Paul had been out of the loop for three days, so there was a lot to be done. Marlene was probably going to kill him when she caught him because he hadn’t bothered to call her when he got knocked. With her being a defense attorney, she should’ve been the first person he called, but Paul chose not to play that card. The last things he needed was Marlene worrying and talking a hole in his head about Rhonda’s bullshit and his quality of life. He had gotten himself into it, and he would get himself out.

Nothing that had happened over the past few days sat well with Paul, but what he felt the worst about was missing the exhibit. Larry had gone through a lot of trouble to set the event up, and Paul hadn’t even showed. It hurt him to know that he had probably missed the opportunity to finally get his career off the ground, but what made him feel like shit was knowing that he had let Larry down. He had gone out of his way to try and help Paul out and because of his lack of selfcontrol, he flushed it down the toilet. He would apologize to his friend later, but at that moment the most important thing to him was getting the hell away from Center Street.

By the time Audrey came out of the courthouse, Paul was already gone. She had planned on approaching him when he was released, but she didn’t expect him to be processed out so quickly after she’d posted the bond. She looked up and down the street, but saw no sign of him, and being that there were multiple train stations in the area, she had no way to know exactly which way he had gone. She sighed and thought on her next possible point of intercept.

40

When Jah walked into the apartment, he was thoroughly surprised at what he saw. Yoshi was sitting at the table, chatting with Marcus and sipping herbal tea. She had taken her weave out and let her real hair breathe. It was flipped and pinned up in the back, with one side hanging down to cover the spot where Rel had hit her. Her face still bore scrapes, but the worst of her bruises were fading.

“Hey,” Jah said, coming into the kitchen with Billy on his heels.

“What’s up, Jah?” Yoshi got up and hugged him. She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to enjoy his scent.

“I see you’re feeling better.” He squeezed her once more before letting go.

“A little bit, even if I don’t look it,” she said and shrugged.

Jah kissed her forehead tenderly and pulled her close to him. “You’re beautiful to me, ma.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Billy whispered to Marcus.