by Nia Arthurs
Luke didn’t know what to say so he remained quiet.
“Goodbye, Luke.”
He listened to the dial tone and then let his arm drop. The water crashed and the wind moaned through the coconut trees. He inhaled deeply before turning away and sliding into his car.
Luke started driving and somehow ended up outside Ashanti’s house. He blinked rapidly, struggling to remember when he’d given himself permission to come here. At that moment, the door burst open and Ashanti flew out.
Her curls blew behind her head like a lion’s mane. She wore a blue, oversized shirt and white shorts.
He rolled the window down, surprised to see her. “Ash. What are you doing out here?”
“Not to burst your bubble, but you’re the one parked outside my house, Luke.” She ran her fingers through her hair as if that would make the stubborn curls behave. “I recognized the sound of your engine.”
He smiled at that. “You’ve memorized the sound of my car engine?”
“Don’t make it weird.” She stepped back and gestured to her house. “You came all this way. Come in.”
“It’s late.”
Ashanti whirled back around and eyed him through the lowered window. “I’m aware. Now hurry up before the neighbors think this is a drug deal or something.”
He chuckled and followed her into the house, feeling lighter already.
“Let me guess,” she said as she locked the front door, “you enjoyed sleeping in my couch so much the last time that you’re back for another stay?”
“Ah, no.” He laughed and sank into the love seat. “Were you sleeping?”
Ashanti jumped into the cushion beside him. “No. I was working on an article about a missing persons case turned murder so… I pretty much spent the past few hours freaking out at every weird noise the house made.”
“You act all fearless, but inside you’re a big fat scaredy-cat.”
“To be fair, I’ve never lived alone before. Dad or Grandma was always around. Even when I was away at college, I had roommates.”
“You should get a dog.”
Ashanti made a face. “I can’t even keep a plant alive. And all they need is a little water and sunlight. No way.”
Luke smiled and leaned his head against the couch. He could feel Ashanti’s eyes on him but he was suddenly sleepy and it was a challenge to resist his drowsiness. Maybe there was something about her couch…
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“With what?”
“This is pretty late for a house call.” She fell quiet and, for a second, all that could be heard was the whir of the fan overhead. Ashanti broke the silence when she said, “Is it your parents?”
He sighed. “They’re not… reacting well.”
“I’m aware. I was there when your mom cursed me out in Chinese.”
“No.” He kept his eyes closed and shook his head. “They’ve been contacting me everyday.”
“Saying what?”
“Variations of what they told me the night I introduced you. Before I left the shop tonight, Uncle Eddie threatened to kick me out of the café if I didn’t give in to my parents. ”
He heard the couch moan as Ashanti scooted closer to him. “Are you okay?”
Luke considered telling her he was fine, but his presence in her house tonight would underline the falsity of that statement. “I’m just trying to… find my footing. You know? It’s like the people I’ve loved all my life have become total strangers.”
“If it’s that hard on you, maybe we should stop. I mean, the café is your life. You’ve only got a few more years on your uncle’s contract before the whole building is yours. It’s not worth it.”
“No. I don’t want to stop. I’ll see this through.”
“Luke…”
“Ash,” he said wearily. “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up in an hour to go home.”
He held his breath as he waited for her to argue, but Ashanti remained silent and Luke drifted to sleep.
What felt like a few minutes later, he woke with a start. Morning sunlight burst through the window. He held up a hand to shade his face from the glare and yawned, squirming around on the couch to find his keys.
“I told Ash to wake me,” he mumbled, glancing around. Instead of his keys, he spotted Ashanti conked out on the opposite end of the couch.
Her black hair billowed around her head in a cloud of curls and frizz. Her nose flared slightly with every breath. It was a rare experience to be near a quiet Ashanti and he sopped up every second of it.
She looked delicate as she slept, fragile. A tender feeling welled in his chest. One that made him determined to protect her. No matter what Ashanti said, he would never use her as his shield.
Chapter Eight
Ashanti scrambled the eggs in the pot and glanced over her shoulder at Luke. He focused on peeling the oranges, a small wrinkle between his eyebrows.
She’d fallen asleep last night and had forgotten to send him home. He’d demanded breakfast in apology.
Ashanti was putting her heart and soul into the meal. This wasn’t a big enough apology for her. She had a lot to be sorry for.
“There,” Luke said, rolling the peeled orange along the counter. “Anything else you need my help with?”
She shook her head.
Luke studied her. The sunlight pooled over his black hair that was squashed against his forehead in homage to a bowl cut. His dark eyes twinkled and his lips pulled up in a shadow of a smile.
“Are you sure you’re alright? You haven’t spoken a word all morning,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
His smile faded. Luke narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I don’t buy that. Something’s off. I can feel it.”
“Could you help me cut this?” She rolled an onion over to him in order to deflect his question. “You know the fumes always make me cry.”
“Sure,” Luke said, shooting her another strange look.
Ashanti ignored him, unnerved by his perception. He was right. Something had changed.
Last night, she’d decided to give up her crusade. For several reasons.
The first was that her plan wasn’t helping Luke anymore.
His parents were taking the news harder than she’d expected. Emotional tantrums and long, accusatory calls aside, the Zhangs were now threatening his livelihood.
If Luke lost his café because of her stubbornness, Ashanti would never forgive herself.
The second reason was because of her father. Or more specifically, her father’s belief that she had feelings for Luke.
She’d known Luke all her life. He was more of a family member than a prospective candidate for her heart. So the thought that she could be even remotely interested in him terrified her.
The last thing she wanted this project to do was unearth dormant feelings and wreck their friendship.
“Onions are done.” Luke slid the cutting board over to her and then leaned against the sink, his arms over his chest. When he spoke, his tone was casual, off-hand. “My cousins are meeting up tonight.”
“That’s nice,” Ashanti said absently. Luke had few friends growing up because his cousins had always filled that role. Even through adulthood, the cousins were still tight.
“Come with me.”
She froze. “What?”
“Not as my pretend girlfriend. Just as a… friend.”
“Why?” She faced him. “You’ve never invited me before.”
He shrugged. “I know.”
“Then…?”
“After the way my parents behaved, I want you to see that not all of my family will hate you.” He coughed and quickly added. “Or someone like you.”
Ashanti shook her head. “No thanks.”
“You’re turning me down?”
“I know what you’re doing, Luke.” Ashanti gripped her spoon and stirred the eggs with more zeal. “You feel sorry for making me worry. You want to remind me that all the crap happening to you i
sn’t my fault.”
“So why would you reject that if you know?”
“Because…”
“Go on.”
She whirled on him. “Look, your uncle fired you from the café so you’re basically a bum. Your parents are beyond pissed off. And who knows what they’ll try next? I encouraged you to start this war.” She tapped her chest. “Now, I have to be the one to finish it.”
“That’s not true.” Luke slid to her other side so he could lock gazes with her. “You didn’t start this. I did.”
“You wouldn’t have thought of it if I hadn’t suggested it in the first place. I was only thinking of myself. Of the lessons I wanted to teach your family. It was selfish of me to ignore the toll it would take on you.”
He took the spoon out of her hand. “For now, don’t worry about anything else. Just come with me tonight. Okay?”
She chewed on her bottom lip, but slowly nodded.
“Good.” Luke grabbed his phone and keys. “I’m gonna head out now.”
She frowned. “Aren’t you going to have breakfast?”
“You burnt the eggs.” He made a face. “So I’ll pass.”
“Hey!”
Luke laughed and sailed through the door, locking it softly behind him.
The moment he was gone, Ashanti leaned against the sink and put a hand to her heart. It was still beating normally. No palpitations. No palm-sweating. Not even a little twitch.
Maybe her dad was wrong. If she liked Luke, she would have been able to tell by now.
Relieved, Ashanti forced herself to eat her eggs and headed to work.
The Madalon Building was as much of a skyscraper as her little island nation could claim. It housed six businesses, one on every floor and her office was held in the third story, smack dab in the middle.
On some days, Ashanti challenged herself to jog up the stairs for exercise, but those days were rare. She mostly took the elevator.
“Morning, Ashanti,” Byron, the lobby receptionist, grinned at her.
“Hey, Byron.”
“You look fine today.”
She smiled at his harmless flirting. Byron was the type of man who threw his hook everywhere, hoping someone, somewhere took his bait.
She knew he had no real interest in her. Not unless she had a real interest in him. Then he’d give her a shot. There were rumors that he’d dated half the women in the building already.
“Thanks.” Ashanti nodded at him. “I do try.”
Byron laughed.
Ashanti sailed into the elevator and pressed the number for her floor. As the lift moved up, she caught her reflection in the mirror.
Her hair was smoothed back with enough gel to resist hurricane force winds. She’d paired a sleek black pants and a blue blouse with a grey jacket.
She looked completely different in her work attire than when she was at home or even writing at the café in the evenings. Luke called it a conspiracy. Ashanti called it the power of the pantyhose.
The elevator doors opened with a ding, ushering her into the Belize National Paper headquarters. The room smelled like an old library. Newspaper clippings clung to the wooden sides of their cubicles. A telephone rang in the distance.
A telephone was always ringing in her office.
There were five desks in the main room, but only two were filled. Ashanti nodded to Ruth, the older woman sitting in the first desk and stalked to her cubicle on the other side of the room.
Immediately, she heard heels pattering and glanced back to welcome Tara, her friend and co-worker, into her cubicle.
Ashanti grinned at the tiny woman. When Tara stood on the tips of her toes, she just barely made five feet. She had tan skin and shiny black hair thanks to her Mayan heritage. Her eyes were large and tilted slightly at the corners.
“Hey, girl.” Ashanti got up to give her friend a hug. “How was your vacation?”
“Vacation? Are you kidding me? I spent the last few weeks at my mother’s beck and call. I almost begged Chief to force me back to work so I could get away from her.”
“Is her back better now?”
Tara leaned down and whispered, “I have a feeling she just made a big fuss to get all her children in the same city again.”
“At least you got to meet your family.” Ashanti spun in her chair. “That must have been fun.”
“Please. All they wanted to know was why I hadn’t married yet. It’s like I’m irrelevant unless I have a ring on my finger, a man at my side and a baby on each hip.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Yeah, but that’s our culture. I can’t hide from it.”
Her words sparked a thought and Ashanti hesitantly asked, “Tara, did your parents ever tell you who to marry? I mean, were they against any specific race or religion?”
“Of course.”
Ashanti planted her feet on the ground so she could stop her chair from turning. “You’re serious?”
“They told me I had to marry another Mayan. To preserve our race, you know? We’ve literally created another culture because of intermarrying. The elders are pretty desperate to keep us from dying out.”
“I see. So they don’t have a problem with any particular race?”
“My sister married a black man, so that’s softened them a little, but there are some ethnicities that are absolutely off-limits. My mom told me when I was ten that I could never bring a Spanish man home or she’d disown me.”
“Disown you from what?”
“Their love,” Tara said in a tone that could have been replaced with ‘duh’.
Ashanti leaned back and chewed on her bottom lip in thought. So… having restrictions on the types of people their children could bring home wasn’t limited to the Chinese in Belize.
Strange.
“Why are you asking?” Tara twirled her dark hair between her fingers. “Are you writing an article on marriage?”
“No. It’s a personal question.”
“Oh.” Tara poked her in the side. A wicked grin spread on her tan face. “You and Luke, huh?”
Tara had met Luke once a few years ago when she’d dragged him to a Christmas office party as her date. Everyone had stared at him all night.
It was so rare for Chinese people to interact with other cultures that whenever someone stepped out of the norm and did, it was memorable.
“No, not me and Luke. Luke and someone else.”
“Oh.” Tara nodded. “Sounds complicated.”
You have no idea.
When Ashanti didn’t share any more details, Tara skipped out of her office and returned to her cubicle.
Feeling restless again, Ashanti buried herself in work and even waved Tara off when she offered to take her out to lunch.
She was eyeballs-deep in an article when the telephone rang. Since it was lunch, the receptionist had left her desk. Ashanti kicked her shoes off and padded to the telephone to answer.
“Hello?”
“Ashanti, this is Byron. There’s someone downstairs asking for you.”
“Who?” Ashanti asked. Printing the truth came with it’s own complications. She was always careful not to let just anyone in.
“Says her name is Michelle Forest.”
Michelle? What was she doing here?
“Let her in.”
A few minutes later, the door opened and Michelle entered. Ashanti studied her with an objective eye. Michelle had a small, piquant face, big brown eyes and long, straight hair.
What did Luke find so great about her? She looked normal, pretty… but normal.
“Hi.” Michelle wiggled her fingers and then dropped her hands. She shuffled her legs and stared at the floor. “I hope you don’t mind me stopping by.”
“It’s no problem.” Ashanti led Michelle to her cubicle. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks.”
Ashanti took the chair across from her and clasped her fingers together. “What can I help you with, Michelle?”
“It’s kind of personal.�
� Michelle licked her pink lips and leaned forward. “You’re friends with Luke, right?”
“Luke?”
“The guy from the café,” Michelle said.
Ashanti waved her hands. “Yeah, I know. I’m just… how can I help you with Luke?”
“We were talking for a couple weeks and then he totally blew me off. He said he had something going on and he needed to ‘step back’.” Michelle put bunny ears around the word. “But no matter how hard I think about it, I can’t believe it’s that simple.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Please be honest with me. From one woman to another. Is Luke really going through something or did he just say that to push me off?”
Ashanti blinked once. Twice. What was she supposed to do in this situation? Luke had begged her not to meddle, but the reason she’d started her plan to win his parents over in the first place was so these two could be together.
“I really like him,” Michelle pleaded when Ashanti didn’t answer. “We had something special. I know this sounds crazy and you hardly know me, but… would you help us get back together?”
Chapter Nine
Luke was lounging in his pajamas and trying to decide on what he’d eat for lunch when his phone rang. Expecting it to be his parents again, he ignored it and closed his eyes.
Should I have noodles or rice?
He rolled on his side and continued the internal debate.
Man, I’d give anything for Uncle Eddie’s udon right now.
His phone rang again, pealing incessantly until the sound had embedded itself in his head. With a groan of frustration, he scooped his phone and growled, “Yes, ma?”
“Why haven’t you reported to work yet?”
Luke scrambled to sit up. “Uncle Eddie?”
“I didn’t give you permission to take the morning off. Get here in ten minutes or you’re fired.” The line clicked.
Luke pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at the screen. What was Eddie talking about? Hadn’t he fired him last night?
It didn’t matter. Luke tore his pajamas off and changed into a T-shirt and jeans. He scrambled out the door and sped through the afternoon traffic to make it to the café.