Page 6 of Play Hard
After ending the call with Freddie, I did exactly as she said and replied to the email from Zora’s assistant. I let her know that I was available for any and all of the time slots since the only thing on my agenda for the next month and a half was waking up to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee that Pop Pop couldn’t start his day without and sitting on his back porch watching the gorgeous sunsets. Tonight, since Pop Pop was smoking ribs for dinner and they wouldn’t be done for another forty minutes, I decided to leave the porch.
I’d changed out of the dress and heels I’d worn earlier into a pair of denim shorts, a Carolina blue UNC T-shirt one of my clients had given me, and Tory Burch flip flops. Pop Pop’s ranch-style home sat on three acres of land that backed up to the lake. Beautiful mature trees stood regally in the distance while lush green grass carpeted the ground. On a deep inhale I smelled the end of spring. A fresh scent of fully blossomed flowers andlightness after the winter months that could be harsh on the East Coast. However, there was also a hint of anticipation in the air. It clung to the cool breeze, which often settled in after sunset, and promised more sunshine and ultimately humidity in its wake.
I loved the summertime, always had. Coming here, to Providence, was a big part of that. From the time I was eight years old, until I was fifteen, I landed on Pop Pop’s doorstep for two weeks every summer. Those were the best fourteen days of my year. They were spent swimming in the lake, fishing on the lake and helping Gran with whatever dishes she was prepping for the restaurant.
Ulysses “Crabtree” and Tradene Ruthers owned Lakeside Seafood, a restaurant located a couple miles down on the boardwalk leading to Providence’s shipping docks. For all that downtown Providence looked like any other small town with its storefronts, and maximum eight-story business buildings, a fifteen-minute ride south of the town was the more rural areas. Farmland, horse ranches and the docks occupied that space. And that, for me, was better than any of the sports or science camps my brothers opted to visit during their summer breaks instead.
I loved it here. Loved the quiet and the majestic. The simple lifestyle and the big hearts that I always encountered here.
Yet, I never ran into Noah during those breaks.
When I met him and he told me where he was from, I hadn’t been totally surprised that our paths hadn’t crossed until we were both living on the campus of Cheyney University.
Noah and I were totally different.
He exuded strength and confidence, even as a grumpy twenty-one-year-old. He’d told me his life was hard and that he was trying to make sense of the cards he’d been dealt. While, I had led what most would call a good life—a two-parent household, four older and ridiculously protective brothers, ablack Labrador named Caesar, and access to the best that my father’s law firm salary and my mother’s gynecologist’s paycheck could afford.
Noah and I were not cut from the same cloth, and yet we were inexplicably drawn to each other. I wanted him in a way I’d never wanted anything else before. Or since, if I was being brutally honest with myself. Which I tried to do as much as possible. It was the only way I could begin to shed all the expectation draped on my shoulders by parents who had my life planned before ever seeing me as a white, peanut-sized dot on an ultrasound picture.
I was supposed to get my criminal justice undergrad degree from Cheyney, where both my parents attended. From there, I would stay in Pennsylvania to attend the Penn Carey Law School. Then walk into Ward & Associates as a first-year associate, just as my brothers had done before me. When and why my mother had acquiesced to me being groomed to be an attorney instead of a doctor like her, I wasn’t sure. Then again, the reverse Cosby Show life Peron and Sandra Ward envisioned wasn’t meant for me to understand. It was only meant for their egotism and glory. The day I realized neither of those things included me, my wants or needs, was the day I found myself.
The fact that it was also the day after I watched the love of my life walk out the door only made it more impactful. More imperative that I figure out a way to survive and thrive on my own terms.
And I thought I’d done that.
Fuck that, Ididdo that.
I earned my juris doctorate from Columbia Law, instead of Penn Carey. Then, I mailed the degree to my father and skipped the graduation ceremony. I accepted Freddie’s offer to join the agency as a junior sports agent and ignored my father’s rantingmessages and my brothers’ calls to come home for a talk. Talking to them had led to my first broken heart.
Now, after all this time, I was in Providence again. In the one place that had offered me solitude and comfort. Noah was also here. Once upon a time, he’d provided me with solitude and comfort as well. I was almost positive we would cross paths again. A part of me wanted that to happen sooner rather than later. Another part dreaded our next meeting as the wound that had barely healed in eleven years now felt fresh and open. The pain adding another layer to the disappointments I’d recently had to endure.
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe in the fresh spring air. My throat clogged with tears as my eyes blurred and my heart thumped. I covered my face as the first sob broke free. Then I fell to my knees and let it all out.
CHAPTER 4
Noah
She was here to lick her wounds. To hide from the media that was no doubt ready to hound her for a statement regarding the allegations against her.
My teeth clenched as I pulled the T-shirt over my head. I hadn’t bothered to turn on the light in my bedroom, just moved, pulling basketball shorts and a shirt from the drawers I knew they were in and stalked across the room to grab the running shoes I always left close to the door for exactly this purpose. Cursing I stuffed my feet into them and bent to tie them up.
Adrian Bowman was a piece of shit. He was an arrogant bastard who was blessed with talent on the court, good looks and a big enough bank account to ensure a line of women would always follow him. Too bad he was too dumb to live. Too dumb to not understand the value of the woman who wore his sixteen-thousand-dollar engagement ring. The four-year veteran in the NBA had not only gotten caught gambling—again, too fuckin’ stupid to live—but he’d also gotten some reporter pregnant. And when he denied her and the baby, because yeah, he was fuckin’ engaged to another woman, the reporter spilled every bit of his business. Text messages, transfers from his bank account to hersand videos. Since it seemed everybody in this day and age were recording all their sexual trysts.
Except me, that is. Not that some of the times I’d shared with women in my past wouldn’t garner big bucks on any of those porn sites…because they definitely would. I just had more respect for myself and the woman I was with than to do something like that. Clearly, Adrian didn’t and neither did that reporter since she’d had no problem exposing herself just to get back at him.
I left my room, stalking down the long hallway and into the living room. After grabbing my keys from the table by the door, I glanced at my arm to make sure I’d attached the armband. I pushed my keys into the side slot, opened the door and stepped out into the well-lit hallway.
I lived in the Lofts; that’s the name I gave the old building I’d inherited from my grandfather. In all my life nobody had ever given me anything. So, shock was an understatement when eight years ago, I received a letter from an attorney telling me this building and twenty-five thousand dollars in a bank account owned by someone named Mortimer Grimes now belonged to me. Mortimer was apparently my mother’s father. But, as far as I knew, Christine Jordan had no family.
At twenty years old, she simply showed up in Providence, started working at the library, then, six months later, gave birth to a son. Me.
The father I never knew was in her past, a string of trash ass boyfriends came in her future. Then, one night, I was the only one left.
I accepted the deed and documents that added to the real estate investments I’d already made in my adult life, and used the cash—at Ethan’s suggestion—to renovate the building into loft apartments. In exchange for the idea and his help renovating, Ethan became the first leaseholder. My unit was onthe first floor near the management office. There were six other tenants in the building, along with a laundry room and the courtyard which was Portia’s—Ethan’s wife—pet project.
It was still dark at a little before five in the morning, and the air hadn’t yet gotten as muggy as the meteorologist predicted. I started running at a much faster pace than my usual. It was a fifteen-minute jog from the Lofts to the park where I liked to get my morning run in. Fueled by all the articles I’d read in the last two days and the videos I’d watched on YouTube, I made it to my destination in seven minutes.
As soon as my feet hit the running path, I forced myself to slow down, to get back to my slower pace before launching into my normal sprint. I huffed out a breath, needing desperately to clear my mind. My temples throbbed with all the information I’d gained about her life in the two days since I’d seen her in the elevator.
