“No,” he says, shaking his head and not smiling. “I don’t think either of us is ready for this, but damned if I’m not doing it anyway.”
For a few seconds, I’m thrown, lured deeper into his unbreakable stare, but I try to lighten the moment, break the tension, and st
ick to the plan.
“Well, I hope the old man can keep up with the millennial.”
After a second, he yields a grin. “I can’t believe I’m gonna be that cliché, the older rich guy dating a younger woman.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I scoff, forcing myself to maintain eye contact. “Oh, no, you’re not.”
He stops us on the sidewalk, bending until our faces align and our lips almost touch in the meager space separating us.
“Oh, yes, I am.”
16
Kenan
“So you weren’t kidding when you said blisters, huh?” I ask the question jokingly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve walked a hole in my Glads. Besides one Uber ride, we’ve been hoofing it all day.
Lotus laughs, walking backward and a little ahead of me.
“Technically, Yari mentioned blisters, not me,” she says, giving her ice cream cone a long lick. “Now I know a man in such superior shape is not complaining about a little bit of walking.”
“A little bit?” I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and wait for her to do the same. She finally rolls her eyes and walks back to me. “You’ve dragged my ass from Bushwick to Kingdom Come—”
“Did you or did you not enjoy the Botanical Gardens?” she demands, one hand on her hip, the other clutching her ice cream cone.
“I mean, I—”
“Yes or no?”
I look down at her tiny self with narrow eyes. “Yes, but—”
“And did you or did you not love riding Jane’s Carousel?”
“A six-foot-seven-inch grown-ass man on a—”
“Yes. Or. No?” She lifts sleek brows and tilts her head for the answer she already knows I’m going to give her.
“Okay. Yes. It was fun because it was ridiculous. There were four-year-olds riding with us.”
She flings her head back and laughs with such gusto it shakes her whole body. She doesn’t care that people are strolling past us, staring at the loud woman busting up in the middle of the sidewalk with her dripping ice cream cone. I love that about her.
“And was Roberta’s not the best pizza you’ve ever had?” she asks.
“It was aight.” I shrug and understate about the best pizza I’ve ever had.
“You lying . . .” She slits her already-tilted eyes and twists her full, pouty, lipstick-long-gone lips. “It was bomb, and you know it. And what can we say about this ice cream?”
She licks the vanilla dome. “Hmmmm. You probably can’t remember the last time you had something this sweet.”
Her tongue circuits the ice cream, and my mouth waters remembering that tongue in my mouth, licking inside, sparring with mine, both of us gasping for air.
“Nope,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t sound too hoarse. “It’s been a while since I had something that sweet. You’re right about that.”
Her licks slow to occasional swipes while we stand on the sidewalk eye-fucking each other, which we’ve been doing intermittently all day. To my great frustration and delight.