Page 25 of Smoke N' Stroke

There seemed to be nothing but mountains and sky in Denver. Not like all the trees that obscured good views in Pittsburgh.

“It is. This is my third time at this conference and each time, I take a little time to explore the area.”

“I had no idea. The psych hospital sent you before?”

“Them? Oh nah. I had to sign up on my own and fund the trips, but it was worth it.”

“You’re great at this thing, Zaire.”

“What’s that?”

“You aren’t just about the patients although it’s mostly that, but I see how you are with everyone. You are an advocate for the field. You really could be Dr. Patton one day if you wanted it.”

He looked embarrassed by my assessment but didn’t let on.

“Thank you, Nala. I love this work and I love what we are doing for the people.”

“Me too.”

“I can see that. Maybe soon, you’ll see how a little weed, especially the medicinal kind, never hurt nobody.”

“Slow your roll! I’m getting there.”

He smiled and led me back inside where we sat on a couch as we waited for our table to be ready.

Something he said before about doing sightseeing while here made me curious. “Do you meet up with others when you come here?”

He gave me a knowing smile. He knew I was asking about women.

“Yeah, last year, my boy MJ met up with me and we got into a few things.”

Something about his sly expression gave me a clue about what things they got into and as recently as two weeks ago, that would have turned me sour and I would have shut down but now, I realized he was a man with experiences who I was getting to know. I couldn’t, shouldn’t judge him on those experiences without knowing how much he evolved from them.

“Tell me how you met MJ?”

He hesitated. “It’s a long story.”

“Where are we going?”

“Fine but you have to promise not to judge me.”

“Why would I do that?”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s all you do, Dr. Jackson.”

“Not true. I do other things you like.”

“Don’t try to distract me, woman.”

I smiled.

“Uh-huh.” He sighed and looked off.

“Back in undergrad, I used to sleep around a lot. I was pretty terrible—so terrible you might have heard about me.”

I didn’t confirm I had because I needed to hear more. I was so surprised he was even addressing any of this with me, to be honest, so I listened as he explained that he ended up messing around with some girl that lived off campus, and one night when he was pulling up, some dude was leaving out and they stared each other up and down. Come find out it was MJ and he was leaving Ms. Hot Pants’ house.

“Damn.”

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