From One Night to Forever (8 page)

This was why she didn’t do one-night stands. Reckless behavior always came with a price.

She snapped the sheet again, and a low whistle followed the crisp snap. Swinging around, her body went into overdrive when her eyes met Casanova’s...er, Aaron’s.

“Are you trying to knock the lamp off the table too?” he asked, a cocky grin on his full lips.

“How long have you been watching me?”

“Long enough to tell something’s got you pissed.” He pushed away from the door and strolled over to the other side of the bed. “I’m curious to know what.”

She scoffed. “As if you didn’t know.”

He straightened the other end of the sheet. “Let me guess, you forgot to set the DVR and missed the season finale of your favorite show.” He tucked the sheet at the bottom of the bed.

Kacey cocked her head to the side and pulled on her end of the sheet. “No.”

“Okay, then maybe it’s because you finally came to terms with the fact that I was right about my calls on the best wrestlers of all time and you don’t want to admit it.”

“Hardly.” She tucked the end of the sheet. “And FYI, you’re still wrong on that.”

“Hmm, neither of those. Then it must be…” He hopped onto the bed and lay on his side facing her. Leaning his head on his hand, he grinned at her. “You’ve realized that a handsome, irresistible man is now living in the apartment right above you, and you have to keep your hands off of him.”

“Excuse me?”

“Am I getting closer?”

She crossed her arms and glared. “No, you’re way off base.”

“So you’re not upset that I’ll be your neighbor for the next few weeks?”

“Yes…but not because I have to keep my hands off of you.”

“Then your brother won’t mind if we continue what we started last night.”

“Are you crazy? Reggie will go ballistic if we continue what we started. Starting by removing your arms and legs.”

He sat up and flipped his legs around to her side. “Good, we’re in agreement.”

Kacey stumbled back and frowned. “On what?”

“That your very large brother will remove my arms and legs if he knows what happened. So we can’t have sex again. Even though we both really want to.”

She narrowed her eyes and smirked. “Yes to the first part, no to the second. I told you this morning we weren’t having sex again.”

He wiggled his brows. “But you want to.”

His dark eyes sparked with amusement and desire. His lips slanted up in a jump-your-bones smile. Hell yes, her body wanted him again. That was the problem with bad-for-you men, they were always so damn tempting.

She cocked her head to the side. “Shouldn’t you be worrying about the soon-to-be mother of your child instead of flirting with me?”

Aaron’s brows drew together. “What are you talking about?”

“The woman on the phone this morning. Janiyah I think is her name. The pregnant woman?”

His face cleared up before he broke into a laugh. “Janiyah is my baby sister. She and her husband, who happens to be my best friend, are expecting. As far as I know, I haven’t gotten any woman pregnant.” His face became all seriousness. “If I
had
gotten someone pregnant, I wouldn’t walk away from her or my child. I don’t see kids in my future, but that doesn’t mean I’d abandon a child or its mother if the situation arose. I’m not that kind of guy.”

“Your sister.” He nodded, and relief relaxed her shoulders. What the hell? She shouldn’t be relieved. So he hadn’t gotten a woman pregnant; it didn’t mean her eggs needed to celebrate. “Oh, well, congratulations.”

He cocked a brow. “Is that why you bolted?”

“I didn’t bolt.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Well, last night was supposed to be a one-night stand. Now you’re living in the apartment above the garage. This type of stuff only happens to me.” She rolled her eyes.

He leaned his arms on his knees and narrowed his eyes. “Your one-night stands always end up living next door?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “No, but impulsive decisions always blow up in my face. Going to your hotel room was a mistake.”

“It sure didn’t feel like a mistake.”

Not at all. Kacey crossed her arms again. “But you’re right, we can’t do that again. You’re working with Reggie, and I don’t have time for distractions.”

“Because of school. It’s your last semester, right?”

“How do you know that?”

He shrugged. “Reggie talks about you. He’s proud of you. So much so that I think that, along with removing my arms and legs, he’d burn Bertha to the ground if I so much as touched you.”

She stepped away from the bed. “Then we’ll be adults and move on. Like we were supposed to do anyway. Reggie is the official landlord, so if you need anything, get with him. I’m in classes during the day and I work at Momma’s Kitchen at night, so we probably won’t see each other much. That’ll make things easier.”

“Sounds like a very solid, smart, adult plan.” His voice gave her the feeling he found the situation humorous.

She gave a stiff nod. “Good. Well, I’ll leave you to it then.”

“To what?”

“Unpacking.”

He ran his hand over the sheets. “You don’t want to help me with the bed?”

Oh, she’d love to help him with the bed.
Stop it, Kacey, this is exactly the type of distraction you don’t need.

“Good-bye.” She spun on her heel and hurried out of the bedroom and the apartment.

By the time she ran down the stairs to the main part of the house, she was out of breath and her heart raced. Not entirely because of the brief stint of physical activity. Last night had been good. Too good. If she didn’t have a crazy-busy workload at school this final semester, she’d be truly fearful of falling down the Aaron Henderson rabbit hole.

She entered the house from the side door that opened directly to the kitchen. Her momma sat at the kitchen table, flipping through the latest
Essence
magazine. Kacey suppressed a sigh. She’d gone straight to her professor this morning instead of to her momma’s house, like she’d said she would.

Sabrina slowly flipped a page in the magazine with one long manicured nail. Kacey’s momma always looked good, and this morning wasn’t any different. She wore a black tank top with
Momma’s Kitchen
set in sequins across her ample breasts. Breasts Kacey hadn’t inherited. And a short jean skirt with heels way too high for daylight hours. Sabrina tapped the side of her head with the pads of her fingers, Kacey guessed to avoid scratching. Tomorrow was Sabrina’s relaxer day.

Sabrina looked up at Kacey. “What happened to you this morning?”

“Sorry, I overslept. I had a meeting with my professor.”

Sabrina closed the magazine on the table. She leaned back in the chair and eyed Kacey with interest. “Really? Because I got up early and decided to come see you instead. But you weren’t here.”

Damn small towns and her momma’s ability to pop in unexpected. “We met at nine. I forgot about that when I said I’d come over this morning.”

“Mmm-hmmm. You must have left really early.”

Kacey shrugged but avoided eye contact. “I was hungry, so I left early enough to grab something to eat.”

“But you overslept.”

Kacey crossed the kitchen and leaned against the counter. She crossed her arms and met her momma’s stare. “Oversleeping doesn’t eliminate hunger.”

Sabrina smirked. “’Fess up, Kacey, you hooked up with that guy from the bar last night.”

Kacey had never had a problem talking to her momma about sex. If anything, Sabrina was a little
too
open with her kids. She said it was to help them avoid making the same mistakes she had. Which was why Kacey got “
tell him you’re pregnant
” when she’d found out about Dewayne instead of “
I forbid you to see him
.”

Normally, she would have confessed to her momma that, yes, she had behaved irrationally and taken home the hottie from the bar. If only the hottie had turned out to be any other guy in America.

“I did not go home with him,” Kacey said.

Sabrina held up a hand and shook her head. “I’m not judging, honey. You work hard during school and at the restaurant. It’s okay if you decided to walk on the wild side for a night.”

“I didn’t walk on the wild side, Momma. I didn’t do anything.”

“Honey, women have needs just as much as men do. We just don’t brag about it to everyone who’ll listen. It’s okay. One night doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person.”

Kacey raised a brow. “So it takes two nights to be terrible.”

Sabrina lifted a slim shoulder and smirked. “Even more than that. Believe me, I know.”

Kacey shook her head. “You’re not terrible and you know it.”

Sabrina pushed herself up from the table. “Okay, okay, you don’t have to tell me again how great of a mother I am.” Sabrina grinned, and Kacey shook her head and chuckled.

“Always digging for a compliment.”

“They come so few and far between with you kids.”

“Ugh, I swear, when I have kids I won’t do the guilt trip. But, yes, you were a great mother.”

Sabrina patted Kacey’s cheek. “I know. And you know why? Because I never let the narrow minds of this town convince me otherwise. I turned my life around for you, your brother, and your sisters. Not for anyone else.”

“I know, Momma.”

“And if you want to spend a night with a sexy trucker, fine. Just don’t get your mind all wrapped up in happily-ever-after. Go in, scratch that itch, and move on. As long as you keep your heart out of things, you’re fine.”

A lecture she’d heard repeatedly since her ill-advised teenage stint with love. “Momma, I didn’t hook up with that guy. I stayed out late and went out early. That’s all.” She walked away and flipped the pages of the magazine on the table. Mostly because she couldn’t lie and look her momma directly in the eye. “Good thing, too. Turns out he’s Reggie’s friend Aaron Henderson.”

“The guy Reggie is always bragging about?”

Kacey nodded and turned away from the magazine. “One and the same. Reggie’s letting him stay in the apartment upstairs while they work out the potential merger.”

“That was nice of him.”

Nice
wasn’t the word Kacey would use to describe her brother’s actions.
Rash
and
inconsiderate
topped the list. “Yeah.”

“Well, if that’s the case, then I hope you didn’t sleep with him.”

“I didn’t!” she said with enough emphasis to almost convince herself.

“Good. Reggie will cancel the entire deal if he thought his friend was sleeping with one of his sisters.”

Cancel the deal was an understatement. When Reggie found out about her “relationship” at seventeen, he’d come home and beaten Dewayne to a bloody pulp. So much so her momma had almost not called the police to report the guy for having sex with her underage daughter. In the end she did, and the police had ignored the bruises after everything was explained. Reggie had become hypervigilant about Kacey and her sisters’ reputations and the guys they dated ever since.

Boyfriend cheating: Reggie handled him. Guy at the bar being too handsy: Reggie handled him. Falling in love but not quite sure the guy felt the same: Reggie would force the confession or get him to break things off. Kacey thanked heaven for Camila every day. She’d kept him busy since they’d gotten married so that his warden-like tendencies hadn’t been as bad.

“Reggie can stop defending our honor,” Kacey said. “None of us are virgins waiting on marriage.”

Sabrina chuckled. “True, but your brother is old enough to remember the way people talked about me after I had your youngest sister. Add to that the fights he got in over you girls, and I guess he has the right to be overprotective.”

“Fights he started.”

“You’d rather he didn’t try to look out for you, Monique, and Ashlei?”

Kacey huffed, but she didn’t contradict her momma. Reggie was overbearing and way too protective, but he’d kept a lot of assholes out of her and her sister’s lives. “He’s not our daddy.”

“No, he’s not, he’s just your big brother. Speaking of daddies, did you call yours?”

“No, is he okay?”

“Yeah, I think Brenda is sick again. Or at least that was the word in the restaurant last night. You might want to call and check on her.”

Kacey would rather summon the dead than talk to her dad’s wife. Brenda had long stopped blaming Kacey for the brief affair he’d had with Sabrina. Now her momma, dad, and his wife had formed a tentative alliance. Her dad refused to stay out of Kacey’s life, something her brother and sisters didn’t have. So even though Kacey was uncomfortable with the
friendship
,
she wouldn’t begrudge what her siblings didn’t have.

“Brenda doesn’t want me to check on her.”

“Then call your daddy and let him know you’re checking on her. He’ll appreciate that.”

“Fine, I’ll call Daddy.”

“Good.” Sabrina handed Kacey a few papers that were on the counter. “I also came by to drop off my answers to your interview questions.”

Kacey skimmed through her momma’s handwritten answers to Kacey’s questions about why she’d started Momma’s Kitchen and her ideas for the second restaurant. Kacey’s master’s thesis involved putting together the plan to open another location in Chattanooga. Though she’d worked at Momma’s Kitchen since she was a teenager, and she knew the ins and outs of the place, she hadn’t known enough about branching out into a second or possibly third location. That was why she’d gone back to graduate school.

“You could have e-mailed them.”

“Then I wouldn’t have gotten to see my shining star.” Sabrina beamed at Kacey. “I’m so proud of you, Kacey. You’re the first one in the family to go so far in school. Don’t let nothing stop you.”

“I won’t, Momma.”

“That’s my girl. Even though I’m glad you didn’t sleep with Reggie’s friend, I’m still not sure you didn’t spend the night somewhere else.” Sabrina clasped Kacey’s face between her hands. “You need to get laid, sweetheart.” She let Kacey’s face go.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Kacey said with sarcasm.

“Never that. What time are you coming in tonight?” Sabrina grabbed her clutch bag off the table.

“I’ll be there at seven. I really need to get started on my outline for my project.”