Page 62 of Quiet as Kept

“Cool, baby.”

I grinned at him. “I love it when you call me baby.”

Kept and I drove around some of our favorite areas of Atlanta for about an hour, then we headed to The Precise, an upscale hotel where, unbeknownst to me, Kept had already made reservations for us to spend the night. He got the luggage from the trunk.

“Ooh, sneaky, sneaky.” I wagged my finger at him. “You hid luggage in the trunk. You already knew we weren’t sleeping in the hotel room with the girls. You already knew Mama Reese was gonna keep them.”

“I did,” he admitted with a sheepish smirk on his face. “I actually asked her to keep them because I wanted some alone time with you.”

I grinned at him, considering them implications of us having sex without the girls down the hall.

“Look at you thinking ahead. I love it.”

He palmed my ass as we crossed the lobby.

“And you already checked us in too? We don’t have to stop at the front desk?”

“Your man stands on business, baby. Everything is handled.”

We took the elevator up to the sixteenth floor.

I shot a glance at Kept. “The penthouse?”

“The Peachtree Suite.”

“Okay, show off then,” I teased.

“I will.” He opened the door to the well-appointed room.

The room was light and neutral with a clean but comfortable aesthetic. The furniture was modern but also over-stuffed. Instead of carpet, the floors were luxury vinyl. And it didn’t have that stale smell that hotel rooms could have. It smelled like the spa—like cucumber, basil, and lemongrass.

“Go pee because I know you have to,” he told me. “Then I want to go up to the rooftop bar and have a drink before it gets too dark to enjoy the view.”

“Okay.” I hustled to the bathroom. He was right. I did have to pee.

After I washed my hands and dried them, the two of us went up to the rooftop bar to enjoy the view.

Seventeen

Kept

While Xarielle was in the bathroom, I shot Nehemiah a text, and he assured me that everything was everything. I tried to both slow and quiet my pounding heart as Xarielle and I rode up to the rooftop in the stillness of the elevator because I was sure she could hear it.

The sun was close to setting, which was excellent. The semi-darkness of the sky perfectly set off the glow of the candles and lanterns that were everywhere.

“Uh, it looks like it’s closed to the public, baby,” she said to me. “Maybe it’s set up for a private party or something. All of these candles and,” she looked down at the ground, which had been strewn with hundreds of rose petals, “and petals are giving romantic interlude.”

“The website didn’t say nothing about it being closed today.”

“But there’s nobody up here, Kept.” Her voice was more forceful. “I’m not trying to meet my death for a drink I don’t even really want.”

I chuckled. Some of my nervousness dissipated because she was so nervous.

“I thought you just said it was giving romance. Now, it’s givingThe First 48?”

She giggled and allowed me to keep leading her. I stopped at the wooden arbor that was draped with bunches and bunches of aromatic flowers and fairy lights.

“This is so pretty,” she whispered.