I stuff my fist into my mouth to muffle the sounds fighting their way out. Bliss spirals from my core and explodes over my limbs, my extremities, my nooks and crannies. My head goes galactic, a black sky awash with stars. For just a moment, I seem to float outside of time and space. I come back to my body in inches and seconds, surprised to find my heels digging into August’s back, my fingers buried in his hair and my thighs bracketing his handsome face.
“Hi.” He grins up at me unabashedly, his mouth shiny and wet. “Welcome back.”
I answer with a husky laugh and a shake of my head.
“You distracted me,” I slur, sex-drunk. “Now it’ll take me forever to finish.”
“I’d say you ‘finished’ in record time.” He ducks when I swing my hand lightly at his head. “Now about me finishing.”
My eyes flick to the flashing cursor, awaiting my executive decision on the electric bill.
“Babe, come on.” He licks the inside of my thigh. “When I go on the road next week, you’re gonna miss my loving.”
“Do you think I don’t know that’s an old Lou Rawls song?” I ask, carefully lowering my legs from his shoulders and turning back to the laptop
so I can move more money around.
“What do you know about Lou Rawls?” he asks skeptically.
“Dude, I grew up in the Ninth Ward,” I say with a touch of NOLA pride. “We took R&B classes.”
For a moment, he looks uncertain. Like he wonders if it really was that hood. I mean … it was, but we didn’t actually take the classes. It was a much more informal education of the OGs blasting classics while we played outside in the streets.
“Seriously. Come back to bed.” He picks me up, ignoring my yelp, and sits down with me on his lap. “I don’t even need to get off. We’ll just cuddle before I have to leave.”
“Every time you say we’ll just cuddle, we actually end up screwing anyway.”
“And that’s a problem?” he asks, lifting my hair and sucking along the curve from my neck to my shoulder. I shiver but refuse to get up, refocusing on the bills, some of which are already past due. If I don’t get this figured out, Sarai and I may come home to the water turned off.
“Okay. Be like that.” He blows out a longsuffering breath, sitting forward and pressing his chest against my back, patting out a rhythm on my bare legs. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Robbing Peter to pay Paul.” I tilt my head to calculate if I’m breaking even yet.
“Is that another joke?” His hands go still mid-tap against a thigh.
“If you’re asking if my utility company is actually named Peter, then no.”
“But you’re joking, right?” He shifts forward so he can see my profile. “You don’t need money, do you?”
“No.” I shrug, wanting him to drop it. “Things are just a little tight this month.”
“Money should never be tight for you.” With my eyes trained on the screen, I don’t see his frown, but I feel it.
“I’m a single mom living paycheck to paycheck in one of America’s most expensive cites. Just living the dream. Of course things get tight sometimes.”
“Iris, if you need money, you can tell me.”
My fingers pause over the keys and dread slicks the lining of my stomach like an oil spill. I really don’t want to go there with him. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I accidentally bump my little mound of bills and bend to retrieve them from the floor. When I sit back up, August is leaning forward, squinting at the screen.
“Seriously?” He turns aggravated eyes on me. “That’s how much you make each month? Like everything?”
My hackles rise at his tone and the implication that what I make isn’t enough. “It’s good money, August.”
“No, it’s crap money, Iris.” He shakes his head, his expression resolute. “I’ll talk to Jared about bumping it up.”
“You will do no such thing, August West.” I jump to my feet, outrage humming through me. “I don’t want more than any other entry-level employee.”
“You’re my girl, Iris.”