Page 2

COCO

Two weeks later…

“Let’s have dinner tonight,” I suggested to Quilo.

Since leaving Orlando, he’d been quiet and reclusive.

His normal brash personality was on vacation, and honestly, I didn’t know how to feel about it.

“Aight,” was his unenthusiastic reply.

Sighing, I nearly allowed my eyes to tear up.

Crying right now would have me crying for the rest of the day.

I couldn’t do that.

“Okay!” I tried adding some spunk into my tone.

“All is on me.”

He half-ass chuckled.

“Yeah, aight.”

When he hung up without a goodbye, I allowed my eyes to flood a little.

Placing my phone on the tabletop, I willed my brain to relax and tried to convince myself that once Quilo got used to our new home, he’d lighten up.

He was going into his senior year of high school, and I needed him to enjoy it regardless of our situation.

If I didn’t get through to my brother, the streets were where he’d end up again.

The bell above Smooth Brew sounded, bringing my gaze to a gorgeous woman strutting inside the establishment with a haughty expression on her face.

She was brown-skinned, magazine editorial beautiful, and had flowing ginger hair down her back.

The waves in her hair were just as stunning as she was.

She wore a white lab coat over a blue pants suit that melded to her body to a T.

Her ambience screamed money and power.

A lot of both.

Once upon a time, that was me moving through life like nothing mattered.

My head was always held high, with my confidence not easily shaken.

Now, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.

It took everything in me just to keep myself up.

Honestly, I was drowning in depression.

I had to keep it together, though.

If not for myself, for Quilo.

Mid thought, the bell dinged again.

In walked a man whose presence was enough to make my mouth slightly part in awe of him.

He was dressed in all black scrubs and designer sneakers.

The ice on his neck, wrist, and ears could buy this entire block.

What drew me most were the tattoos covering most of his dark skin and reaching up into the taper fade cut he wore.

His lips were thick, succulent to be exact.

Then, there was his perfect bone structure barely disguised under the low-cut beard he wore.

He was just marvelous to the eye.

Striking chocolate brown eyes zoned in on my unabashedly assessing eyes.

Outside of the television and social media, I’d never actually seen a man with bedroom eyes.

However, he possessed some lethal ones.

As if they weren’t already wreaking havoc on my mind, his eyelids lowered further as he stood in the doorway staring at me.

“Adir! Over here!”

Something inside me shriveled up the moment the woman who’d walked in just minutes ago called out to him.

For a minute, he didn’t address her, which made his staring at me awkward.

I felt her eyes on me then, wondering who I was to have a man as fine as Adir stuck in a trance.

My eyes stretched a bit at him approaching my table.

The way he moved was too sure, too confident, and definitely too sexy.

His long stride was that of a man who knew what he looked like and what he could do to any woman within arm’s reach.

He stood over my table, staring down at me.

It seemed like slow motion when he stuck his large, inked up hand toward me.

I noticed everything about his fingers right down to his fingernails.

His fingers were long, strong, and moisturized.

There wasn’t a piece of excess dead skin on his nail bed.

His fingernails were nicely manicured without polish to top it off.

He flipped his hand over, revealing his palm.

“You gon’ put ya hand in mine?” he asked.

His smooth, deep voice hit me like a jolt of electricity.

So much so that I heated all over, causing my gaze to shoot up from his hand to look back into those lethal eyes he possessed.

I was so caught up, I couldn’t stop myself from putting my hand into his.

As my body bowed to his subjection, his long fingers encased my smaller hand.

“Adir,” he stated.

On the left side of Adir’s scrub top, his name was stitched in white.

So was his title. Inwardly, I groaned.

This can’t be.

“Adir?”

The lady appeared at my table next to Adir.

Although she addressed him, her knowing eyes remained zeroed in on me.

Her name and title was also stitched into her white lab coat.

Genika Grace, M.D.

Wow , I thought.

I slipped my hand from Adir’s, not before he tugged it back a little to keep me from taking my own hand back.

“You’re beautiful, Pretty,” he complimented.

Tilting my head at his forwardness in front of this lady who was obviously his in some capacity, I narrowed my eyes.

If it wasn’t for Dr. Grace opening her mouth, I would’ve laid into Adir.

Then again, laying into my future boss was kind of crazy.

“Our waitress is waiting,” Dr. Grace told him.

It didn’t move him in the slightest.

Folding my arms over each other atop the fancy tabletop, I pointedly peered at Adir.

“Your waitress is waiting, Dr. Bell.”

His eyes smoldered hotter than any furnace known to man.

Those eyelids lowered once again, turning my insides every which way but loose.

Then he had the nerve to clamp his teeth into his bottom lip.

My alarm sounded, breaking the awkward tension.

Gathering the remnants of the muffin I’d eaten and the empty bottle of root beer I’d nursed, I stood from the small round table.

Standing in front of this man nearly brought me to my knees.

He was impossibly tall and built.

He smelled like something I’d dreamt of and obsessed over for the rest of my life.

“Excuse me,” I mumbled, shouldering past the both of them.

When my arm grazed his hard chest, I jerked away from the contact.

Not looking back, I discarded my items into the trash and exited Smooth Brew.

The muggy June weather held no breeze and didn’t cool me down from the interaction with Adir.

It was hard not looking back to have another peek.

However, I didn’t want Dr. Grace to think that I was in any way trying to encroach on her territory.

Plus, I had bigger problems. I needed a job.

Dr. Bell & Associates wasn’t the only clinic on this stretch of downtown.

Several offices lined the streets, nestled amongst businesses, eateries, and clothing shops.

This part of downtown was one of the busier streets.

Dr. Bell & Associates took up the whole block, the building stretching three stories high.

A parking garage sat at the back of the steel gray building, which boasted floor-to-ceiling windows.

It looked prestigious and upscale.

Squaring my shoulders, I pulled the glass door open and entered the building.

Immediately, I was met with security, who both looked menacing as hell.

They checked me in, then had me have a seat.

Cool, fresh, clean air met me inside the spacious lobby.

About ten minutes later, a woman emerged from a door next to the check-in counter.

She smiled as she approached me.

“Miss Turner?” she questioned.

Standing, I nodded. She stuck her hand out and shook mine.

“Bianca. It’s nice meeting you.”

Bianca wore a bright, friendly smile and all black scrubs bearing her name and title on the left side of the top just like Adir’s.

Again, I inwardly groaned, praying Dr. Adir Bell worked at another facility and not this one.

Bianca was the office director and held the same chocolate brown eyes as Adir.

Hope quickly dwindled.

She was definitely related to him.

“Come with me,” she instructed.

I followed her to an office bearing her name across the door in fine letters.

I was impressed by the spaciousness of her office.

“I really love this office,” I told her to which she chuckled.

She had enough space in here for an entire seating area.

Her desk was off to one side, overlooking bustling Spring Street.

“One thing I love about working for Dr. Bell is his attention to detail. He knows I wouldn’t have settled for anything less than this grand office of mine.”

I smiled hard at her praising Adir.

Maybe he wasn’t so bad.

Although she was assuredly related to him, it was refreshing and a good sign that she at least liked him.

“So, tell me about yourself, Coco.”

As the interview got underway, I gave Bianca the short version of my education and career in nursing.

My life before college and becoming a successful nurse wasn’t exactly horrible, so I briefly delved into that too.

I grew up in a loving household, under the watchful eye of a mother who never allowed bullshit to slide.

Our father never lived with us but would show up whenever he felt like harassing my mama.

Throughout the interview and extensive questioning process, Bianca kept a satisfied smile on her face.

I wasn’t surprised when she asked me to do a walkthrough with her, so that she could introduce me to the doctors on staff.

This was indeed a good sign.

My credentials and experience spoke for themselves.

We went through what seemed like a maze with Bianca giving me a tour.

The clinic was open twenty-four hours a day with a full medical staff around the clock and consisted of six floors.

“We’ll tour the first floor last,” she said as we waited for the elevator.

“I do hold a nursing license. However, I like to stick to the background unless it’s an extreme emergency. Otherwise, I do my best to stay out of the way.” We both chuckled.

We went to the second floor, which housed a full-fledged lab, imaging and surgical floor, consisting of two operating rooms, one large nurses station and every imaging machine needed to properly treat a patient.

Floor three was a medical office suite.

Three nurse practitioners were on staff during the day to accommodate wellness visits and other follow-up appointments.

Floors four and five were inpatient floors, while floor six consisted of several apartments that the doctors could use throughout the day or night.

This place was by far one of the swankiest medical facilities I’d ever been inside.

Back on the first floor, Bianca showed me the security room and doctors’ offices.

It seemed like the building was a never-ending maze until we were inside the emergency department area.

Staff members smiled, waved, and moved on as if they had a million things going on and didn’t have time to stop and speak.

I loved it! This was my kind of carrying on.

My thoughts came to an abrupt halt as we neared a large circular nurses station.

Standing at the station with his shoulders squared and his eyes focused on an X-ray film that he held above his head was Dr. Adir Bell.

I nearly fainted at us making eye contact again.

Like before, he stared.

Everything around me faded as I zoned in on his fine ass.

There was something about a medical professional sporting tattoos that I knew damn well weren’t “professional” in nature.

I hated to admit that he intrigued me.