Bring me up on stage. Acknowledge me. I don’t do the things I do so people can pat me on the damn back. The only thing Ruiz can do for me is keep the promises he made when he campaigned. And the only man I need to hear call my name is not in this room.

“You go,” I tell Carla, grabbing my clutch from the table. I look to Piers, Felita. “Or one of you. I don’t care.”

“You’re really leaving now?” Felita asks, a frown gathering between her brows. “The speech is later in the program. You don’t want to wait? What do we tell the governor?”

I glance at Mama, warmed by the knowing approval in her eyes, in her smile. This may be my greatest move yet.

“Tell him I waited long enough.”

I don’t know where Ezra lives.

I got off his old exit only to realize I don’t know where his new house is, or if he’s even in it. He said he was renovating a house “nearby,” but I can’t plug “nearby” into Google maps.

A lot has changed for him over the last few months, least of which may be a new house. As I predicted, his book was a huge success, hitting all the lists. I was in the thick of managing multiple campaigns, but I did see him on a few morning shows. Texted him my congrats. His book is in airports. There’s a Netflix documentary in the works about the YLA story. New baby. New book. New success.

New house?

Absent of a better idea, though I’m sure there is one, I park in front of their house. It looks like no one is home, but then the front door swings open.

“Shit.” I resist the urge to duck down behind the steering wheel like a stalker.

Aiko walks out onto the porch, hand in hand with a tall man…who is not Ezra. I recognize the guy who stood awkwardly by the door with Aiko’s luggage the day she dropped the bombshell about her pregnancy.

Chaz.

I wish I could disappear, but I just sit perfectly still, hoping my mother’s Benz will miraculously become invisible before they notice it.

“Kimba?” Aiko asks from the driveway where a car, presumably Chaz’s, is parked. “Is that you?”

Great.

I open the door and poke my head out, smiling as if it’s perfectly normal for me to be sitting outside her house dressed in formal wear.

“Hi.” My wave is as stiff as my smile. “I was just wondering if…is Ezra home by any chance?”

“He might be.” Aiko smiles, tilts her head to the side. “I can’t say for sure since he doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Oh. Right. Could you maybe…direct me?”

“Next street over.” She points to the right. “Fourth house on the left. Gray with red shutters.”