by Alyssa Cole
His brows drew together, and Ledi ached to reach out a hand and smooth away his worries, but she was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He opened his mouth and then closed it. “It’s just . . .”
He sucked in a deep breath.
Here it comes. Ledi steeled herself for the impact. Why had she stepped out onto this thin branch of possibility, knowing that when it came to her dating life, any experimentation always yielded the same results? She should have stayed home to study. Reading case studies about a flesh-eating virus would be a step up from her imminent rejection.
“I’m just going to say it.” Jamal’s mouth twisted beneath the bristles of his beard. “I like you.”
Ledi wasn’t expecting that. Three words, imbued with confusion and fear and hope, all woven together like strands of DNA. She stared at him, waiting for the but, and got his consternated gaze instead.
“I’m rubbish at this.” He shook his head. “I’ve never had to divulge my feelings, or really had any to divulge for that matter. I’ve spent most of my life focused on preparing for the job that awaits me. Relationships were just an extracurricular.”
Ledi was a bit surprised at that—it didn’t sound very different from her own life.
Jamal’s fingers were trailing up her arm now, leaving gooseflesh in their wake even though the train car was a bit warm and stuffy. She leaned back into the door, farther away from him, as if trying to escape his gravitational pull. He wasn’t trying to resist hers though, not with those featherlight touches that made her want more. His gaze on her was so intense, like he was truly trying to see her and willing her to return the favor.
Ledi had never felt more exposed. She wanted to run screaming, but that feeling of recognition that had briefly grabbed her when she’d first met him returned even stronger than before.
Jamal smiled, though his gaze didn’t soften. “This, at least, is the truth. I like you, Naledi. I like who I am when I’m with you, the man you make me want to be. I want to get to know you, and I want you to know me—the real me.”
His mouth set into a firm line, the way it had been at the Institute the night she’d trained him. Like he was waiting for her to reprimand him. Ledi didn’t know what to say, and his fingertips moving on her arm were as distracting as his words had been. She didn’t know how to respond; her defenses should have kicked in, but this type of attack was unknown and crept around them.
His gaze suddenly became serious. “And that’s why you should know . . .”
It was silly, but she suddenly felt weightless—and that’s when she realized she was falling.
“Dyckman Street!” the train conductor called out. The doors had opened behind her with no warning, or no warning she’d been capable of hearing in her state, and she was about to assplant on the platform.
But then Jamal’s hands were on her shoulders, and he was stumbling forward into her ungainly descent and pulling her upright and close against him. The chime sounded the close of the doors, and they snapped shut with both of them safely upright. He didn’t let her go, though, and she was getting a refresher on just how warm and solid his body felt pressed against hers.
“That’s why you’re not supposed to lean against the door!” the conductor called out from her small window as the train pulled out of the station.
Jamal laughed and looked down at her. “Told you so. Score one for team lamb.”
The muscular length of him was pressed against her, holding her close, but his expression wasn’t seductive. He looked at her like a man who really liked her, and she was sure she was looking at him the same way. Because she did like him. Even though it was illogical. Even though she was defective Velcro, and Jamal would figure that out soon enough. In that moment, pressed up against him on a dirty subway platform, Ledi took a deep breath and decided maybe being out on a limb wasn’t the worst position in the world.
“I’m probably breaking some kind of shepherdess ethics law right now, but . . .”
She leaned up and kissed him. His soft lips molded to hers and his hands went to her hips and gripped hard. His tongue slipped into her mouth, searching, and he groaned when her tongue slicked against his.
For a blissful moment, her mind was blank—no worries about busted friendships or missing advisors or skipped shifts—just the scent and taste and feel of Jamal. Jamal who liked her.
Studying was overrated.
Chapter 15
Thabiso focused on the feeling of lightness that had buffeted his steps since Ledi had kissed him long and hard in the dirty, leaky, rat-infested bowels of New York City. His adrenaline had died down, but he still felt like lifting Ledi up and spinning her as the strings section of the National Orchestra of Thesolo played behind them. But that would have been over-the-top, even for a prince, and the only backing music they had was the reggaeton bumping from the cell phone of one of the men playing dominoes at the rickety table nearby.
Thabiso repressed the urge to act out cheesy romantic clichés—all save one. He lifted the hand he held in his own, the one that was softer than he’d imagined given how hard Ledi worked, and kissed the back of it.
She smiled, and then pushed her hair behind her ear with her other hand. She was obviously nervous; she’d turned into a neighborhood tour guide as soon as they left the station, giving him a detailed overview of the neighborhood and avoiding meeting his gaze.
They’d done a round of the park, Fort Tryon, an oasis of unexpected green that was still filled with all of the noise and liveliness of the city. She’d shown him the outside of the Cloisters, a French monastery transported to the city stone by stone because America had to import its antiquity. Ledi had filled him in on the history of the neighborhood, its role in the American Revolution, the vibrant Latino enclave that had sprung up in the area and the gentrification that threatened it. He noticed that she was quite talkative when she spoke of something other than herself. He doubted that was a coincidence.
They were nearing the top of a steep incline, but that didn’t stop her skillful avoidance technique.
“And in the summer, sometimes they show films here, and—”
“Naledi.”
She looked up at him, eyes wide. For perhaps the first time since he’d met her, her gaze was unguarded, and he could see the turmoil there. The turmoil caused by their kiss. He didn’t want to know what her face would look like when he revealed the truth, but he would soon find out.
“Let’s sit,” he said, gesturing toward a bench that faced out toward the Hudson. Spring sunlight dappled the muddy green waves of the river, making them as beautiful as the waterfalls that careened over Thesolo’s mountains, wild and heedless. Or perhaps it was Naledi exerting that effect on his perception. “I asked you to do something that you wanted to do today, and I highly doubt that giving me a detailed recounting of the local history is your way of relaxing. You’re always doing for others. Let me do something for you.”
He hadn’t meant to say that, but as she’d rambled on and on, he’d realized she was building a wall of words between him and her. Between their kiss belowground and their time in the park. He couldn’t abide that.
What will she do when she discovers your lie?
Ledi blinked a few times and pulled her hand away slowly.
“Well, then,” she said. She walked over to the bench, turned and sat down, as regal as the queen she was destined to become. “If that’s the case, entertain me.”
A shiver rushed through him that had nothing to do with the breeze from the river. More with the way her thighs pressed together when she crossed her legs, or the gaze she fixed him with. She wasn’t just letting her guard down, which he knew was rather a big thing for her—she was inviting him.
“Shall I dance?” he asked.
“Did you pick up some moves from the train performers?” She raised a brow.
“I have moves of my own, thank you very much.” He hopped to the side, bent his knees, and worked his hips in the traditiona
l dance all Thesoloian boys had to master for the coming-of-age ceremony performed during each spring festival.
Ledi erupted in laughter, which wasn’t the actual effect the dance of manhood was supposed to have, but she couldn’t know. If she’d grown up in Thesolo, she likely would have performed her dance of womanhood alongside him at the ceremony, given that she was his betrothed. She hadn’t been there, though, and a stubborn Thabiso had danced alone. The fact that he’d imagined a brown-skinned girl with happy eyes across from him as he’d performed the ceremony was his secret.
He finished the dance to amused applause from Naledi.
“Don’t act like that didn’t steam your headwrap,” he said as he dropped onto the bench beside her, throwing his arm along the back of it in spite of the splinters. Another peal of laughter rang out from her lips, the sound breaking from her like the evening call of the birds surrounding his palace back home.
“Steam my headwrap? What does that even mean?” She looked up at him, wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks.
Thabiso leaned in a bit closer. “It means, to reach a state of arousal such that the heat produced by the body steams the traditionally starched headwrap until it is . . . limp.”
Ledi blinked a few times. “Okay, I need to know more about where you’re from, where this is an actual thing people say to each other.”
His delight turned to panic, and then to inspiration. Maybe there was a way he could reveal the truth to her that would negate the lies he’d told. It often worked out in the fairy tales—Beauty had still loved the Beast once he revealed he was truly a prince, hadn’t she? Thabiso had a flash of a story in his mind; the Beast in pain and dying alone because Beauty had left him for some reason or another. Not the outcome he was hoping for.
“Okay, okay,” he said, mental wheels spinning in merciless desert sand, until finally, they caught traction. “You’ve given me a tour of your local park, and now I’ll give you one of mine. Just . . . work with me.” He glanced at her to be sure she was giving him her full attention. “We’re in a garden full of lush greenery and beautiful flowers imported from all over the world. That majestic bird over there. You see it?”
“Um, the pigeon?” she asked skeptically. Her brow raised as the bird puffed itself up and began chasing a female bird through a puddle.
“Pigeon? That’s a peacock! They roam the grounds of the park near my home, although they are not a local breed. That over there?” He pointed to a pug walking by, bowlegged and snorting. “That is one of the pigs that live behind the kitchen eating scraps and providing compost material. We don’t eat them, not because they’re unclean, but because they’re much too smart.”
“I’m sure the cows feel some kind of way about that,” she said wryly.
“The cows live a very good life, as do the goats, even if they can’t appreciate it as well as a pig can. Some animals are more equal than others, you know.”
Her mouth curved up into a smile and something in his chest moved out of alignment. He loved seeing her smile. He loved being the cause of it. That smile would fade soon; he hoped that she would be able to forgive him.
“Is there a playground?” Ledi asked as they watched a father walk by with a group of kids on scooters, rushing toward the swings and slides.
“My parents had a play area set up for me, yes.” He was sure she was imagining a small plastic swing set, not the gymnastics arena and amusement park-grade water slide his parents had built for him.
“This was my local park for a while,” Ledi said. “When I was thirteen. I lived with this family, the Davises, and I’d come here on the weekend and ride my bike around. Sometimes I’d see kids from the school I’d transferred to and hang with them. Over there by the monkey bars is where I had my first kiss.”
“Romantic,” Thabiso said.
“Disgusting,” she replied with a small grin. “He had braces and we’d just eaten take-out Chinese. That’s all I’ll say about that.”
Thabiso wasn’t jealous exactly, but he wondered what would have happened if her family hadn’t taken her from Thesolo. There were no true constraints on the betrothed of a prince that said she must date only him, but might her first awkward kiss have been with him?
“I didn’t even like the guy really,” Ledi said. “My foster dad got wind of what happened, though, and said he didn’t want a fast girl under his roof because they were too much trouble. So all that kiss got me was some prechewed chunks of sesame chicken and a new foster family.” She looked up at him. “It’s funny, I’m so sure that none of this stuff bothers me, and then you bat your lashes at me and I take a left turn into emo-ville.”
She looked embarrassed, and maybe a little angry. She had every right to be angry. Kicking a young girl out for natural exploration was cruel.
“I’m honored that you trust me to be your copilot into emo-ville, as you call it,” he said. And suddenly the thistled path to the truth that he’d been fighting through fell away before him. He knew how to tell her. He knew how to make things right.
“I can tell you my own embarrassing story,” he said.
“Have you been involved in other ego-driven acts of arson?” she asked with raised brows.
“Figuratively, yes,” he said, leaning close to her. “I’ve only ever tried to burn a building down to get a woman’s attention once, though.” She laughed again. He took her hand, brushed his fingertip over her palm. “When I was a boy, I was certain I had a soul mate, even though many people told me otherwise. For a short period, I required those around me to pretend that she was real. A place was set for her at snack time. I asked that gifts be purchased for her. I was often found talking to an empty chair as if she were beside me. Eventually, my parents became worried and tried to wean me off of this imaginary soul mate, so I tried to run away and find her. I was seven, so this didn’t go over too well.”
Ledi smiled. “OMG, this is so sweet. I can imagine exactly what you would have looked like as a kid.”
Her brow furrowed as she stared at him, and he wondered if she was conjuring an image of him or pulling one from the recesses of her memory.
“What happened to your soul mate?” she asked.
“I stopped believing for a while there,” he said. “Became too busy with grown-up things and stopped thinking of her.”
“Hey, sometimes you do what you have to,” she said. “I stopped thinking of my parents because it hurt too badly, and then one day I tried to remember them and I couldn’t.”
She stared out toward the river.
Thabiso saw the opportunity before him like a neatly wrapped present. He made his move. “Would you want to know about them, if it was possible?”
An expression of distaste passed over her face. “Why? They’re dead and I’ve gotten along just fine on my own. Knowing who they were wouldn’t change any of that.”
“But—”
“My friend got me one of those DNA tests and I still haven’t looked at the results. I’m Naledi Smith. I eat biostats for breakfast and produce the cleanest gel images on the East Coast. I don’t need a past.”
Damn it.
The thorny path to the truth sprang up before him again. He had asked her if she wanted to know and she didn’t. If he told her who he was, in a way he’d be going against her wishes. What was he supposed to do now?
I know you just explicitly stated you don’t want to know about your past, buuuuut I’m going to tell you anyway because I also need to explain how I’m a lying prick.
Thabiso was scrambling to think of a way to tell her without alienating her even more when he felt a vibration against the bench. Ledi pulled her hands away from his and dived for her phone.
“Sorry, I’m expecting a call from my dean,” she explained as she tapped at her phone and raised it to her ear. Thabiso could see the worry in her eyes. “Hello? Yes, Dr. Bell, this is Naledi. I hope my email wasn’t too—oh. Oh.”
She stood from the bench and began pacing. “That doesn’t make sense, I
—how could they? Why would they?” She paused, nodding slowly as if the person on the other line could see her. “Yes. I understand. I can be there in half an hour. Thank you.”
When she turned to him, her expression was blank but her eyes were glossy and her lower lip trembled for just a moment before she pressed her teeth against it to stop the movement.
“Naledi?”
Thabiso jumped to his feet, to stand beside her, but she backed away from him.
“I . . . Wow. I hadn’t been able to get in contact with my advisor about my field study for this summer. It was supposed to be at the Disease Task Force, this group that monitors infectious disease outbreaks.”
That sounded interesting and terrifying, though Thabiso had interned at The Hague, which also sounded vaguely menacing, and had been bored out of his mind.
“I’m assuming something is amiss?”
“My advisor is the director. He hadn’t been following up with me, and I just found out that the funding for the Task Force has been cut. The reason he’s been MIA is he’s been trying to save as much information as he can, protect vulnerable communities in the midst of possible epidemics, and whatever else you do when a major governmental agency is shut down without warning.”
Thabiso was concerned on several levels. For Naledi, as a friend, and for what cutting infectious disease outbreak detection could portend, as a leader.
“I’m sorry. Do you know why?”
It was simply bad governance, and he couldn’t understand what would drive such a decision. Then he remembered Tad/Todd. He remembered Naledi’s uncle, Alehk. Money. Somewhere along the line money was involved, he was sure.
“Because the government has been hacking at science funding indiscriminately. Forget my practicum. They’re cutting funding for research that will stop people from dying.” Her expression was blank, as if she couldn’t fathom it. “I just need . . .”
