back out there, doing something.”

  Harriet huffed. “Well excuse me for trying to keep you from being all stressed out, which is why it happened in the first place. You were trying to do too much, and—”

  “So it was my fault, mama?”

  Immediately, Harriet stiffened. “Well, no, I’m not saying that, it’s just that—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Erika interrupted again. “What matters is that Phillip is my husband, and your son in law. You can’t keep being rude to him and expect me to want to be around. I’m not telling you what to do – I’m just telling you what I’m going to do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Not be around,” Erika said, dropping her fork to toss up her hands.

  Phillip put a hand to her shoulder. “Babe, I’m cool. You don’t have to do all of that.”

  “No, I do. You’ve never been anything but amazing to me, even when I was sabotaging us, over and over. You’ve taken up for, protected me. I can do this for you. Especially since I know mama isn’t going to hang on to being mad just for the sake of it anymore, are you mama?”

  Harriet rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re doing this in front of company.”

  “You did what you did in front of company.”

  “I’m grown.”

  Erika laughed. “And so am I, mama. I love you.”

  “I love you too lil girl. Now y’all eat your food before it gets cold, and I get mad and start whipping ass.”

  And they did.

  We did.

  Another joke was made, and everything was smooth again, and even though my eyes were on my plate, I was in awe at the way they were able to fall right back into a groove. After breakfast, when I was helping clean up, I even noticed that Phillip and Harriet were next to each other at the sink, silently in sync to tend to the dishes. I couldn’t hear what, but he said something that made her laugh, and just like that…

  Smooth.

  It was amazing.

  I didn’t even know family could be like that.

  As much as our first years had been spent watching the “classic black hood family experience”, ours had been full of dysfunction. Not in our household, but close enough to observe it. Close enough that Aunt Sandra had been the clear choice to care for us after our father passed.

  Eddie’s family was eye-opening.

  Later, when he dropped me off at my hotel, I had to bring it up.

  “I’ve really enjoyed your family,” I told him, at the door. “Even though I’ll probably never see them again.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, but they’ll be asking about you forever. They enjoyed you… but I’m surprised to hear you enjoyed them, with all the protesting you did this weekend.”

  “Well, even that was enlightening, really. If nothing else, I can’t say it was boring.”

  “Nah, I wouldn’t think so.” From his position in the doorframe, he stared at me for a second, then grabbed the hem of my shirt, pulling me into him. “When do you come back from out here?”

  “I have a few more tour dates to hit with Auri. My flight from Seattle is Wednesday. You?”

  “My flight is in a few hours.” He dipped his head, planting a kiss on me that had me ready to drag him inside, but I knew he needed to get back to his family. “Hit me up when you get home.”

  “I will.”

  He nodded. “Aiight Asteroid.”

  There was no lingering.

  Just that last exchange, and then he was gone, and I closed the door behind him. I actually had a short flight to catch myself, to meet up with Auri, but still… the first thing I did was unroll my mat. Whenever I felt unsettled, I took it to the mat.

  I wasn’t even sure unsettled was the right way to phrase it.

  Flustered, maybe.

  Completely confused about the butterflies that him wanting to see me as soon as I got home had set off in my tummy.

  Flat on my back on the mat, I used my phone to queue up my music and closed my eyes. As The Internet’s “You Don’t Even Know” started filtering through the Bluetooth speakers, I tried to clear my thoughts away, but I couldn’t shake one little thing.

  When he called me “Asteroid” now… it wasn’t a dig anymore.

  It was a pet name.

  seven.

  eddie.

  “Makes them look more suckable, right?”

  Around me, six different women started giggling and agreeing, and it took everything to keep my face from showing how I actually felt. It was standard practice to have somebody back here with me when I did intimate piercings – I required it for all of my employees – and even just that one extra person made it crowded. Now, I was hot and agitated because this nineteen-year-old’s nineteen-year-old friends just had to bear witness to her getting her nipples pierced for her birthday.

  And they didn’t want Priya, or Allison to do it, they wanted “the fine one” – me. Because that was the type of shit nineteen-year-olds did.

  “What about you?” one of them asked, “Doesn’t the piercing just make you want to put your mouth on it?”

  Beside me, Allison snickered, and I shook my head. I wasn’t answering that shit.

  Please God, get this woman out of my chair.

  “Hold still, aiight?” I asked the one actually getting pierced, then repositioned the clamp on her nipple, pulling upward so that my piercing needle went through more skin than flesh. I already had one done, and now I just had to finish the other. Then, I would be rid of this giggly ass girl and her giggly ass friends.

  She flinched a bit, but the needle went through smoothly, and I quickly finished up the process, getting her cleaned up, covered up, and set up with instructions for her aftercare. Once they were gone, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Eventually, I would really have to figure out why young adults and teenagers exhausted the fuck out of me, but today wasn’t going to be that day.

  That was low on my list of “new Eddie” shit.

  I chuckled to myself as I re-sterilized the piercing room, even cleaning things I hadn’t touched, just in case. As many of my habits as I’d
changed, going above and beyond with keeping the shop above board would never be one of them.

  But there were plenty of other things that had changed.

  My hair, my coffee order, my usual route when I ran. My morning routine, my food habits, and hell… messing around with Kim in that power yoga class had me fit on a whole other level that I wouldn’t have thought from… yoga.

  And honestly… just in general, I felt different. Lighter. Closer to that “peace” energy I’d felt was missing two months ago when I decided to make a change. Not like I wouldn’t still curse a motherfucker out or anything like that, but… I was maybe on my way.

  “Yo, Eddie.” I looked up to see William standing in the doorway. “You’ve got another walk-in. She asked for you specifically.”

  I nodded, tossing the last of the disposable cleaning supplies I was using into the trash before I stepped out into the main area of the shop, which was popping as usual on a Friday night. It wasn’t unusual at all for people to ask for me, since it was my shop, and we’d built a certain notoriety. So, I wasn’t surprised by the request.

  I just didn’t expect it to be… her.

  It was crazy to me that instead of the annoyance I used to feel when I saw Astrid, now I… shit, perked up. I wouldn’t say that shit to anybody out loud though, wasn’t about to admit that along with my other changes, I’d lost my damn mind apparently.

  Tiny white denim shorts popped against her copper skin, with the waistband dipping low around her bare midriff. A thin, rose-gold chain circled her waist and then disappeared underneath the fluttery, soft pink crop top she wore, appearing again between her breasts before it circled her neck. Her hair was down today – a huge mass of dark chocolate kinks that floated around her shoulders. She looked good as hell though, in her earth-goddess way, and I knew she knew it, from the smirk she gave me when she turned my way.

  “I want to be inked,” she said, looking away from the wall of examples she’d been studying to face me.

  I raised an eyebrow. I’d become intensely familiar with Astrid’s body, and she didn’t have a single tattoo, a single piercing disrupting the glory of her skin. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” she nodded. “Right here.” She pointed to her side, motioning over a space that ranged from a little below her armpit, down to her hip.

  I sucked in a slow breath. “That seems like a big piece.”

  “I have a big idea.” She smiled. “Adinkra symbols. God is Supreme. Energy. Peace. Strength. Freedom.” As she named each of the five symbols off, she tapped a different space on her side. “I want them done in negative space though. The symbols should just be skin. Around it, nature. Butterflies, trees, fruits, water, whatever. Lush. With lots of color.”

  “Sounds… really well thought out.”

  “Because it is. Been thinking about it for years and years, wanting to have it done, but… the best artist in town didn’t really want anything to do with me, so I put it off.”

  I stepped in a little closer to her, smirking over the compliment. “So you think he wants something to do with you now?”

  “Oh, he wants to do plenty with me now,” she practically purred, then bit her lip as she gave me a look that guaranteed I’d be in her, instead of the bar, tonight. “How much is it gonna be, how long will it take, and when can we start?”

  “Probably take me a few days to sketch it out, and get your approval, but we can start any time after that. A piece like what you described, with lots of color and shading… could take ten or fifteen hours, but we don’t have to do it all at once. You won’t want to do it all at once, trust me. Maybe over a couple of sessions. And as far as cost… I’ll do it for eight.” I leaned in, dipping my head to speak into her ear. “With the bomb pussy discount.”

  She giggled as she pulled away from me, and something about the smile on her face made me feel a little… insane. “I’ve earned that, huh?”

  “You sure as hell have.”

  She blushed again, then shook her head. “So… it’s a plan then?”

  “Yeah, it’s a plan. Speaking of plans… where you going dressed like this?”

  Her gaze dropped to her clothes. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “If the goal was to get me wanting to derail whatever you were about to get into… nothing.”

  “You can’t derail these plans though. I’m meeting my friends for dinner at HoneyBee.”

  I sucked my teeth. “I ain’t get a dinner invite.”

  “Are we friends now, Eddie?”

  Why did that teasingly-delivered, valid ass question feel so… weird? I mean… sure, two weeks ago, “friends” was the designation we’d placed around what we were doing in order to identify it to my mother, but truth be told, we hadn’t defined anything ourselves. I didn’t get the impression she was trying to do that now, which was good because I wasn’t trying to either, but still… the fact that even calling ourselves “friends” was up in the air hit me in a weird place.

  “If you’re asking what to call me, “Daddy” works,” I told her, trying to shift the conversation a different way. And it must have worked, because she grinned, reaching up to adjust my chain as an excuse to touch me.

  “You’re such a creepy ass old man,” she teased, and it took an unrelated, well-timed rise in raucous laughter from a group of friends in the corner to remind me where we were, keeping me from smacking her on the ass.

  Instead, I stepped in closer to her, backing her toward the wall, but not touching. “You weren’t talking that shit when you were on your knees the other night.”

  “Mmmm,” she smiled, glancing around us before she put her back to me and slipped out of the space between me and the wall, purposely rubbing her ass on me as she moved. “That’s cause this goddess doesn’t complain,” she quipped, turning to face me as she stepped away. “She swallows, like a good girl.”

  I groaned, and shook my head as I moved closer. “Exactly how important is this dinner you’re going to?”

  “Very,” she laughed, taking another step away. “And I’m very serious about this tattoo. When are you starting my sketch?”

  “I know you’re serious. I’ll start it tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “Good. And… you’ll come by tonight?”

  “I thought you had dinner?”

  “That doesn’t take the whole night,” she explained. “We’ll do dinner, and then probably drinks. So maybe… one? Is that okay?”

  “Depends on when I finish up here. I’ll let you know.”

  “You do that.”

  She shot one more smirk my way, and then she was out the door, graceful as hell in the type of chunky heels I’d seen other women plod around like horses in, but not her.

  Of course not her.

  Everything else about her was centered, so it only made sense.

  “That was cozy as hell.”

  Priya’s voice just over my shoulder made me flinch. When I angled my head toward her, she was grinning hard. “So… when did you start sleeping with Baby Badu?”

  “Who said I was sleeping with her?” I asked, frowning, and Priya laughed.

  “Your body language, fool. You were looking at that girl like you were two seconds from bending her over… which I’d pay good money to see. You and her together? I bet it looks amazing.”

  “It does,” I told her, in a dry tone that just made her laugh again.

  She raised her hands in front of her. “My bad, I’ll stop teasing you. But, for real… she’s a good look for you, especially with this new energy you’ve had lately. You were always cool, but you’ve just been… I don’t know… different. In a good way. Now… I see why.”

  Before I had a chance to argue about that, she’d walked off, leaving me to sit with the fact that… maybe she was right.

  I’d been quick to recognize the shift that changing my routine, and going to yoga had brought about, but I hadn’t given much thought to the way my life had adjusted to accommodate the presence of… h
er.

  And it definitely, definitely had.

  I just wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

  &

  “Yo – what the hell has gotten into you dude?” Nixon snarled, his face twisting into a frown. “You let this fool just skate right past you, what’s up?”

  I shook my head, and raised my shoulders. I couldn’t even find room to be bothered by his pissy tone, cause my head wasn’t in the game today, and I knew it.

  A few feet away, Carter and Roman slapped hands, laughing about the way they’d just kicked our asses in the two-on-two game. We left the busy half-court so the next group could get it, then made our way through the crowded park and back to the street to head down the road.

  Nixon glared at me. “Bruh, are you gonna answer the question or not?”

  Once again, I shrugged as we turned the corner, almost walking right into the subject of my preoccupied thoughts.

  Astrid.

  My morning had started off like any other lately – a run, a smoothie, and a moment of reflection in the shower while I washed off the funk from my morning run.

  That, right there, was the problem.

  When the fuck did I start drinking smoothies and meditating?

  It only took a quick look into my recent history to figure out the answer to that. Not only was this woman invading my physical space, she was taking root in my subconscious, had me picking up her habits and integrating them into my own. And just like two nights ago, when I’d had the first of these revelations about her after she’d left my shop, I couldn’t figure out how I felt about it.

  The shit was unsettling, and reminded me of the uncalled-for, inexplicable, visceral annoyance I used to feel for her. This woman confused me on every level, and left me with mixed up senses.

  “Good afternoon,” she chirped along with Sydnee and Quinn, speaking to everybody. Her gaze snared mine as they passed, and I shamelessly turned around to watch her as she went, silently thanking the fabric of the maxi dress she was wearing for fitting like that around her ass.

  The view was perfect.

  “Ohhhhh,” Nixon snickered.

  I reluctantly pulled my gaze away from the ass to look back at my homeboys, all of whom looked amused as hell.