Page 15 of Continuum

The restrooms were at the back of the restaurant and I thought about the way his hand felt covering mine the entire way. It gave me chills. But it wasn’t until I was safely tucked behind the women’s restroom door that I could react.

“Oh my God,” I whisper-screamed as I dug out my cell phone.

Eighteen texted messages and two missed calls.

Jordan called twice and even though he’d texted twice, I skipped his messages to go to my group chat.

Aisha Young:Sorry! I didn’t mean to leave you hanging but you will not guess who I ran into at the bar… Kwame Mitchell! We’re at Al’s now for a late dinner. I’ll update you when I get home.

Aisha Young:And somehow he looks even better than he did in college. Definitely a face I’m trying to sit on.

Laughing to myself, I put my phone in my bag and then washed my hands. When I returned to the booth, Kwame had already made it back. He sat back in his seat as I got comfortable.

With his intense eyes piercing me, his deep voice played with my name. “Aisha Young…”

“Kwame Mitchell.”

“Wow.”

“It’s really good to see you.” My eyes pinged his entire face. “You look really good.”

“And you’re even more beautiful than I remembered.”

With a smile, I shifted in my seat. “So, tell me how life has been treating you? You mentioned you were in town for business?”

“Yeah, I live in Chicago. We actually flew in this morning to shore up some things and finalize the deal.”

“How long have you lived in Chicago?”

“A little more than sixteen years now.” He took the bottles of water from Judy and handed me mine. After thanking her, he continued. “After graduating HU, I moved to Chicago and went to architecture school—”

My eyebrows flew up. “Wait! I thought you didn’t get the scholarship.”

“I didn’t. And then the day before my statistics exam, I got a call asking if I was still interested in the program because a second scholarship became available. And since I was the runner up, I would be the recipient.”

“Oh my God, Kwame! That’s incredible.”

He grinned. “Yeah. That led to an internship with Simmons. It took a few years, but once they had a full-time position, I jumped on it. I’ve been with the company ever since.”

“Wow, that’s exactly what you wanted.” I sat back, impressed. “I knew you could do it.”

He dipped his head a little as a small smile played on his lips. “Yeah, you did.”

“I’m really proud of you.”

His tongue ran from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Thank you.”

“I am curious about something though,” I started.

“What’s that?”

“What happened in Atlanta?”

He burst out laughing. “Nah.” He shook his head. “I don’t even know why he brought that up.”

“Well, he did and since we’re catching up, I want to know.” Batting my eyelashes flirtatiously, I tilted my head to the side. “Are you going to deny me?”

“Aw man…you are good.” He smirked. “Okay, okay…Atlanta.”

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