Page 17 of Tender Offer
Kojo frowns. “What aren’t you telling me, Regine? I told you to leave the snow alone. Y’all have winter here. Running over there like Elsa thinking the cold wouldn’t bother you was a choice.”
“The snow was fine. I stayed indoors,” I say.
“Lemme guess, the pool of single people had piss in it?”
Kojo will always find a reason to laugh, even at my expense. He questioned why I’d fly to the middle of the country to meet men when I could swipe right here in Manhattan. He doesn’t get it, not that I’d expect him to. Kojo only cares about the legs he’sbetween. Nothing long-term or serious. I’ve had casual hookups, but I want more than a warm body on a cold night.
I want pursuit. Devotion.
“My ex was there.” The words somersault and don’t stick their landing. I gulp the rest of my wine in one go and ignore Kojo’s shocked look.
It takes a second for what I said to register. Then Kojo’s jaw drops to the vintage rug I found at a sample sale. “Who was it? Don’t skimp on the good parts!”
I contemplate telling him about Terrence but think twice. He’s not the ex who taunts me in my dreams, and I don’t need Kojo’s questionable influence encouraging me to reconsider a problematic crush.
Kojo doesn’t condone cheating, but he’s found himself in a few complicated situations, love triangles included. His advice would be to proposition Terrence and Justice to open up their marriage and let me slide in. If Tammi is the angel on my shoulder, Kojo is the devil dressed in high fashion.
There’s also the tiny problem that he’s friends with Emma.
He’d have a hard time explaining to Justice’s best friend why he encouraged me to pursue her husband. The thought alone would implode any semblance of a relationship between them. Emma isn’t as close to Kojo as I am, but she’s still someone he considers a good friend. The lingerie company she works for is providing pieces for his fashion show. She already wants my head on a spike for how I treated Justice, and I won’t let my mess bleed onto him.
“Now is not the time for internal monologues, Regine.” Kojo snaps his fingers to get my attention. “Back to your ex. It better not be Barnabus and his scandalous ass.”
“Bradley,” I snort.
“Whoever.” He waves a hand before reaching for his drink. “The ex.”
“It’s Preston.”
“Preston? Please tell me he’s not a boat-shoe-wearing elder who takes his teeth out and needs his butt wiped. You know I don’t mind an age gap, but I draw the line at Dick Van Dyke.”
“Kojo!” I howl at the plea in his eyes. Like he doesn’t fawn over Jeff Goldblum. “Preston is in his early forties.”
“Oh, thank God,” he says through a long sigh. “I thought your business was struggling and you needed life insurance.”
“Never that.”
He recrosses his legs and sits back, more relaxed now that he knows I’m not dating anyone sixty years my senior. His eyes close. “Paint the picture for me.”
“Over six feet tall. Dark hair. Warm honey skin. In shape but not bulky. Dimples.”
“Ooh. Elis had dimples.” Kojo licks his lips. “Who does he look like?”
A nightmare wrapped in a fantasy.
I sigh. “Mariano Di Vaio but with melanin. His mother was Black Sicilian.”
Preston was a newborn when she died. Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, an unnecessary fate too many mothers experience, including his. Doctors mistook her discomfort as common pregnancy symptoms, but it turned out to be sepsis. Antonia Parisi took her last breath hours after giving birth. She died alone, her pleas for anyone to listen to her falling on deaf ears.
That’s the only story I know about Preston’s childhood. He never spoke about his father—only his maternal grandmother and a brother who was in school.
“He sounds fine.”
“He is,” I confess.
“So what’s the problem?”
I grab the empty takeout containers on my way to the kitchen. “It’s a long story.”
