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willing to take me out on a date, too. Now when I attended church, I’d be praying to God that Tariq lost my number. The only problem with that theory was that I still needed to see him one last time to get my wallet back, assuming he didn’t steal from me, too. Then, I got an idea. “I know how you can make it up to me.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œI left my wallet in his car. You think you could get it from him when you get to work in the morning?”
    â€œI guess.” Loraine’s hesitation bothered me. Two seconds ago, she was singing this man’s praises, and now she was too apprehensive to pick up my dang wallet. “Hopefully he doesn’t try to dodge me in the parking lot when I see him.”
    â€œHe better hope I don’t see him walking down the street when I’m driving. I’ll probably run him over.”
    Loraine laughed. “Girl, you are a trip.”
    â€œWhatever, girl. Do me the favor of getting my wallet so I don’t ever have to see his stupid face and be charged with vehicular manslaughter, or better yet, homicide.”
    â€œOkay, I’ll see what I can do.”

CHAPTER 4
Erin
    W hen I got to work, I was counting down the hours until lunch. As soon as the clock hit twelve, I made sure Loraine remembered my wallet. Part of me felt comfortable with the lie that all I cared about was my wallet while a bigger part of me knew that I was anxious to hear how things went with Tariq. Would he apologize for being a jerk and ask to literally kiss the ground I walked on to get back in my good graces? Or would he tell her that he threw my wallet out in the rain, too—three miles after he kicked me out? My good sense was leaning more toward the latter, but a small part of me was itching to be hopeful.
    When I finally got Loraine on the phone, I contained my composure. “Did you get my wallet?” My tone was relaxed while I nibbled on my fingernails.
    She paused for a second as if she had no clue what I was talking about. Before I got to cursing her out, she said, “Oh, yeah. I spoke to him today, and he was surprisingly nonchalant.”
    Was he nonchalant about throwing my belongings out the window or indifferent about the girl he kicked out of his car? Or did he keep my wallet in his front seat because he didn’t even remember my name two seconds after he drove away? “What does that mean? What did he say?”
    â€œI thought he was going to bite my head off when I saw him, buthe was still the same nice, sweet Tariq from the office. He even bought me, and the rest of the office, coffee and donuts.” I could hear her smiling through the receiver. I pressed my ear to the phone as I patiently waited for the point in the conversation where she talked about me. “But anyway, he told me he left your wallet at his place and would bring it to you tonight after he gets off work.”
    My mouth dropped. My wonderfully executed plan to avoid Lucifer’s spawn had backfired. Aside from the fact that he showed no emotion to kicking a beautiful woman like myself out of his car in a storm, he invited himself back to my home without my consent. “Why didn’t he leave my wallet in his car? Did he go through it or something?”
    â€œI don’t think he did anything like that. Maybe he saw it in his car and brought it inside his place.”
    â€œI guess that makes sense. Did he say anything else?”
    â€œNope, that was it.”
    I went to breathing deeply again while I squeezed my fingers around my cell phone. I should have been upset that I wasted most of my lunch hour talking about how little Tariq talked about me. I knew more about the damn donuts than I did about his sentiments toward me. And now, I was unwillingly prepping myself for an impromptu date with a man I hoped I would never see again. Of course, it wasn’t a real date, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t planning to fix my hair,