Nia was sitting there with that pillow in her lap looking real calm on the outside.
Inside was a completely different feeling.
JP knows he wrong for this, she thought, eyes doing a slow, body sweep. Them boxers ain’t leaving nothing to the imagination.
That print alone is so disrespectful. And that half way open hole in the front — one wrong move. Just one and it’s for air. Lord.
She licked her lips and looked at the TV trying not to smile.
Do not smile Nia. Do not—
She smiled.
Yeah one those I can’t-help-it smile from thinking about things you shouldn’t be thinking about in the first place.
JP was in the kitchen when he looked over at Kia.
He saw that smile immediately.
Walked back toward the couch slow.
“What’s up,” he said. “Whatever you over there thinking about got to be good. Because you have a beautiful smile.”
Nia blinked. Came back to the room.
Realized she had been daydreaming for a solid eight seconds staring at absolutely nothing with a grin on her face like a teenager.
“Yeah— what?” she said. “Wait what did you say again?”
JP laughed.
“Damn. You in LaLa Land.” He sat down on the other end of the couch. “What you do on your way over here?”
She laughed too because what else could she do — she got caught slipping and they both knew it.
“Shut up,” she said, still smiling, loosing up her ponytail. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“Nothing.”
“Mm hm thinking and smiling.”
She threw the pillow at him.
He caught it, still grinning, and then stood up and walked toward the bedroom.
He came back thirty seconds later pulling a pair of black basketball shorts up over his waist.
Nia watched this happen and felt some kind of way about it immediately.
“Why you deciding to put something on now?” she said, “I was loving the view.”
JP stopped.
Shorts halfway up. Hand frozen at the waistband.
The problem was that what she just said her voice, the way she said it, the fact that she said it at all — had done something.
Something very visible that the basketball shorts were now desperately trying to contain.
He pulled them up the rest of the way. Adjusted. Shifted. Casually put his hand in his pocket like that was just a thing he did.
It wasn’t enough.
He turned around slowly and sat back down, angling himself trying to look normal.
Nia looked up.
Her eyes went where eyes go.
Then up to his face.
Then back down for confirmation.
Her mouth opened just slightly. Then closed. Then she leaned back against the couch cushion and looked up at the ceiling and fanned herself once with her hand — slow, deliberate, dramatic.
“JP.”
“Yeah.”
“Ooo.” She fanned again. “It’s getting a bit warm in here.”
JP said absolutely nothing.
Just reached over to the end table, picked up the remote, and pointed it at the ceiling fan.
The fan started spinning on low making a calm breeze.
From the looks of it that didn’t help.
To be continued…