Queen Move

“Rome. Her house. Her parents were away. She didn’t know it was my first time. I was too embarrassed to tell her.”

“Oh, Ezra.” Kimba turns to face me and rubs a thumb over my eyebrow and down my cheekbone. “I bet you were so dear.”

“I hope not.” I choke out a laugh. “‘Dear’ is not what a guy wants to be his first time having sex.”

“How was it?”

“I remember feeling deflated. Disappointed, like everyone had played a trick on me—convinced me sex was this amazing thing I wouldn’t be able to get enough of. Don’t get me wrong. It did feel great. Better than my hand and a fistful of lotion.”

She snickers and pulls the comforter higher over our naked shoulders.

“But I always thought my first time would be fireworks.” I hesitate and then tell her the truth. “I guess I always thought my first time would be with you. I don’t think anyone could have lived up to that.”

She nods. “Same.”

“What about you? Who was it? Where? Was it good?”

I want to know everything all at once so I can stop thinking of her with anyone else.

“Terrell Anderson.” She chuckles. “It was a total cliché. Prom night my junior year. He was a senior and got us a room. I had to lie to my parents to stay out. Kayla covered for me and made sure I had condoms.”

“And was it good?”

She laughs, but it’s laced with regret. “I guess for him. Not for me. I was disappointed, too. Even more for how he acted after it was over.”

“What’d he do when it was over?”

“Another cliché.” She rolls onto her back and studies the ceiling. “He told all his friends he’d fucked Joseph Allen’s daughter.”

“Bastard,” I mutter, wishing I could find the piece of shit and tear him apart.

“Very much so. When I found out he’d told people, I confronted him and dumped his ass. He didn’t like that. I was a junior who should have been happy he’d deigned to take me to the prom, much less pay for a hotel room and dispose of my virginity.”

“What’d he do?” Because I can already tell he did something I’ll hate him even more for.

“He told me if I didn’t let him fuck me again and suck his dick this time, he’d post pictures of me in the cafeteria. Pictures he took while I was asleep. He even threatened to send them to my father.”

“Motherfucker. What’d you do?”

“What I always did with my problems.” She smiles sadly. “Went to my father.”

“You told him—”

“I told him everything. I always could.” Her naked shoulders gleam in the moonlight when she shrugs. “He told me not to worry. Said he would take care of it, and he did. I don’t know exactly how, but there were no photos and Terrell couldn’t even look me in the eye to the day he graduated.”

“I hope your dad did something incredibly painful that ruined his future.”

Kimba slants an amused glance to me. “He might have. Daddy did have his ruthless streak.”

I shake her playfully under the covers. “That’s where you get y

ours from.”

“Damn right.” She laughs but sobers after a moment. “Terrell ended up going to Morehouse. If I hadn’t known before that I didn’t want to go to Spelman, I knew then. I didn’t want to be that close, to run into him.”

“Did that idiot affect your decision not to go to Spelman?”

“Not just that, but it did kind of push me over the cliff I was already standing at the edge of. My family name, reputation here in this city, started feeling like an albatross. I wanted to set it aside for a little while and have a clean slate in a new place. Arizona gave me that.”