Champagne Kisses by Zuri Day

grown. Anything the two of us did would have to be by mutual consent, believe that.”
    “Stay away from her, Dex. She doesn’t need somebody like you messing with her head.”
    “One, how do you know what she needs? And two, what makes you think that her head is what I want to mess with?”
    In an uncharacteristic show of anger, Donovan was in Dexter’s face in two seconds flat. “Leave her alone,” he growled, his finger in a calm and somewhat bemused Dexter’s face. “I mean it. She is off-limits. Don’t make me—”
    “I thought I—” Genevieve rounded the corner and stopped short. The brothers tried to act casual—Dexter slowly sipping his wine, Donovan looking out the window, his hands stuffed in his pockets—but the tension in the room could be cut with a Samurai sword…maybe. Genevieve didn’t seem fazed. “Who stole whose marbles?” she dryly asked, a question she’d often posed to the men when they were boys.
    Dexter walked over to his mom and enveloped her in a bear hug.
    “Get off me, boy!” Genevieve’s laughter belied the gruffness of her tone. “Trying to divert my attention. I heard y’all arguing.”
    “Naw, just schooling your son on the world of women—”
    “What’s for dinner?” Donovan’s desire to change the subject was about as subtle as a preacher in a playboy club. He went to Genevieve’s other side and the two men walked with their mother toward the dining room.
    “Smells like roast,” Genevieve said in a serious tone. “But sounds like chicken. You boys finish up whatever you were discussing. Dinner is in five minutes.”
    “Whoa, man,” Dexter said after making sure their mother was no longer in the hall. “I was messing with you, just jerking your chain. Calm down!” He watched Donovan finish a half a glass of wine in one swallow. “I’m sorry, man. You’re really feeling her, aren’t you?”
    “I shouldn’t be. Situation’s dicey, timing’s all wrong.”
    “What’s the situation?”
    “Not sure,” Donovan said, shaking his head. “But it has something to do with a former male friend who she swears is not an ex but who has her skittish about getting involved with anyone. Of course, that could be her excuse for not getting involved with me, but that’s what she told me. Then there’s the matter of her working for Boss. If we started dating and then broke up that could be uncomfortable.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about that, man. We’ve got to live each day to the fullest and let the chips fall where they may. I say you should go after her. She’ll be here what, two weeks?”
    Donovan did a mental calculation. “As of tomorrow, because the Fourth falls on a Friday, nine days.”
    “Then I’d say you’ve got nine days to get in those panties.”
    “Dexter…”
    “I’m just saying, brother. That’s a whole bunch of badonkadonk right there. Shame to let all that go to waste.”
    “There you go again, man.”
    “What? I’m just saying.”
    “Well quit saying. And quit looking, too. Marissa Hayes is off-limits. You got it?”
    Dexter nodded. “Got it.”
    “Good. Let’s go eat.”

Chapter 9
    T wo hours of shopping and a whole medium pizza later, Marissa was slightly less angry than she’d been three hours ago. Just who did Donovan Drake think he was to order her off the job like a ten-year-old? When Marissa Hayes started a job, she finished it or at least she left it at a sensible point for her to begin the next day. After an afternoon of familiarizing herself with the file’s contents and their office’s system and then finally creating a structure that would work for expedient input of the material into a database, she’d just hit her stride and had actually begun enjoying her work. So much so that there had been a smile on her face and a song in her heart at just around six o’clock, just around the time she’d looked around, figured another hour or so would set her up perfectly for the following day. And then he had to come