Page 18 of Plus One

Also, none of his business.

Monique’s smile tightened, and her gaze shifted. “Well, they saidmyroom was ready.”

“That’s good.” Maurice picked up his phone and turned it over in his hands. What could he say to keep her talking without putting both feet in his mouth?

“Hey. You okay?” Monique asked, standing closer to him. She smelled clean and warm, a little spicy and sweet too.

His inhale was greedy. “Yeah. I’m good. Not used to traveling, that’s all. My routine is out of whack.”

“Tell me about it. My kids have been on my ass since before I left the house. It’s like three-thirty back home, but they keep blowing up my phone.” She huffed a laugh. “What nineteen-year-olds do you know who’re all up in their mother’s business. I’m the one who should be sweating them, right?”

Kids. She was talking to her child. “How many children do you have?”

She was texting now. Probably her children. “Me? Two. Twins. Jasmine and Justin. The light of my life and pain in my butt.” Her face brightened with a kind of warmth that Maurice had rarely seen. “You?”

Him what? He had Tommie and a comfortable relationship withhischildren who called himuncle.

Maurice shook his head.

“Really? That’s rare.”

“How so?”

“Because.” She waved a hand over him and scrunched up her face in a way Maurice read as playful. “As good as you look and as old as you are, you don’t have kids?”

Silence settled between them, thick and heavy.

She shivered as if startled awake.

Maurice didn’t so much as blink.

“Lemme go get my room key and stop letting my sleep-deprived brain run the show.” Monique gave him an apologetic look and took a step back.

She handed him the key cards that he’d given her earlier and walked away.

Moments later, Monique passed again. She held up her new key cards and waved at Maurice on her way to the elevators.

Maybe he was reading too much into it, but her pace slowed. Was she inviting him to join her?

He sat back down.

She cocked her head to one side and shrugged. “I guess I’ll see ya ’round, Mo.” The elevator pinged, and the doors opened.

“See you ’round, Mo,” he said softly, as the elevator doors separated them.

His phone buzzed with a text alert.

TOMMIE

You settled at the hotel?

Absolutely not.

MAURICE

Yeah

CHAPTER 6Monique