“Hey, why you so nosy, Henkel?” Kiah broke in to the conversation, as his friend started questioning Mina about her life.
“Cho, man. Just trying to get to know this lovely lady a little better,” came the easy reply, accompanied by a sly grin. “I think your friend is old enough to take care of herself. You mind your own business.”
“On that note,” Mina said, laughing as she got up, “I’m going to the ladies’ room.”
There was no way she was hanging around for the part when he asked her what happened to her hand.
She’d seen the men glancing at her empty sleeve whenever she raised her arm above the level of the table, and knew it was coming. If she could forestall it until after she’d had another rum punch, maybe she could come up with a witty, pithy reply.
There was a bit of a line for the bathroom, and by the time she came back outside it was to find the dance floor crowded with people, all jumping and dancing to a popular calypso song. And there, in the midst of it all, was Kiah.
Mina kept walking, even though her first impulse was to stop and stare. The woman dancing with him was gorgeous, with long, professionally streaked hair, impeccable makeup and an hourglass figure on full display in a tight, skimpy jumpsuit.
And if she danced any closer to Kiah, they’d be wearing the same pants.
Why that annoyed Mina as much as it did, she didn’t want to contemplate, but it took everything she had to keep a slight smile on her face and not look back at the gyrating couple.
Slim and Henkel got up as she approached, and Henkel held out his hand. Then he did a little sideways shimmy toward the dance floor.
“Come dance with me, Mina,” he said.
She laughed and shook her head, already lowering herself into her chair. Thankfully it was facing away from the dance floor, so she could avoid the display going on there.
With an elaborate sigh, Henkel sat down beside her and, resting his elbow on the table, put his chin in his palm so he was looking right into her face.
“So, Miss Mina, how long are you staying here with me?”
He made it sound as though she came specifically to see him, and would be moving into his house any minute, and she couldn’t help chuckling.
“I’m not sure yet. Probably about a month. Just until I get the new systems I’ll be working on for the hospital squared away.”
How a man of his age could still achieve puppy-dog eyes was a mystery to Mina, but somehow he managed it.
“If you need someone to show you around and take you to nicer places than this, just let me know, you hear?”
Slim kissed his teeth and rolled his eyes, then leaned forward so he was almost right between Mina and his friend.
“Don’t go anywhere with him. You don’t need an old reprobate like him hanging around.”
“Who you calling a reprobate?” Henkel abandoned his attempt at flirtation and rounded on his friend.
“You, same one,” was the reply.
“Huh. If I’m so much of a reprobate, how come you’re always hanging out with me?”
“Because I’m one, too,” was the response. “But I’m just honest about it.”
Mina couldn’t help laughing at the banter, even though her thoughts remained fixed on the dance floor. The song had changed, but Kiah hadn’t come back.
As though reading her mind, Slim looked that way and shook his head, before taking a sip of his drink.
“Aii, sah. That Trini girl goin’ wine off Kiah’s pants front, if he’s not careful.”
“We used to call him ‘Calypso Kiah’ back at university,” Mina said, trying to sound nonchalant, and steadfastly resisting the urge to turn around to gawk, too.
“Not surprised,” Henkel replied, his eyes narrowing, so that Mina wondered exactly what was happening. “You knock two tin cans together on the other side of the island, and that man is there to dance. Whew, that woman getting on bad.”
“Getting on bad” was one of those all-purpose expressions Mina had learned over years of knowing Kiah. It could mean anything, from praise of the woman’s dancing skills to her being about to start a fight, but somehow she didn’t think Henkel meant the latter. His eyes were wide, and he raised a hand to fan at his face.
Slim chuckled. “Niesha’s been trying to reel Kiah in for the last six months, not realizing she hasn’t set the hook yet.”
Henkel shook his head. “Lost cause, that man. She could hook me, reel me in and sink me, all in that time, and I wouldn’t even mind.”
“Ha, that’s what you say now, but Niesha would chew you up and spit you out without blinking, and if she ever looks at you the way she looking at Kiah now, you’d run so fast.”
Okay, now Mina had to glance over her shoulder to see what it was the men were looking at, and when she did, she wished she hadn’t.
With her body pressed flush to Kiah’s and one arm draped over his shoulder, Niesha was staring up into his face with an expression of blatant hunger. And that swivel thing she was doing with her hips...
With heat rising at her nape, Mina forced herself to turn back around and reached for her glass, trying to push away the emotions bubbling in her chest. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t used to seeing women throw themselves at Kiah. That had been happening since they hit puberty and the girls started noticing how handsome he was. Yet, somehow, tonight was different.
It actually hurt.
She took a long swallow of her drink and tried to focus on what the other men were saying. And by the time Kiah made
