your mom, Jasmine. Alicia didn’t tell me that you were here burying your mother. I would have come to the funeral to pay my respects. I was here all week shooting footage for Detroit Live.”
She cleared her throat and tried to pull away, but he held her close. “Alicia didn’t know that my mom passed away. I didn’t want to upset her. She’s in the last stages of pregnancy with my godchild, after all.”
“Our godchild,” he corrected. “And she is going to be so mad at you! Alicia’s going to be heated! You know she has to know everything. That’s why she eavesdrops all the damn time. And when she finds out that your mom passed away and you didn’t tell her…” He shook with mock fear.
“It’s not like she could do anything. She can’t fly this late in the pregnancy, and it would have only upset her and given her something else to worry about. I figured I’d tell her when I move there in a couple of weeks.” She pulled away from him.
“You know that won’t be enough to appease Alicia. She could have sent Darren, her mother, her father, my sister and Kendrick, heck, she could have even sent me to be here with you and give you moral support.”
He made a show of looking at her chest, and she crossed her arm in front of her breasts.
“I’m just looking for the S on your chest, because you must think you’re Superwoman or something, Jasmine. Everyone has to lean on someone sometime.”
Jazz knew he was right. But growing up the only child of a hardworking immigrant mother, she had learned early on how to fend for and count on herself. Even though Alicia Taylor-Whitman had been her best friend since college, and through her Jazz’s extended family had grown immensely and she really did have people she could count on now, people that apparently included the bane of her existence, Troy Singleton, she still had a do-for-self attitude.
Great! Now her best friend was going to be pissed at her, too, just when she was finally moving to Detroit and they’d be living in the same city again for the first time since they had graduated from Mount Holyoke.
Alicia could hold a grudge like nobody’s business, too. The woman had stayed separated from her husband the entire nine months of her first pregnancy because he had lied to her about their fathers arranging their marriage.
And Troy might have been boasting about how he would have been there for her, but when she moved to Detroit and took her new job, he would be singing another tune. Even her favorite playboy frenemy probably wouldn’t give her the time of day once she moved to Detroit and he found out where she was going to be working.
She wouldn’t have anyone…
Before she knew it a tear started working its way down her cheek, and it was soon followed by another and then another.
She tried to stop them.
She was Carlyne Stewart’s strong daughter for God’s sake and she did not cry in public. She hadn’t cried in public during the entire week of funeral planning, the funeral or the horrid meeting with her mother’s lawyer. No way was she going to break down in the middle of the Barbados airport in front of Troy Singleton of all people.
Her lip quivered.
Oh, damn. Damn it all to hell!
Troy shook his head and frowned at her before taking her ticket out of her hands and walking away.
She thought about calling after him and asking him where the hell he thought he was going with her ticket. But the tears where falling full speed now and she felt the beginnings of hiccups and snot and all kinds of things that probably wouldn’t have been at all dignified. And she wanted to look at least halfway dignified when she got up the gumption to cuss Troy out. So she ran off to the restroom instead to have a nice good cry in the privacy of a stall.
Troy shook his head as he walked over to the ticket counter after telling his cameramen that he wouldn’t be flying back to Detroit with them. Somebody had to look after Jasmine. The woman was clearly in no shape to look after herself. Case in point, he had never seen her looking like anything less than a million bucks and today she looked as hopeless as a penny with a hole in it.
She was still fine as all get out with her Coke-bottle figure that made a man have all kinds of thoughts and her flawless toasted-cinnamon skin.
It was just clear she hadn’t slept in days and her normally funky fresh natural hairstyle of springy-corky auburn twists all over her head was now just funky.
He had to change his ticket and see her back to Boston. If he went back to Detroit and their mutual friend Alicia Taylor-Whitman found out that he wasn’t there for Jasmine in her time of need, he would never hear the end of it. And since Alicia was married to his best friend Darren Whitman, and Alicia’s cousin Kendrick was married to Troy’s sister, Sonya, the entire family would be giving him the blues.
He paid for his ticket and paid to have her ticket upgraded to first class. No way was he flying coach, and he didn’t understand how she could. He wasn’t private-jet status like the Whitmans, but he couldn’t remember ever flying coach in his life.
Once he’d handled the transaction he went looking for Jasmine. She wasn’t where he’d left her and she wasn’t sitting near the gate, so he assumed she must be in the restroom.
He stood outside of the ladies’ room and waited for her to come out. About fifteen minutes later she did.
Damn! Just when he thought she couldn’t possibly look any worse, she surprised him. Her eyes were bloodshot red. The tip of her nose was red as well, and her cheeks were flushed.
He handed her the new first-class ticket. “I’m going to fly back to Boston with you to make sure you get home safely—”
“You don’t have to do that, Studster. I’m an adult. I think I can make it home on my own.”
He cringed. Nothing irritated him more than her calling him any of her variations on Stud. He didn’t know why it bothered him. He had certainly been called worse. And it wasn’t like she could possibly pass judgment on him. She was as big a player as he was. And it’s not like it should have mattered what Alicia’s little friend thought of him anyway…
But it did.
Ever since he’d been assigned to pick her up from the airport for Alicia and Darren’s wedding ten years ago, it had mattered to him what Jasmine Stewart thought of him. He had been rather late picking her up back then and they had been on the wrong foot ever since.
“That Superwoman routine is going to land your ass in the mental hospital one day, Jasmine. Let me help you, because you know Alicia is going to have a fit when she finds out. You might as well do the right thing now and then at least she won’t be pissed at both of us.” He grinned because he knew that would get her.
She rolled her eyes. “Alicia Taylor-Whitman is not the boss of me and neither are you, Studly.” She glanced at her ticket. “First class? I can’t afford first class!”
“Consider it my treat then, because I’m not flying coach.”
“C’dear, black blue bloods does kill muh de way yuh does put on airs and ting.” She switched back to her regular speech. “Your ass know you can fly coach.” She laughed and for the first time since he’d run into her she was actually looking like her pretty self.
He
