Page 27 of You Make Me Feel

However, when it came out, it didn’t sound so bad. I wanted Kinisha, and I needed her toseehow much I wanted her. I was willing to raise another man’s child as my own to have her in my life. If I appealed to her good sense, I knew it would buy me time to show her what I already knew. She wouldn’t have agreed to it had I not offered to pose as the father of her child. She was already somewhat pushing me away, and we were only friendly at work.

At church, we spoke, but never for too long, just in passing. That woman drove me wild inside, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to be with anyone else until we knew whether we were compatible. Judging by how Sunday evening went, I would say we were extremely compatible. She had even gotten more comfortable with me by the time I was about to leave.

She didn’t hesitate to slide her fingers through my beard, and I constantly kissed her forehead and stroked her cheeks with my fingertips. The moment seemed surreal because I’d imagined being that way with her for a couple of years. Regardless of whether she wanted to believe it, this baby was definitely a blessing. While I had no doubt that I would eventually get her to see me for who I was as a man, this predicament caused her to jump right in without much thought.

She couldn’t have been a good judge of character if she thought Jarod would be the man for her. Ray Charles could see he was a ho, and he was blind and dead. I never asked her if she was even pursuing a relationship with Jarod in the first place. It was like our conversation had unintentionally stayed away from him. Maybe it was intentional on her end, but it surely wasn’t that way on mine.

I messaged her this morning to wish her a good day, and she responded immediately. The smile had stayed on my face the entire ride to Houston. Before getting to the office, I’d gotten breakfast. I met with the team, so everyone was in the office this morning. Ronnie had been doing extremely well, making me happy that I took a chance on him. Things were running smoothly, and more business was coming in.

The meeting was to evaluate whether we could even handle another contract right now without getting more people hired and trained. I’d placed an ad online and with a couple of temp agencies. Sometimes, I hired temps to see if they could cut it. One of my best techs had come through a temp agency. The nigga didn’t have the first degree but was smart as hell. I put him through school to beef up his résumé. I wasn’t naïve to think he would always work for me, but I wanted him to have the tools to get an even better job than with Andrews Technologies. Without a degree, that would be damn near impossible.

After our meeting, I kind of just hung around the office. There wasn’t much to do, and it only left time for me to think about Kinisha and how hard she was probably working. I stared at a picture of her on my phone and smiled slightly before closing it out. As I was about to get up for lunch, Mya appeared in the doorway.

“Hey, Mr. Andrews. Did you wanna get lunch?”

I glanced at the time, then smiled slightly. “Why not? Where did you have in mind to go?” I asked as I stood and grabbed my keys.

“Well, I know you’re always down for a turkey leg. So you wanna go to the Turkey—”

“Girl, I know you ain’t about to say the Turkey Leg Hut. You ain’t even have to say the name. Let’s roll.”

She giggled as I walked past her and opened the door to head to my car. After getting to my ride, I opened the passenger door for her, then walked around to my side. Suddenly my brain started thinking about shit other than those turkey legs.Why is she always the one left at the office?She wasn’t a receptionist, but she was never in the field when I came to town. I knew the answer to that shit, and I was gonna shut her ass down as soon as I got in the car.

I slid into my seat and started the engine. After my Bluetooth connected, I hit Kinisha’s picture. “Hello?”

“Hey, baby. How’s your day going?” Without looking at Mya, I could see her eyes were as wide as saucers.

“Hey, handsome. Devin Taylor is working me to death, but he’s buying lunch, so I guess I can chill.”

I chuckled as I heard Devin say something in the background. “How are you feeling, though?” I asked softly.

“So far so good. We’ll see what happens when I try to eat. What are you up to?”

“Mya and I are heading to the Turkey Leg Hut.”

“You’re gonna turn into a turkey leg,” she said and laughed.

“You laughing a li’l too hard at that. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’d gotten a visual.”

She only laughed harder, causing me to laugh too as I left my parking spot. I was surprised she hadn’t asked who Mya was. So I asked, “You aren’t going to ask who Mya is?”

“I assumed she was one of your employees. You wouldn’t have told me her name if she was anything else besides that. Plus, I trust you, Oliver.”

“Wait a minute! Y’all a couple?” Devin asked.

I could imagine Kinisha had probably rolled her eyes. “Baby, you’re on speaker,” Kinisha said as I chuckled.

“What’s up, boss man?”

Devin laughed loudly. “You finally wore her down, huh?”

“I’m sitting right here, Mr. Taylor,” Kinisha said sarcastically.

I chuckled as I glanced over at Mya. She was extremely quiet and was fidgeting slightly. This entire conversation had made her uneasy. Maybe now, she wouldn’t try me with her subtle flirting. “Yeah, she finally gave me a chance to prove myself. I promised her that I wouldn’t let her down.”

“Oliver, really?” Kinisha said, interrupting my conversation with Devin.

“What?”

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