Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)(50)

“He probably doesn’t know what to do with himself only cooking for you now that Zere and I are both gone.” Tamia looks down at her fingers folded on the table before hazarding a glance back up at me. “I, um, saw the pics from the All-White Party in Miami. Looked fun as usual.”

“It was aight.” I lean back in my office chair and grimace. “You know that’s not my favorite thing to do.”

“But you did it for Zere,” she says, shooting me a speculative look. “How was that?”

I narrow my eyes at her. She may be LaTanya’s spitting image with her honey-brown skin and big, long-lashed doe eyes, but inside, she’s alarmingly like me. We haven’t discussed my relationship ending, though she knew about it weeks before our press release.

“You know Zee and I parted on good terms, right?” I ask.

“Yeah, she told me.”

“You guys talked?” I ask with a slight frown.

It’s not that I mind. It just hadn’t occurred to me. Zere and I dated for three years. When she moved in with me, she and Tamia became friends living under the same roof. She never postured herself as any kind of substitute for Tamia’s mother, but she was a woman in the house, and that proved helpful when Tamia wanted to learn more about shopping, makeup, and stuff I was ill-equipped for. LaTanya was always present and active, but there were gaps from time to time, and over the last year or so, Zere sometimes stepped into them.

“Yeah, she wanted me to know that even though things ended with you guys,” Tamia says, “she’s still there if I need her.”

“That was sweet,” I say because it is. “How are you feeling about the breakup? I should have asked weeks ago, but you seemed okay with it, so I didn’t dig.”

“I mean, Zere’s great, but I can’t say I saw it lasting forever.”

“Really?” Even though I’d reached the same conclusion and even expressed it to my father, I’d love to hear why my daughter believes it. “Why do you say that?”

“She just never seemed to quite fit.” She shrugs. “I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes it felt like we had a guest in the house, not because she hadn’t always lived there. Something just didn’t feel like it connected between the two of you. Not that you didn’t care about her, because I could tell you did. She just never seemed like the one. Ya know? And you deserve the one.”

I smile. No matter what I accomplish or how much money I obtain, Tamia will remain the best thing I’ve ever done.

“Thank you, Tam.” I force my smile away and try to look at her sternly. “Now don’t think you’re getting off this call without telling me when you’re coming back to get ready for first semester.”

“Yeah, about that…” She lays a pleading look on me, and I already know I won’t like what’s about to come out of her mouth. “I think I want to take a year off.”

“Tam.” I press one hand to my temple. “Everything is all set and ready to go.”

“I’m not, Dad. I’m not all set and ready to go. I want to defer for a year.”

“What?” I struggle to hold onto calm. “You’ve wanted to go to Stanford for as long as I can remember.”

“And I still do, but next year.” She sets her mouth into a familiar firm line. “You deferred a year.”

“Yeah, and I ended up never finishing.”

“No, you ended up receiving an honorary degree because you accomplished so much even without staying there four years.”

“You don’t know what you’re—”

“You’re right, Dad. I don’t know, so let me find out. Pop let you figure things out, defer a year. Do different things. Take some chances. Let me follow in your footsteps.”

“That’s just it. There are no footsteps. Just a whole bunch of false starts and stumbles and risks that I don’t want you to have to take.”

Over Tamia’s shoulder, I spot LaTanya walking past. The hell if I’m navigating this alone.

“LaTanya!” I call. “Could you come here, please?”

One of my best friends and the mother of my only child steps into view. Long braids flow down to her waist. Her honey-brown skin, the exact shade of Tamia’s, is flawless and unlined even as she just hit her forty-eighth birthday.

“You summoned?” she asks dryly, leaning over Tamia’s shoulder to catch my eyes on the screen.

“Have you heard your daughter’s plan to delay college?”

“I have,” she answers. “And can’t say I’m surprised. Why are you?”

I’m momentarily at a loss for words, but that doesn’t last long. Never does.

“What do you mean you’re not surprised?” I demand.

“She’s your daughter, Mav. What’d you expect, raising her the way you have? Letting her sit in on meetings, traipsing all over the world, giving her a front-row seat for all your business ventures and not expect it to shape who she is? What she wants from life? Of course she wants to invest in something like this.”

“Invest in…” My eyes ping between my daughter and LaTanya. “What investment?”

“Thanks, Mom,” Tamia mutters, rolling her eyes. “I hadn’t quite gotten to that part yet.”