“Tonight,” I say, smiling through the window and turning to walk up Mama’s long driveway.

He doesn’t pull off until I’m inside, and I immediately wish he was here. Mama and Keith are both in the front room waiting for me.

“Well, well, well,” Keith says from the white couch in Mama’s sitting room. “Look who’s home.”

Mama always had a “front room” when we were growing up, which we would use under threat of severe punishment. Now we’re adult enough to sit on the white furniture, but it seems Keith still wants to play childish games.

“Keith,” Mama says, her tone much milder than the curiosity in her eyes. “Leave your sister alone. If she wants to cavort with a married man in front of the entire neighborhood, what business is it of ours?”

“I was not cavorting,” I say, running a weary hand over my bushy hair. “And Ezra’s not married.”

“The way you look,” Keith says with obvious relish, “you can’t tell me you haven’t been doing some cavorting, and I’ve seen the woman he lives with and his son. I just hope you don’t…how did you put it…tarnish our father’s legacy too badly.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, but with less heat than I would if he didn’t have some ground to stand on. Guilt twinges my conscience as I remember those little pink slippers under the bed. I glance down at my owned ruined stilettos. If the Choo fits…

“I’m not judging you, Kimba,” he says, the spiteful amusement leaving his expression. “I’m just asking you not to judge me, especially for something I’ve dealt with. Delaney and me, we’re working on it.”

Working on it.

That’s what Ezra said he and Aiko did, but that’s over. He’s done ‘working on it,’ and he admitted he may have started giving up after we met again.

“Monday.” I pull one desecrated Jimmy Choo off and then the other, standing barefoot and holding them by the heels. “I’ll meet you at your office Monday morning. Nine o’clock. You better have a plan. The people of this district deserve real solutions, and if you can’t prove to me you have some, I promise both of you…” I pause to include Mama in my warning glance. “There’s not enough sibling goodwill or guilt in this world to make me help your ass.”

“Fair enough, sis,” Keith says, his smile wide and genuine. “And sorry for cock blocking.”

“It was not clock blocking,” I say indignantly.

He raises knowing brows, and I remember Ezra’s prominent erection. Okay. Maybe there was some cock.

“I’m going to shower,” I settle on saying, turning toward the stairs.

My phone rings when I reach my bedroom and I pull it from the clutch.

Piers.