Spin Off
Lashae stared at the screen for a second before turning the phone face down on the table.
The vibration continued.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
She didn’t even bother checking the messages.
Across from her, Quinn raised an eyebrow.
“Everything alright?”
Lashae shrugged and reached for her drink.
“Yeah. Just somebody who don’t understand the meaning of being ignored.”
A small smile tugged at Quinn’s lips.
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
The phone buzzed again.
Lashae rolled her eyes.
“If you keep looking at it like that, it might explode.”
That earned a laugh from Quinn.
For some reason, hearing her laugh made Lashae forget the phone was even there.
She liked that.
Usually her attention wandered. Usually she found reasons to leave. Usually she was checking the time, wondering when a conversation would end.
Not tonight.
Tonight she found herself studying Quinn instead.
The way she smiled before she laughed.
The way her accent slipped out whenever she got comfortable.
The way she leaned forward when she was interested in what somebody was saying.
It was different.
Dangerously different.
The phone buzzed again.
This time Quinn glanced down at it.
“You sure you don’t need to answer that?”
Lashae looked at the screen long enough to see Domo’s name flash across it.
Then she locked the phone and slid it into her purse.
“Nope.”
Quinn chuckled.
“Cold.”
“I learned from the best.”
The truth was, Domo had spent so much time treating Lashae like an option that she no longer felt guilty about returning the favor.
Whatever Domo wanted could wait.
Right now, she was sitting across from a woman who actually made her want to stay.
And that was becoming harder to ignore than the phone calls.
Quinn rested her elbows lightly on the table, curiosity written all over her face.
“So, do you have family here?” she asked.
Lashae let out a short laugh.
“Apparently.”
Quinn blinked.
“Apparently?”
“Girl, I found out I got an uncle last night.”
Quinn’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“I’m serious.”
Lashae shook her head, still trying to process it herself.
“I was at a party, minding my business, and next thing I know people asking me who my mother is.”
“And then?”
“I tell them, and this older man starts staring at me like he seen a ghost.”
Quinn laughed.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What happened after that?”
“He starts naming people in my family. My grandmother, my mother, where they grew up. Then he tells me he’s my uncle.”
Quinn sat back in disbelief.
“That sounds like something straight out of a movie.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You’re telling me you came to Jamaica and accidentally discovered family?”
Lashae nodded.
“Pretty much.”
Quinn shook her head with a grin.
“You just never know being Jamaica.”
Lashae laughed and pointed at her.
“That’s exactly what everybody kept saying.”
“I mean, it’s true. Somebody always knows somebody.”
“Apparently.”
The two women laughed together.
“So what was that like?” Quinn asked. “Finding out something like that?”
Lashae thought about it for a moment.
“Honestly? Weird.”
“Weird how?”
“I spent my whole life thinking I knew who my family was. Then one conversation changes everything.”
Quinn nodded thoughtfully.
“I can understand that.”
“But it was nice too.”
“Nice?”
“Yeah. He seemed genuinely happy to meet me. Kept introducing me to people and telling them who I was.”
A small smile crossed her face as she remembered it.
“I didn’t expect that.”
Quinn watched her quietly.
“Maybe that’s why you were supposed to be there.”
Lashae raised an eyebrow.
“You believe in stuff like that?”
“A little.”
“A little?”
Quinn laughed.
“Okay, maybe more than a little.”
Lashae found herself smiling again.
The conversation flowed easily after that, moving from family stories to childhood memories. At some point she stopped noticing the music playing in the background.
She stopped thinking about the missed calls.
Stopped thinking about Domo.
For the first time in a long while, she was simply enjoying someone’s company.
And judging by the way Quinn kept smiling whenever their eyes met, the feeling might not have been one-sided.
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