tongue, “is the best gift,” he nibbled my lips and kissed me deeply, “ever. Kinda puts my gift of cigars and Scotch to shame.”
Reaching beneath his shirt, I caressed his warm skin. “How about we bust out the cigars tomorrow?”
“Sounds good. I want to get my entertainment system up and running, and I know you’re going to the attic. Go ahead and get your Murder, She Wrote on before you go to work.”
“Gah.” I thumped his chest. “Don’t remind me that I have to go in.”
Work paid the bills but taxed my soul. I didn’t want to be in radio broadcast. I was supposed to be a New York Times best-selling author by now.
Twenty-year-old Raina would be disgusted with my life. What happened to the girl who formed a Mastermind group with her friends in college? We swore to each other that we’d follow our dreams, keep each other on track.
He squeezed my shoulders. “I’m not going to lecture you right now, but you need to think about quitting that damn job. You know I have your back.”
And be a kept woman? No, thank you.
Cam raised a hand before I could comment. “Go upstairs. Write. Take a nap. Then go to the-place-that-must-not-be-named.”
I journaled before and after my radio shows. It helped me channel the frustration I felt after some of my callers asked for advice. Instead of giving them a good kick in the pants, I had to coddle them. If I told listeners the truth about their messy-ass decisions, my ratings would plummet. But in my journal, I could tell them exactly how it is and the root of their issues. I could be the real me.
Cameron leaned down and kissed my forehead. Despite the ninety-degree, sweaty-balls heat Georgia’s infamous for, he still smelled like my Cam: spicy and woodsy and solid. He was all man and all mine. I grabbed his plain gray tee and inhaled deeper. He didn’t comment on this—he was used to it, and I think he liked it.
“Okay, off I go.” I started up the three flights of creaking stairs. My flip-flops slipped on the freshly shampooed carpet. Reaching the top, I tugged the thin white cord to pull down the attic steps, and the creak and groan from it unfolding sounded like a waking dragon.
I took a deep breath and smiled. The smell was like opening an old book. Despite its musty smell, the last owners had modernized the space and included a daybed and a set of built-in shelves above a desk. It was exactly how I envisioned an attic-office but was too untalented and lazy to execute. While I loved yelling at the doomed couples on HGTV, I was not a DIY girl.
The hardwood floors were a mix of light and dark wood, and the ceilings were higher than usual for an attic—so high, in fact, that I could jump and not touch the vaulting. I admired the tall, wide, and recently polished bookcase left behind by the previous owners. My fingers easily glided along the shelves.
I spotted the rocking chair Cam had catty-cornered near the window. I’d badgered my mother into giving me my grandmother’s rocking chair, tugging on her sense of legacy in passing down a fifth-generation item. I loved that damn chair and had penned all my worldly knowledge, angst, bad poetry only a teenager could understand, sitting in it. I moved the rocker near my desk and parked my ass in the chair. A faded Polaroid picture had been propped on my desk.
“Cam,” I groaned. “You pushy SOB.”
The faces of my closest friends stared back at me. We’d been friends since our freshman year at Emory University. At our college orientation, we gave each other the black people nod. You know, the slight chin dip that conveys, “Yes, I realize there aren’t too many of us around and if I see you running away from something I’ll do it, too, no questions asked.”
I slid my thumb across the Polaroid and read the caption on the bottom of the picture. “The Brown Sugarettes Mastermind Group.” We were still close, just older and sadder adult versions.
Sienna’s gorgeous smile caught my attention first. She was a few inches taller than my five-foot-six height, modelesque, and a second-generation immigrant from Kenya. Beside her was Nikki, who rocked a choppy asymmetrical bob with gray streaks. With her brown skin, she looked like the punk version of Storm in X-Men. That woman was all the way rock-and-roll and even snarkier than me.