She smacked his hand away, eyes narrowing. “How you know I’m here with Ti?”
He leered her top to toe, looking grudgingly pleased with her choice of attire. “Who else commands all this sexiness, if not I?”
“And who would all this,” she gestured wildly over his physique, “be for?”
His maroon shirt, sleeves rolled, complemented a toffee complexion and lifted shimmer in his dark eyes. As usual, his black curls were buzzed short but a new acquisition, a manicured beard, framed his jawline. He looked and smelled good. Off-guard-throwingly good, edible almost. Enough to make her forget, for a split second, that she hadn’t come alone.
He murmured her name once, easing his arm around her waist. Vee stiffened and flinched at the first brush of his lips. Missing was the rush of heat and anticipation she’d felt in the same pose just minutes ago. With Joshua there were too many tacit promises, too much want and need, too much to lose. Too much of so much and not enough balance. Every fibre of her literally hurt with trying to resolve their contact as either a step forward or one backward. Unlike with Titus.
“Juju please … I can’t.”
A bolt of hurt anyone else would’ve missed contorted his features briefly. He dropped his arms and allowed her to step away, eyes darkening to black holes. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just …” He brightened. “Wow.”
She flushed. “Alright I get it, I look hot. Stop your nonsense.”
“Forget you. I’m still blown away by this gorgeous lady right here.” Joshua brushed past to lovingly stroke the bonnet of her car. “Sweet mother. How do you even own this again? I can’t tell you enough how much I hate your guts.”
Relieved, Vee beamed. Gleaming gold with a chocolate-brown trim, the 1980 Chrysler CM Valiant GLX made every other car parked on the street look either washed up or too garishly modern. She still couldn’t believe her luck. Its previous and only owner, who’d been a senior employee at the Chrysler South Africa assembly plant until its closure, had kept it in stellar condition. He’d sold it very reasonably, to avoid his ‘grasping, pissant sons getting their paws on it’, asking only that she cherish it and not drive it like a feeble female. Every time she eased behind the wheel of a piece of machinery as old as she was, she gratefully held up her end of the bargain.
“Technically, this baby’s half mine. Like all your real babies are gonna be one day. Start getting used to it by letting me behind the wheel more often.”
“Psssh, half whetin? In what world do you feel you can make that claim?”
“Uhh, excuse me, freeloader? The one where you’ve been using my financial genius for your personal banking needs, at no charge.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Telling you how to work your money instead of just blowing it, or rather sending it to all your hard-up relatives. Stocks, shares, where to invest, so you’d have some change to throw around. And build a house in Monrovia.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okaaaay, fine. Thank you mister investment banking hotshot. Not like you made me millions.”
He cocked one shoulder and let it drop, nonchalant. “I try. Come to think of it, you never okayed this purchase with me. Although as far as assets go, you did yourself a solid.” He caressed the bonnet again. “But for a woman who’s picked my brain as often as you have, I’m surprised at how liquid you are. You oughta be more careful.”
“Look, don’t disrupt my evening to give me another Rich Dad, Poor Dad lecture.” Gently, she shoved him away from the Chrysler. “And for someone who’s been in bed with me as often as you, I’m shocked you’d question my agile liquidness.”
“Ahhaaa, I see what you did there. You can make those jokes but I can’t.”
“Yep, ’cause I’m the girl,” Vee sniggered, till a thought cruelly squashed it. The Valiant was another fly in her ointment. People are wondering, for instance, how you can afford a ride like that, Chlöe’s voice whispered in the ear of her subconscious. Damn that nosy redhead. Keeping abreast of current affairs was one thing, but did she have to be so thorough?
“Cricket, what’s wrong?”
She snatched the cell off the driver’s seat and locked up. Joshua reached over and turned her by the chin. Vee smacked his hand away. “Juju, cut it out, it’s nothing.”
His face soured. “Can you cut that out? You do know there’s an infamous local politician with that very same nickname. Before people think we’re associated.”
“Nonsense. I started calling you that long before Julius Malema misappropriated it, so it stays. You need to stop that Cricket thing.”
“Never.”
In tandem they slowed to a stroll, in tacit agreement their exchange deserved prolonging. He flanked her at a respectful but protective distance, alongside but slightly behind. A few times he forgot himself, raised an arm, then quickly lowered it with a regretful smile. Vee panged for his usual proprietary hand snuggled in the small of her back and clearly so did he.
Then they entered Beluga’s atmosphere and Titus’s dimple lit the foyer at her approach, and she remembered why she’d devised the rules. So things wouldn’t disintegrate from complicated to meltdown. Yet … a stubborn knot twisted beneath her ribs.
They hovered, waiting to be seated. The two men what’s-upped with sufficient graciousness, not quite like old buddies but enough to signal safe airspace. Titus’s frown of confusion cleared up a tad too quickly, and Vee soon saw why. “Guess who I ran into. Small world!” he exclaimed. From behind his broad hulk stepped a well-toned length of caramel, topped with a sweep of cinnamon ringlets.
Vee’s mouth soured. “Aria?”
“Vee, fantastic to see you! God, you look a-ma-zing. Haven’t changed a bit.” Swept into a one-shouldered hug and a cloud of glorious-smelling shampoo, Vee blinked as a moist peck hit her cheek.
Aria Burke laughed. “I know, craziness right? You run into my date, I run into yours …” She tucked a glossy spiral behind an ear, smearing her lips to reposition cherry gloss before she grinned. Vee tried to wrench Joshua’s gaze, resolutely nailed to the bar crowd ahead, to hers. She could barely catch his profile, but the working of his jaw signalled he was trying not to laugh.
Silence bounced around.
“Well.” Titus coated on his usual diplomacy, battling to hide his own amusement with lousy success. “Turns out we don’t have a table. There’s been a mix-up.”
“I’m soooo sorry hey,” winced the blonde, waif-thin hostess on guard by the door, her expression Capetonian-horrified at the prospect of turning away two black couples against a cheery influx of white patrons. “Like, I’m sure you did make a reservation, but it’s not in our book. It’s so hectic, sometimes things get muddled. If you’re prepared to wait a bit …”
“Beluga on a Friday. What can you do?” Titus said kindly.
“We can share a table, that’s what. Darling, I’m sure they can join us.” Aria linked her arm through Joshua’s. “It’ll be like old times. We can catch up.”
“You know what, that’s a fantastic idea,” Joshua answered, looking Vee dead on.
“Hey, I don’t mind.” Titus rubbed his hands in agreement. “Probably because I’m starving. Whatchu think my jue, you game?”
The nucleus of heat in Vee’s chest slowly started to weaponise. No she didn’t. This bony-legged bitch did not just chunk a ‘darling’ in my face.
“Why not?” she muttered.
Later, as a waitron took their orders in the