Page 37 of The Sweetest Return

Most of my clothes were still in garment bags and half-unpacked bins, waiting for the version of me who had promised to organize by color, season, and mood. But one thing had been handled the day I moved in.

Dre’s AWU letterman jacket.

Purple and gold. Heavy wool. Leather sleeves. Twenty-two on the arm.

I had hung it at the very back of the closet, behind coats I wore now and dresses I had not found a reason to wear yet. Out of view, but not forgotten. Never forgotten.

No matter where I went, that jacket came with me.

New York. Smaller apartments. Bigger closets. The first grown-woman place I paid for by myself. The apartment where I packed my life after accepting the YSL offer. The condo Damien helped me choose furniture for before either one of us admitted we were decorating around a relationship already thinning.

Every time I moved, I told myself I should finally let it go.

Every time, I packed it carefully.

Some nights, when the ache got too honest and no one was around to judge me for it, I slipped into that jacket and let it swallow me whole. Imani Bennett, size eight on a good day and several inches shorter than the man it had belonged to, standing in some city that was not Pittsburgh, wearing Andre Jones around my shoulders like memory had weight.

The leather still held him if I let myself imagine hard enough.

Cold air after a game. Grass and sweat. That cologne I used to pretend I was not addicted to.

His arms around me, chin near the top of my head, laughing because I swore I wasn’t freezing while my teeth told the truth.

I touched the sleeve.

I had left his apartment with this jacket on because I couldn’t make myself take it off. Later, I told myself I would mail it back when my throat stopped closing every time I thought about his face. When my eyes stopped filling before I made it across a room. When I could fold the purple wool and gold leather without remembering how special I felt the night he gave it to me.

That day never came.

So I kept it.

Protected it.

Hid it.

Loved it in private like it was one more part of him I did not know how to return.

My phone buzzed again from the kitchen.

I did not move.

I stood there with my fingers on Dre’s sleeve and admitted the thing I had been trying to avoid all afternoon.

No matter how carefully I named it, I was already moving toward him.

CHAPTER THREE

Ishould have kept my ass at home.

I knew it the moment Andre Malik Jones walked into Royal House looking like dark chocolate, quiet money, and every mistake I had ever wanted to make twice.

For nearly an hour, I had been doing well.

Better than well, honestly.

My scalp was still a little tender from fresh braids, my toes freshly painted white. Crown Weekend had required appointments, and I had respected the assignment.

I stepped into The Nocturne’s lobby in royal-purple silk with my braids down my back, gold at my ears, diamonds at my wrist, and Delina La Rosée warming against my skin. Camille took one look at me and called my dress an act of hostility, which meant I had chosen correctly.