Coffee, Champagne Or Me
A Chance Meeting. A Hotel Suite. One Night With A Friend.
Carousel nine. O’Hare. 9:47 p.m. A woman shouting his full name across baggage claim.
She is tall and brown-skinned, in a camel coat with a crown of curls, and Sam has no idea who she is. Then she slaps his arm, and his arm remembers before he does.
Imani Brooks taught Sam whites and colors in a basement laundry room his first week in America. For two years she was his best friend. She sat to his left, borrowed his highlighters, and watched him look at everyone else. Three years after graduation the glasses are gone, she models for a living, and she has a car waiting and a suite above the river.
One drink, she says. The catch is that he has to say yes.
She has a six o’clock call. He has a client on Tuesday. They have one snowed-in night, a champagne bottle sweating in an ice bucket, and three years of things neither of them said out loud.
Imani knows exactly what she wants. This time, she isn’t waiting to be noticed.
A funny, tender, friends-to-lovers reunion in a Chicago winter. Two people who were the last to know, one long night, and a morning that holds a surprise.
Interracial • Friends to lovers • Reunion • Hotel suite • Black heroine, Indian hero • Explicit • Standalone, happy ending • Warm • Funny • 18+ Adults Only.
A glimpse beneath the sheets…
“SAMEER!!!!!!”
The voice cut through the noise like a hand slapping a light switch. He turned.
He had been standing at carousel nine at O’Hare, watching the belt go round, asleep on his feet after a week of back-to-back meetings in Los Angeles and four hours in a middle seat. Beyond the glass wall, December snow blew sideways across the tarmac.
A woman was coming straight at him through the crowd, tall and quick, smiling like she already knew how this was going to go. A crown of natural curls. A camel coat belted at the waist. Brown skin that glowed even under the worst lighting in America.
He had no idea who she was. He knew, with total certainty, that he would have remembered.
She slapped his arm. Flat palm, quick snap of the wrist. He had taken that slap a hundred times for saying something stupid, and his arm knew it before his brain did.
“Imani?”
“Imani Brooks.” She threw her arms around him. She was warm and solid and smelled of vanilla and cold air. His body answered before his manners could. He let go first. He did not want to.
It could not be the same Imani. His Imani had been a skinny undergrad from Atlanta in oversized sweatshirts and thick black frames, one of maybe a dozen Black students in the whole hotel school. He had been the only Indian in half his classes. They had been best friends for two years. Then graduation, and three years of birthday texts that got shorter every time.
***
Her hotel car was waiting at the curb. At the first red light he turned his hand over under hers, and their fingers locked. Her thumb found the base of his ring finger and rested there. Bare.
Neither of them mentioned it.
The car pulled up under the canopy of a narrow glass hotel. Her hand was still in his.
“Mine’s two blocks over,” he said. “Business hotel. Beige.”
“Come up.”
“Imani.”
“One drink. The minibar is better company with two.”
“You have a six o’clock call.”
“I have a minibar and a window. Come up, Sam.”
“Is there a catch?”
“The catch is you have to say yes.”
“Yes,” he said, before the arithmetic could finish.
***
Her suite was bigger than his apartment in Los Angeles. A wall of window, snow drifting past, the river and the lights of the city below like a spill of coins. On the desk, a bottle of champagne sweated in an ice bucket beside an espresso machine.
She hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside of the door, drew the door shut, and the deadbolt turned behind him. A small, ordinary click.
“Give me five minutes,” she said. “I smell like a plane.”
She came out of the shower in a white hotel robe, her curls shaken loose, and dropped onto the couch beside him. The robe had fallen open at the collar. Her nipple made a dark point under the terrycloth. He noticed. He was not going to pretend otherwise.
“Coffee, champagne or me?” she said, laughing.
Her eyes said it wasn’t entirely a joke.
“You,” he said. “Any day.”
“Good choice. Finally.”
She came into the kiss like she had been waiting for it. Her hands went into his hair and fisted in the curls. Then they dragged at his shirt. Her palm pressed flat against his stomach and slid lower, found the front of his jeans, felt how hard he already was.
“You want me, Sam?”
“Oh fuck, yaar. Yes. God, yes.”
She pulled back far enough to look at him. Then she stood and let the robe drop.
Continue the story Coffee, Champagne Or Me.
A little more spice — on me — for my lovers
This part is for my lovers only.
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All images are AI generated and do not depict any real person.