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Back Queen Move Save as PDF
Chapters (64)
  1. Book Description
  2. About Kennedy Ryan
  3. Also from Kennedy Ryan
  4. Acknowledgments from the Author
  5. Book Description
  6. Dedication
  7. Prologue
  8. Part One
  9. Chapter One
  10. Chapter Two
  11. Chapter Three
  12. Chapter Four
  13. Chapter Five
  14. Chapter Six
  15. Chapter Seven
  16. Part Two
  17. Chapter Eight
  18. Chapter Nine
  19. Chapter Ten
  20. Chapter Eleven
  21. Chapter Twelve
  22. Chapter Thirteen
  23. Chapter Fourteen
  24. Chapter Fifteen
  25. Chapter Sixteen
  26. Chapter Seventeen
  27. Chapter Eighteen
  28. Chapter Nineteen
  29. Chapter Twenty
  30. Chapter Twenty-One
  31. Chapter Twenty-Two
  32. Chapter Twenty-Three
  33. Chapter Twenty-Four
  34. Chapter Twenty-Five
  35. Chapter Twenty-Six
  36. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  37. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  38. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  39. Chapter Thirty
  40. Chapter Thirty-One
  41. Chapter Thirty-Two
  42. Chapter Thirty-Three
  43. Chapter Thirty-Four
  44. Chapter Thirty-Five
  45. Chapter Thirty-Six
  46. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  47. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  48. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  49. Chapter Forty
  50. Chapter Forty-One
  51. Chapter Forty-Two
  52. Chapter Forty-Three
  53. Chapter Forty-Four
  54. Chapter Forty-Five
  55. Chapter Forty-Six
  56. Chapter Forty-Seven
  57. Chapter Forty-Eight
  58. Chapter Forty-Nine
  59. Epilogue
  60. Author’s Note
  61. An excerpt from The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan
  62. Discover 1001 Dark Nights Collection Seven
  63. Discover the World of 1001 Dark Nights
  64. Special Thanks

“Why do you want to move so much?”

The smile slips and falls, and she presses her lips together like she’ll only let so many words out at a time. “I miss my family, Kimba. I want to babysit my sister’s children. I want to be in the synagogue where I grew up. I want meat from the deli around the corner and all the things that made New York not just a city, but my home. I want the little part of it where my faith and my community and the things that made me who I am all live.”

She looks at me with sad eyes, with Ezra’s eyes. “I was so glad to leave, to set off and do my own thing, go my own way, but my mother died and I wasn’t with her. I want the wandering to be done.”

I think about my grandfather, my parents, our huge family having dinners together every Sunday. Borrowing Kayla’s things without asking. Cleaning the house together on Saturday mornings with my siblings, music blasting, and Mama singing Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September” at the top of her lungs. Daddy’s secret stash of cigars. The gazillion-piece puzzles Mama insists we do together sometimes when we’ve been going our own way and haven’t been at the same table at the same time all week.

“I get that,” I say. “But I don’t want Ezra to go.”

We pull into her driveway, and she stares at the garage door, the flowering bushes standing guard at the bottom of her porch steps, a hard little smile on her lips. “Don’t worry, Kimba. I doubt we’ll ever leave.”

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Kimba

It’s been two weeks since my cousin came to town unannounced and showed out in Mrs. Clay’s class right through my white pants. Ezra came over that night to get his windbreaker. There was a time when he would have barreled up the stairs and barely knocked before barging into my room. That night I faked cramps, asked Kayla to take his windbreaker down to him and say I’d see him later. She looked at me strangely. It was the first time Ezra had ever come over when I’d refused to see him. Maybe growing up means growing apart. And maybe it’s other people meaning more to you than the ones who used to mean the most.

Like Hannah.

Jeremy is kind of taking me to the dance. Technically, Daddy isn’t having it, so Kayla’s driving me, Mona and Ezra to the dance, and I’ll meet Jeremy there.

“Your hair looks good,” I tell Mona in my bedroom while we get ready.

She peers into the mirror and pats her new asymmetrical haircut. “Ya think so?”