Page 36 of Tempt Me
“Don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago.” She returned to her sandwich. The camper on the other side of her asked her a question, so I asked the counselor sitting beside me how she’d gotten involved in the camp. Before I knew it, lunchtime was over.
The afternoon was more of the same, more coding time, then a few of the girls shared their programs with the group. Dinner was scheduled to be a picnic on the lawn, and I hoped to get more photos of Jamila interacting with the girls in the early evening light. The shadows loved to play in Jamila’s bone structure, accentuating her strong cheekbones and her full lower lip. I couldn’t wait to capture it in hi-res on my phone.
As I trailed the last girls out of the hall, I spotted Jamila with two giant men. They wore jeans and golf shirts, one in maroon and the other burnt orange. One of them pushed her shoulder, and the other one caught her roughly.
What the heck?
I sprinted to help her.
11
“Hey! Stop it! Let her go!”I shouted.
The two men were built like linebackers, but I was too fired up to be afraid. I raced up to the guy holding Jamila and pummeled his shoulder. There was zero give to the muscle under his maroon shirt, but he looked down.
“What’s this?” He caught my hand, but at least that made him release Jamila. She stepped away, breathless.
“Run! Get help!” I shouted.
“Oh, I like her,” the one in orange said. “Feisty.”
“Let her go, Jevin,” Jamila said.
“But she’s assaulting me,” he said. “From the looks of her clothes, that could be a very lucrative lawsuit.”
“Like you’re hurting for funds,” she scoffed. “If you don’t let her go, she’s liable to punch you. Then she’ll sueyouwhen she breaks her hand.”
“I know how to punch so I won’t break my hand,” I snapped.
At the same time, he said, “Sueme?Unlikely.” He released my hand and stepped back, shrugging.
“Are you okay?” The other guy asked. “Need me to look at your hand?”
“No. Thank you.” What kind of assailants were these? “Jamila, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She rolled her eyes. “Natalie, meet my brothers, Jevin and Jaleel Jallow. Guys, meet Natalie Jones. She’s doing some PR work for me.”
“Call me J.J.” The orange-shirted one stuck his hand out. His shake was surprisingly gentle.
“Wait. You’re all J.J.—all three of you.”
When he grinned, his teeth were brilliant white against his full, dark lips. The family resemblance hit me. Why hadn’t I seen it as sibling horseplay and kept my nose out of it?
“She’s a girl. No one would give her a nickname like that. She’s Mila. I got J.J. because I’m the older one, and he’s just Jevin.”
“JustJevin? I’m the good-lookin’ one.” His grin was equally sparkly. In fact—
“You’re twins?” I glanced between them. Jevin carried himself more casually, and J.J. stood straight like a redwood, but otherwise, they were identical.
“They are,” Jamila said. “Total nightmare.”
“We were only getting you back for all the abuse you gave us when you were bigger than us,” Jevin said. “One hundred percent fair.”
“Ah.” I remembered her speech from earlier. “These were the brothers who called you a nerd.”
“We were snot-nosed kids,” J.J. said. “Of course we were going to call our studious big sister a nerd. Anything to make her pull her face out of the computer screen and notice us.”
“The question is, what are you doing here?” Jamila asked. “I distinctly remembernottexting you.”
