Page 60 of Unexpected Hero

My shoulders shake with silent laughter. “Hooey. That’s a word I haven’t heard for a while.”

“Since back home in South Carolina?”

“Yeah. My gram said that.”

“Mine too. Only I thought she was my mama.”

She doesn’t know it, but she’s given me an opening, and I take it. “What do you know about your birth parents?”

“Not much.”

Play it cool, T.

“But you know some?”

“My mother wasn’t married when she got pregnant with me. Apparently, she also had a desire to rebel against her church upbringing. Papa said she was,” Lettie puts up air quotes, “runnin’ around with a soldier and got knocked up.”

And enter Big Al, the aforementioned soldier.

“And then?”

“My mother died about a week after giving birth to me. Something about a blood clot and eclampsia, something or rather. He didn’t have all the details, being the man and all. Birthing babies is women’s business.”

“Well, scientifically speaking, he’s right.”

She cuts a glare at me, and I face her briefly to catch it. When she sees the mirth in my expression, she breaks out into a wide smile.

Beautiful.

A hundred suns? That’s what her smile reminded me of when I was watching her on camera. But it’s more than that in person. A million, maybe.

“You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”

The smile I’m suppressing gets increasingly harder to contain. “Me? A tease? Nah.”

“Oh I know you’re a big tease. Take today, for example.”

“Explain.

She crooks her head and gives me a side-long glare. “The little bomb you dropped on the phone and refused to elaborate on.”

“Bomb?” Then it hits me. “Oh right. The kink thing.”

“Yes. That. You tease.”

I throw it back to something I said on the phone with her earlier. “It wasn’t intentional. But fitting. Once again.”

“So are you going to continue teasing me the entire...” She shakes her head, but it’s subtle like she doesn’t know what to call our time together. I don’t either.

A date? A meeting?

“The entire... dinner?” I lead.

“Yes. Dinner. That’s what I was going to say. I was not going to say date.” She cups her face with her hands. “I swear, the way I blurt out things I shouldn’t say in front of you is getting out of hand.”

“I like your honesty.”

“I don’t. But I’m a bad liar.” She laughs to herself.

---