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“You’re not a bleeding heart either,” she snaps and then crosses her arms and raises her eyebrow. “Iknowyou. If you’re still there and offering to take her home, you like her. And if you like her, you know her.” She taps her fingers together as if she’s wracking her brain.

“Why are you so pushy?”

“Just tell me, and I wouldn’t have to be.”

“Fine. She works at my local, but we’ve never spoken before tonight. And I have a small crush on her.”

She punches the air in victory. “My ship-dar isneverwrong.”

“Ship-dar? What the hell is that?”

“My radar on people I think would be good together.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“Italkedabout you,” she says and bites her lip. “She’s very private. But sweet.”

“So am I.”

“No, you’re a walking scaffold of heartbreak.”

I scoff. “Thanks, friend.”

“Although, if you weren’t,andif you were a little bit younger, this could be something.” She presses her hands together excitedly and then frowns. “But she’snota fuck it and forget it girl, Omar.”

“I’ve never thought of anyone like that. And I’ve never had any complaints.” Not that I’ve stuck around long enough to hear them.

“Omar, I’m serious. She’s a virgin.” She slaps a hand over her mouth and winces.

I’m speechless. How in the world has a woman that sexy never had sex?

If she’s a virgin at this age, she’s either saving it for marriage or one of those “born again” innocents—and those are both red flags. It makes blowing the chance she dropped into my lap much easier to stomach.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Reena says after a few seconds.

“No. I’m glad you did.”Very.

She narrows her eyes, and her frown grows stern. “You better not hurt her, Omar. She’s not as tough as she acts. Tread carefully.”

The first timeI saw Jules, she was having a heated, but good-natured, argument with a group of men who were congregated at the bar where she was serving drinks. Even in the poorly lit pub, her deep brown skin glowed like it was filtered through pearlescent light.

Her husky and unbridled laugh drew and held my attention the way a glass of whiskey perched on a round ass used to.

Long wisps of hair dark chaotic curls escaped from the huge bun at the top of her head. They danced around her oval face and brushed the nape of her long, slender neck as she gestured with her hands.

But it was her smile, bright and warm as the noonday sun, that made me nearly swallow my tongue and walk into a wall.

I asked the owner of the bar, Dominic, about her as casually and randomly as I could. She was a law student, had workedat The Effra for five years. She was from somewhere in the Midlands and wasn’t a football fan at all.

Beautiful, hard-working, and didn’t seem to know who I was? She was a unicorn.

I came in every day for two weeks until I figured out her schedule and then made sure I was there every time she was working. It was full-on creepy, but that smile made me forget it was raining outside.

But my head was still all over the place after the fallout with my family. I wasn’t really in the mood for company, and the smile she gave me when I walked in, she’d never indicated any interest in me at all.

And I know unicorns don’t exist. I was good enjoying my fantasy from a safe distance. But after months of watching everyone else bask in the rays of her sunshine, it was getting harder to stay in the shade. And I’d started to reconsider my position.

I noticed her as I approached the bar. I admired her shapely legs, the curve of her hip, and the promise of a spectacular ass spilling over both sides of the bar stool.