Page 48 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“You know when I was driving here, I was thinking of Dali’s eighth-grade graduation party that we had back here.” Vin licked the brown liquor Tahli could smell off his browner lips. “Shit seems like yesterday.”

“Why were you thinking about that?” Tahli hugged herself.

“Don’t get nervous. Just memories.”

“Why would I be nervous? It was like any other barbecue.”

It was. Because, like every other barbecue, Tahli would be cooking or setting out food, gathering children, and filling coolers. Vin would be somewhere across the yard. She’d feel his stare and meet it. Then he’d place his half-eaten plate down and head for the patio doors.

Didn’t matter if Tahli was deep in conversation.

He’d stand there, beckoning her to follow him.

If he got impatient, he’d come get her. They’d find themselves up in her old bedroom like he was the bad boy she’d snuck in after school.

Back against the wall or pinned down onto her dresser, those naughty barbecue breaks were a constant in the Vin and Tahli history books.

Especially the one two years ago for Dali’s middle school graduation. Extra nasty.

“Who made the chicken?” Vin snapped her from the trip back, chomping on a fried party wing. “This ain’t you,” he acknowledged. “I know it ain’t Vanessa’s ‘cause it’s edible.”

Tahli snorted. Her stepmother was no cook. “Brandi.”

“It’s good.” He bit off the gristle before tossing the bone into the nearby trash. Tahli sucked her teeth.

“Not better than yours. But it’s straight.”

“You should tell her that. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear it.” Vanessa’s niece was smitten with Vin. Tahli always knew it.

Vin faced the party with Tahli. That sculpted, football player ass Tahli knew well rested on the table, hidden under cargo shorts paired with a simple tee. But his watch and sneakers? They could put Akemi through another four years of college.

“Tahli, I met that girl when she was a baby. She was like 17 years old.”

“And now she’s 32 asking Vanessa every 20 minutes if Dalvin is coming. Then blaming it on her hyper-ass kids.”

Laughter shot from him. “Damn. The babies caught a stray. I always told you nobody knew how mean you were.”

Tahli rolled her eyes. When they returned to him, his were narrowed, a lip between his teeth.

“Can I ask you a question?” she posed.

“You can ask me all the questions in that yellow dress.”

“Where are you and Bianca going?”

Vin’s bushy brows met. “Probably back to the crib. Unless she wants to go home.”

“Shut up, Dalvin. I mean in life. Like is this going somewhere? Will she be around my kids? Is there a conversation I need to have with her?”

Vin’s sluggish stare preceded him rocking his head from side to side. Tahli hated to give him the satisfaction.

“I suppose… if it ever gets there…then you can have the same conversation that you gave me the courtesy of having with Mr. Beta Boy over there grilling us like we’re the fucking ribs.”

“He’s not a Beta. He just doesn’t have to stomp around, waving his bravado to prove he’s a man.” She watched Vin’s jaw flex. “We have a healthy relationship. But that’s different. I never owed you anything, Dalvin. You hid a baby from me for 12 years–”

“So that’s the card you gonna play for the rest of our lives?” Damn. There was something about the way the sun hit his eyes. Like you knew he was the devil but wanted to get burned anyway.

“Just for the next 14 years,” Tahli smirked. “Until Terran turns 21.”

“That’s cute you think it’ll be that easy to get rid of me.” For some reason, him saying that with a wink felt like protection.

“How you feel, Danica Patrick?” Vin switched gears.

“I told you I wasn’t speeding. That guy was high. And I’m okay.”

A detail from her car accident that Tahli could tell didn’t sit well with Vin. The man who hit her had been high on painkillers—a drug Vin was all too familiar with. Quite karmic.

“Any dizziness? You know that Cardene has a lot of side effects. You taking it with food?”

“How do you know what medication I’m on?”

“Stop playing with me, Tahli. I made the doctor give me a list before you were discharged. I wanted a second opinion.”

Wonderment delayed her response. “I’m good. I feel good.”

“Good.” They both silently watched Akemi hugging just-arrived guests. “Our Kemi-baby really did it,” Vin stated proudly, with his signature nickname for the girl he’ known since single digits.

“She did.”

“Thank you for the carrr, Uncle Vin!” Akemi rushed over, likely from their staring, engulfing Vin in a tipsy hug. Maybe even beyond tipsy, Tahli supposed, as Tahli beat her lashes dramatically to the news.

“The Lexus truck eats down! It’s giving and it’s the color I wanted. You ate down with that, Uncle Vin. Like ate all the way down. It’s giving. It gives. You give. Do you get it?”

Tahli would have laughed if she weren’t stunned, knowing Vin and his frustrating hilarity with Gen Z.

“Yeah, aight.”

“Okay, why ya aunt a baddie, though?” Akemi’s friend muttered as they walked off. When they were gone, Tahli crossed her arms.

“You bought her the fucking Lexus TX after she almost flunked out, huh? So, big shot, what color was it?”

Vin wet his lips. “Matte gray. I had to keep my promise.”

“You bribed her.”

“It worked…baddie,” he winked.

Akemi was boy-crazy, and the boys loved her back. All the qualities of her stunning Black mother and her Japanese father’s features made her an attention magnet.

With her parents living in Texas and their second home in Tokyo where Tao’s family resided, Akemi chose to attend Princeton in New Jersey, surely for the freedom to run wild.

Tahli had been her closest contact over these past few years.

Leah was out of touch, and Tao didn’t care.

He provided for them, attended the occasional family events, and interacted superficially, even with his wife and daughter.

For Akemi, college had brought on two terminated pregnancies, a case of chlamydia, a close call with a DUI situation that Tahli’s father got her out of, and a possible sexual assault—if not for her roommate calling Tahli and Vin showing up, literally yanking the frat boy out of his car by his collar, making him piss himself, then flinging a drunk Akemi over his shoulder.

“Look at Paige letting ya’ uncle Walley bullshit her about buying a house,” Vin snickered, nodding to Tahli’s uncle frying fish, and rambling to Paige, who was one of Central Jersey’s top realtors.

“Now you know Paige just tryin’ to get to a fish sandwich,” Tahli quipped, making him snort. When Vin motioned with his fingers after, Bianca stepped away from removing grilled corn beside Tahli’s father. That quickly, she’d made herself useful.

“Hey,” she joined them, hooking fingers through her belt loops. Tahli pushed a smile up from her sinking stomach. Oh, Bianca. She had aura. And her infatuated eyes sparkled on Tahli’s ex-husband, but not in an immature way.

“Tahli, this is Bianca. B, this is Tahli.”

Tahli pursed her lips with her sprinting heart because, did this nigga just call her “B”?

“Hi, Tahli,” she held her dainty hand out. “I have heard nothing but the most incredible things about you.”

“No, she hasn’t,” Vin joked, and Bianca playfully shoved his arm.

“Shut up!” Bianca laughed.

Tahli felt like she had been blasted to Mars. She fought the urge to spit out, Don’t tell my husband to shut up. Don’t push my husband. Get your vanilla girl aesthetic the fuck away from my husband!

Instead, Tahli shook her soft hand, wondering why she knew so little about her. Bianca worked at one of Vin’s client’s firms. She had a son in college. A dead husband.

“Your family is incredible, your father is hilarious, and your kids are freakin’ adorable,” Bianca counted off. “And they clearly get their looks from you,” Bianca jibed.

“Ouch,” Vin playfully pouted, and Bianca giggled some more. Tahli hadn’t uttered a word, but her plastered smile remained. Shielding confusion, awkwardness, and…something else.

Could her father’s perfectly manicured grass just open up and suck her inside?

“So…” Tahli struggled for saliva. “Can I get you something? Beer…wine…? There’s plenty of food.

” Mostly hospitable, but Tahli craved to know what kind of girl Bianca was.

Did she split Coronas with Vin at the bar?

Sipping from the same bottleneck? Or was she a wine girl like Tahli? He liked his wine girls.

“Thank you. Everything looks amazing,” Bianca dashed eyes to Vin, as they colluded on some private joke. Tahli finally gathered enough saliva to let it pool behind her closed lips.

“I’m sorry,” Bianca could barely manage words through her plethora of giggles, “it’s just, I’m gluten-free, so I didn’t know what you would have…”

“So, she packed a lunch like she was going on a fucking field trip.”

Her and Vin laughed some more.

Tahli’s unnatural smile returned.

“Tahli, can you come show me how to do the Tamia line-dance, please? Excuse us.” Abby confiscated Tahli. Tahli had never loved her best friend more.

“You know the Tamia dance better than me,” Tahli reminded her.

“You looked like your face hurts.”

“She’s gluten-free,” Tahli attempted unaffected, but Abby cringed.

Paige switched the classic to Jersey club, and Abby led off the electric slide to Raze’s Break 4 Love .

Falling back into her groove, Tahli swirled her hips, throwing it all into the dance.

Even charmed Bianca to join in and watched Vin study the exchange.

Perhaps impressed. Maybe even surprised in her lack of jealousy.

But every time Tahli glanced up to find Drew admiring her with pride, it was Vin’s trancelike, blatant fixation on her ass that sent Tahli into fever.

She couldn’t lie. Something about him practically salivating with Bianca just feet away proved Tahli humanly satisfied.

Tahli bounced her booty with every drum beat, even flung her locs around captivatingly.