Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne

Author:Nikki Payne [Payne, Nikki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Teddy Pendergrass

She moved to bow out of the dance. But Dorsey’s hands curled around her back, then slightly stiffened. The singer crooned on—a soft encouragement.

Dorsey’s breath puffed in her ear. “So, I drop people and never look back. Is that all you know about me?” he asked.

Heat crept up her neck, and she needed about forty gallons of water to get this lump out of her throat. “I . . . keep trying to get a sense of you. But everyone I talk to has a different opinion of you,” Liza said, surprising herself with her honesty.

“Have you been persuaded one way or another?” he said while swaying her. Liza tried not to sigh into him. “Or are you just pleased to hear the gossip?”

Liza smiled. “Column B, I think.”

“Well, far be it from me to deny you any pleasure.”

Okay, I need to get out of here, or Dorsey is going to get all my cookies tonight. The part of her—with the tiniest sliver of self-respect—scrambled for safer conversation.

“Who would you most like to invite to dinner, living or dead?” Liza asked.

Dorsey tilted his head down in surprise. “You downloaded the app?”

“Just answer the question.” Liza rolled her eyes. She’d downloaded the app ages ago.

Dorsey looked thoughtful. “I think I would invite my biological father.”

Her eyebrows rose. “From what you told me, he probably wasn’t a good dude.”

“I know. He was probably a rich, abusive asshole who thought he could take advantage of a poor foreigner in his home.” The pads of his fingers traced up and down the small of her back. She let go a soft breath. Degree by fractional degree, Liza was unspooling.

“So, what would you even do at dinner?” Liza asked.

“I would be a rich, abusive asshole.”

Liza thought she should close this line of questioning, but he asked her—

“And you?”

“Uh, honestly?” Liza asked.

His gaze was dark and intentional on her. There was no bottom to those smoldering eyes. “Always.”

Liza felt for the first time how far out of her depth she’d waded once again. Every turn in the road led to Dorsey. “I would invite Patricia Fitzgerald,” she said.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Why my mom?”

“She was just this middle-class lady from the Rust Belt, and she built an entire ecosystem of goodness all over the world. WCO’s work is unimpeachable, and she did it all by making rich people pay for it. I did a paper on her for my international studies thesis.”

“Um, that’s . . .” He trailed off and squinted like he was trying to make something out. “I think that may be the mayor that LeDeya just asked to hold her shoes?” Dorsey stopped swaying.

Liza turned to see her sister with her sky-high heels off, twerking and popping her booty up and down.

“How do you twerk to Teddy Pendergrass?” Liza wondered aloud. “Lord, all she needs is a pole.” This was the Bennetts’ worst showing. Dorsey took a step back from her, and Liza’s body chilled. Had they been

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