Red Hot by Niobia Bryant Read Free Book Online

smiled. “ We can afford to live wherever we want.”
    Kaitlyn childishly flipped him the bird.
    Kaeden laughed.
    Kaitlyn forced a smile, but her eyes were sad. She hadn’t seen her parents since the big powwow when she returned from Paris.
    â€œThey miss you too, Kaitlyn,” Kaeden said, his tone serious.
    She snorted in disbelief as she shifted her eyes past her brother’s head to gaze out one of the large wood-framed trio of windows behind his desk.
    â€œYou can’t punish them forever,” he added.
    Kaitlyn felt betrayed by her parents—by her father, most of all. To her it was like all of a sudden he didn’t care, and she wasn’t his baby girl anymore.
    â€œYes, I can,” she added softly.
    â€œAnd if you honestly feel that way, then you haven’t learned a damn thing yet, Kat.”
    She said nothing. There was nothing for her to say. Nobody else knew how it felt to walk in her Jimmy Choos.
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    Quint hated the smell of fresh paint and he left the door to the apartment wide open before moving quickly to open the four windows of the living room. He walked every square inch of the two-bedroom apartment to inspect the paint crew’s work before he signed off on the invoice he would send to the owner for payment.
    He honestly thought he had all the apartments locked in for at least a year and wouldn’t have to deal with the drama of taking applications and dealing with a new tenant. It was always a toss-up on just how good or bad a tenant you got.
    Quint was hoping for the best.
    When he left the apartment, he locked the front door, but he left the windows open. Everything he put on his to-do list for the day was done. Lei was squared away at the kitchen table doing homework. She was finishing up her assignments, and she was not happy at all, since school just started a few days ago.
    He crossed the parking lot and entered the small brick building that housed the office he hardly ever used. It sat at the front of the property, near the entrance. He used his key to unlock the door and plopped down behind the wooden desk, which he had made. He turned to open the small black file cabinet sitting next to it.
    Quint fingered through the files until he pulled out the one containing his copies of rental applications. He went through each one and picked the top five to call their references first thing in the morning. Leaning back in the chair, he swiveled as he tilted his head back and looked up to the ceiling.
    He felt tension across his broad shoulders—tension that not even a run or a pickup basketball game at the rec in Walterboro could help. Not even a few hours at Joni’s. Nothing but the peace he received from woodworking would do it.
    Quint was born in New York and lived there until he turned thirteen and started giving his single mother all kinds of stress by hanging out with the wrong crowd. A juvie arrest for joyriding in a stolen Benz led to her shipping him to live with her father in Holtsville. She was scared that Quint would turn out like his father—a convicted criminal with a long rap sheet, an even longer history of drug addiction. And not enough balls to make sure his kid had him or his last name. Quint couldn’t point his father out in a lineup.
    To Quint, his grandfather had stepped in and taught him everything that his mother had tried to. Everything he knew about being a man—a real man—was because of Denson Wells. His Pops.
    The older man also taught him the skill and the joy of woodworking.
    Quint took a deep breath as he felt his grandfather’s loss to a heart attack several years ago. It was his grandfather’s tools that he lovingly used and cleaned and cherished. It was the memories of his grandfather that were evoked every time he made a new piece of furniture.
    But as much as he wanted to get lost in his work shed, he promised himself he would cook dinner. No more takeout or fast food for the week. Both he