Page 17 of Taste The Smoke
He smiled. “So am I.”
“Can you hang on a second, Alonzo? I have another call.”
“Sure.” While waiting, he locked the files in his desk drawer and straightened up the papers and sample brochures.
Sonya knocked on his partially open door and stuck her head in. “How long are you going to be here?”
“I’m staying until you leave. Oh, I called MJ and your CBD will be delivered on Saturday.”
She gave him a bright smile. “Great. That gives me plenty of time to finish making everything. I have to order more bottles and jars, too.”
“I’m back, Alonzo. Sorry,” Kenya said.
Alonzo nodded. “It’s no problem. You sound upset, baby.”
Sonya, still standing there, mouthed, “Baby?”
He pointed to the door.
She giggled, said softly, “We’re going to talk about this,” and walked out.
Alonzo shook his head and turned his attention back to the phone call.
Kenya let out an audible sigh. “Just my father calling, once again, to harass me about the house. GiGi left the house and most of her estate to me, and he’s been pissed. But I don’t want to talk about him. The deed is done and there’s nothing he can do.”
“You sound like you two don’t have the best relationship.”
“We don’t. Cheating on my mother and having his women calling there to cuss her or her two teenage daughters out doesn’t inspire warm and fuzzy feelings.”
Another man who’d failed her. “Damn, I’m sorry.” He wouldn’t even think of what he’d do if his father disrespected his mother in that way.
“My sister and I are used to his ridiculous moods, and I pretty much just ignore him now.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Just promise me you won’t turn out to be the same.”
“That’s one promise I can make, sweetheart. Changing the subject on you. What are you doing on Saturday?”
“Going through more of my grandmother’s things. Why?”
“You never got back to me about coming to the spa. How about I come over and do the heavy lifting so you don’t end up with back pain, and then I’ll give you a massage.”
“That sounds heavenly. And I owe you dessert, so we can have that, too.”
After everything she’d revealed to him about her marriage, she’d been emotionally spent and they’d completely forgotten about dessert. “We can have lunch and dessert.”
“Sounds like a plan. Ooh, I know what I want. I’ve been craving crabcakes and saw a recipe for crabcake BLTs. We can’t go wrong with crab and bacon.”
Alonzo loved it when she became excited. She seemed to have had so much sadness in her thirty-four years of living. “I agree.”
“We can cook together.”
“That was going to be my suggestion.”
“Why hasn’t some woman snatched you up by now?” Kenya blurted. “I mean, you’re a great guy, you have a good job. Is something wrong with the women around here, or is there some deep secret flaw you have?”
He laughed. “I’ll admit to having a few flaws. I’m not perfect and don’t pretend to be. I can be a perfectionist at times, and I’ve been known to be short on forgiveness at times, but I try to work on myself every day.” It typically took a lot to make him angry, but once someone crossed that line, getting back in his good graces wasn’t so easy. He used to be worse as a teen, however, now as an adult he’d become a little more forgiving. “As to why I’ve never married, I was engaged six years ago. My fiancée died three months before our wedding.”
