The local airport hadn’t changed a bit, but its sameness was what I was looking forward to most since it signified one thing - I was home.

It had been months - okay, maybe years - since the last time I’d been home for a visit that lasted longer than a few hours. And even though my family was already acting funny about my homecoming thanks to my relatively-recent upgrade from D-list celebrity to high B-list, I was still excited about spending the next few days surrounded by familiar faces I didn’t get to see nearly enough.

I mean, people were having babies, and getting married, and running successful businesses, and finding love. It was all so exciting yet so, so hard to keep up with which made this trip even more timely.

I needed all the updates and I needed to kiss on all the baby cheeks.

As if to kick things off right away, I ran into an old friend from high school when I was exiting the plane, completely breaking free of my incognito vibes to squeal, “Oh my God! Lincoln! I haven’t seen you in person in… a literal decade.”

Once he realized it was me, he cracked the biggest smile, pulling me into a hug as he said, “Damn. That makes us sound old as hell, Ashy Aspen.”

“I’m not so ashy anymore you know,” I replied with a smirk, gnawing into my lip as if to show off just how moisturized I was these days.

Moisturized and fine.

Chuckling, Lincoln - who was also moisturized and fine - nodded to agree. “Oh, I know, superstar. What you doin’ around here with us normal folks?”

While I was tempted to get on him about that whole ‘normal folks’ thing, I ignored it to give the obvious answer. “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, fool. And I had some rare free time in my schedule, so I thought I’d come spend it with the family who’s sending a driver to pick me up instead of coming to get me themselves. Ain’t that somethin’?”

His eyebrow went up as he agreed, “That is something. But let me go get back in this line before I fuck around and miss my flight.”

I should’ve been letting him go, but I couldn’t help prying for my first update of the trip when I asked, “Going to spend Thanksgiving with your new Midwest bae, right? She’s gorgeous, Linc. Seriously. Y’all are so cute on Instagram. Those pictures from Vegas were everything. And so were the pictures from Derek’s wedding.”

To be honest, I was a little jealous of ** before I could. I mean, it would’ve been straight out of Hallmark holiday movie heaven for me to come home and reunite with my high school crush who was even cuter now than he’d been back in the day. But unfortunately, that idea was just going to have to stay a fictional storyline in my head, especially once Lincoln lowkey embarrassed me by replying, “Haven’t seen me in a decade, but you still know my moves. The internet is crazy.”

Blushing, I was quick to defend, “You say that like you don’t follow me too, though!”

Thankfully, he chuckled and agreed, “You right. Tell that nigga LeBron I said what’s up next time y’all end up at the same party again.”

“Mmhmm, I’ll think about it,” I teased, the fact that more eyes were now looking my way making me feel a bit uneasy since I’d made the bold decision of going without security.

But this was home.

I could do this by myself.

At least, I thought I could do this by myself until I saw that first not-so-sneaky picture get taken of me by a stranger and realized it was only a matter of time before there were more. Lincoln must’ve realized it too since he knew to end our interaction with a simple, “It was good seeing you, Ashy.”

“Good seeing you too, Sausage Linc,” I joked, using the nickname he had acquired as a rumor about his dick.

Before I could get too far, he replied, “I’m more of a footlong frank now. Just ask my woman.”

“Well Happy Thanksgiving to her,” I gushed with a smile that he matched as I gave another wave then finally made my way to baggage claim. And again, I was grateful for the local airport that had everything in close proximity, making my getaway easy once I made it past the security point.

I was waiting for my bag to come around the luggage carousel when I received a text.

Cousin Kelvin: “Orlando should be pulling up now. He’s in a black Cadillac XTS with tinted windows.”

“Orlando,” I repeated out loud with a grunt, shaking my head at the fact that my cousin was really sending the help instead of letting the poor man be with his family for the holiday like I’d done with my staff. In fact, I considered giving the guy a break myself and just getting a rental car instead… until I saw him standing outside of that Cadillac.

He was leaning against the hood with one hand in the pocket of his black denim jeans, lifting the other to check his watch before he started looking around - looking for me. And while I was tempted to announce myself so he wouldn’t be antsy, I was a little more interested in just checking him out from afar since he was so damn fine.

Too damn fine.

From the peanut-butter skin coating his thick, manly frame, to his perfectly-wide nose with full lips to match, to his shapely beard that I definitely wanted to make my seat at the Thanksgiving table, he was looking like the only meal I needed during my visit. In fact, I was already daydreaming about it when he finally noticed me, and I smiled like a lunatic as if I hadn’t just been thinking about putting my pussy all over this stranger man’s face.

“Let me get that for you, Miss. Watson,” was what he said when he saw me heading his way. But all I heard was, “Come ride my face, Miss. Watson,” forced to shake it off so I could tell him, “Aspen is fine.”

“Aspen is fine,” he repeated with a look over his shoulder that made me blush. But it wasn’t in the same way that Lincoln had made me blush with embarrassment earlier. Nah, this was the kind of blushing that came with an increase in heart rate and a suddenly-sensitive clitoris.

Whew, this dude is a whole problem.

I mean, it had been a while since a man really got me riled up off the rip. But here I was, clocking his every move; particularly the way his arms and back flexed under his black long-sleeve thermal when he lifted my suitcase to put it in the trunk. And then how strong his hands looked once he slammed the trunk door shut.

The little things.

Since I was still all in his business instead of minding my own, he offered me a smirk before he said, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a lot smaller in person than you look on TV.”

Typically when someone acknowledged my size, I got annoyed since it was often used in a way to try and undermine me; undermine my power. But with him, all I could think about was how easy it would be for me to sit my little ass right on his broad shoulders, the thought alone making me grin mischievously when I replied, “Glad you noticed, Orlando.”

His eyebrow went up in surprise, and I didn’t know why until I thought back on what I had said, quick to give a little wave of my phone and explain, “Kelvin just texted me your name.”

With a nod, he replied, “Oh, right,” moving towards the car door as he continued, “Well let’s get you outta here before someone recognizes you.”

Even with earlier’s close call, I still managed to shrug. “Pretty hard to do without all that blonde weave hanging down my back.”

It was something like my signature look, what bloggers and strangers alike loved to comment on the most which was exactly why I had ditched it for my trip home. The inches upon inches of blonde turned me into Aspen Watson the actress. But my pixie cut of the same color made me Aspen who was just coming to see her family for Thanksgiving with plans of eating all the good food that came with it.

Because that’s the important part, right?

Once again I caught myself daydreaming, this time the culprit being Aunt Marie’s macaroni and cheese until Orlando caught my gaze to say, “Nah, it’s all in your eyes. One look at those, and… you ready?”

“Absolutely,” was my immediate answer until I saw Orlando continuing on his way towards the door and realized he wasn’t asking if I was ready to ride his face, and that the ending of the statement he had cut off wasn’t, “One look at those and I wanna rip your clothes off the same way you obviously wanna rip mine.”

“Maybe you are still ashy,” I thought to myself with a groan, taking my time to follow him since, “I don’t even know where they have me going since apparently they think I’m too good to stay with family for a couple days like normal people do.”

I don’t know why it bothered me so much that my family insisted on making expensive accommodations for me instead of just setting me up with a sheet, a comforter, and a pillow on somebody’s living room couch. But considering I didn’t want to sound ungrateful, I let it fly, not really surprised to hear Orlando answer, “According to Kelvin, some five-star downtown. But if that’s not where you wanna go right now, I can take you wherever. As long as we make it to The Max by eleven. That was his only request.”

With a quick glance at my phone for the time, I realized we still had a few hours until then and that it had been more than a few hours since my last real meal, prompting me to ask, “Is that one sandwich shop by Jackie Robinson Park still open?”

“Yeah, I just ate there for lunch,” Orlando answered, the fact that he even knew about one of my favorite places in the city already making him good in my book.

“That’s where I wanna go. I’m starving.”

Nodding, he moved to finally open the door for me. But I quickly bypassed him in a move towards where I really wanted to sit; a move that surprised him according to the way his eyebrow piqued when he asked, “You’re… sitting in the front seat?”

“Is that a problem?” I asked with a smile, opening the door and getting ready to climb in when he answered my question.

“Nah, not a problem. Just… unusual.”

Since I’d already gotten my way once, he couldn’t help trying to, at least, close the door behind me. But not before I could explain, “I’m in my city. I’m home. I should be able to ride wherever I want to, right?”

“Fa sho,” he agreed. Then he slammed the door in my face like he didn’t really agree but just wanted me to shut up, his annoyance making me giggle by the time he finally joined me from the driver’s side.

He didn’t say any more, he didn’t even play any music; he just took off towards the sandwich shop with his eyes on the road and my eyes on him as I tried to figure out why the hell he intrigued me so much outside of his good looks and the big dick energy he wore like a second skin. But after staring at him in search of familiarity, I realized my interest lied in the fact that I couldn’t place him with anyone else I knew from the city, making me ask, “Who are your people?”

“My people?”

Nodding, I turned in my seat and continued, “Yeah, you don’t look familiar to me. Who’s your family? What high school did you go to? What year did you graduate?”

He chuckled at my interrogation, somehow answering all of my questions without technically answering any of them when he said, “I’m not from around here.”

“Ahh, that explains it. Explains… you.”

Since I’d come up in the industry, people from the city usually loved to act like we had been friends since the very beginning even if I didn’t know them at all. But the fact that Orlando hadn’t even pretended to have any connections with me told me more than he realized, the confusion on his face giving way for me to explain, “Your demeanor. Your vibe. It’s not like the people from around here. Not that everybody from around here is the same, obviously. But… I could tell you were different. An outsider.”

He chuckled again. “I mean, guilty but damn. Way to make a nigga feel warmly welcomed around here.”

“I can do a lot more than make your welcome warm,” was what the sexy devil on my shoulder told me to say. But the emo-version came out instead when I replied, “I’m the one who has a driver picking her up from the airport like her family members don’t own multiple cars. If there’s anyone who should feel less than welcomed, it’s me.”

Orlando didn’t let me sulk in what was really just a matter of me being a brat, peeking over at me with a smirk when he offered, “Welcome home, Aspen.”

“From the outsider. Thank you so, so much,” I replied sarcastically, Orlando giving another rumbling chuckle in response - and reminding me how much I liked the sound of it.

It had the perfect balance of jubilance and strong bass, showing off just a hint of his perfectly-straight top row of teeth that wouldn’t otherwise be shown since he seemed to prefer keeping conversation to a minimum in the little bit of time we’d been together. But maybe that was just his personality; less into talking and more into action.

My kind of… I mean, what?

As if I needed any more reason to find out what kind of action Orlando was into, he complimented, “You’re funnier than you are on TV, too. And prettier. You are really fuckin’ pretty, Aspen.”

With a flattered grin, I teasingly replied, “If you’re trying to make me feel better about my own family treating me like a celebrity instead of as their relative, it’s working.”

“Good. Now let’s get you that sandwich since that’s guaranteed to make you feel better too,” he offered like he didn’t know good and damn well the item at the top of that list of things that could make me feel better was sitting right between his thighs.

Then again, did the quietly-confident fine niggas ever act like they knew they were downright fuckable?

Nope.

They just moseyed through life, being attractive as hell and making thirsty women like me sweat over the simple things; like the way Orlando put his arm across the back of my seat so he could parallel park into a spot outside of the sandwich shop.

Yes, that little.

After putting the car in park, he asked, “What’s your order? I’ll go in and grab it so you don’t have to. I mean, since you’re not traveling with security or whatever.”

Shrugging, I explained, “It’s the holiday. They deserve to be with their families too.”

Once the words left my mouth, I felt a little bad about Orlando not being able to do the same, giving me a spur of the moment idea that may or may not have been influenced by the smell of his cologne still lingering around me. “I want to go in and order myself. And then I want to eat at a table like a normal person, with you.”

“With me?”

My nod might’ve been overly enthusiastic when I answered, “Yes, outsider Orlando. I mean, I guess you don’t have to eat since you already ate this same thing earlier, but…”

He cut me off. “I can always eat, Aspen.”

Again, the sexy devil on my shoulder started acting out when she asked, “You can always eat this pussy, or...?” But the low rumble in my stomach put her right back in her place, a friendly smile coming to my lips once I urged, “Then come on, Orlando.”

For whatever reason he didn’t seem super enthused; maybe because he was worried about my safety and didn’t think it was the best idea for me to be running around the city all willy-nilly, or maybe because he really wasn’t checking for me like that and didn’t appreciate me forcing the interaction. But by the time we made it inside, right before closing which meant the place was mostly empty, he finally relaxed some, dapping up the employee who was obviously familiar enough with him to know his order without him even needing to say it.

When the employee turned to me, I could tell when it hit him that I was… who I was. But after the initial shock, he thankfully didn’t make a big deal of it, getting ready to ask me for my order until I cut him off after seeing what he was putting together for Orlando. “I’ll have the exact same thing he’s getting.”

“Wow. Copying sandwich orders from the outsider, huh?” Orlando teased, moving towards the cashier as I followed right behind him with a frown.

“Excuse me? That’s been my order since like, the fifth grade. They should’ve named that sandwich after me by now if we’re being honest.”

“I’ll start the petition,” he insisted with a smirk before telling the cashier that our orders were together which somehow ended with them being on the house.

Still, it was the thought that counted. And that applied to his first idea too, even when I told him, “You don’t look like the petition type. More like the strong arm, ‘give me what I want or I’m beatin’ somebody’s ass’ type.”

He shrugged. “Eh, maybe in my past life.”

“Your past life? But you’re not even that old,” I countered like I’d known him forever when the truth was I hadn’t even known him for an hour.

From the same wavelength as my thoughts, Orlando asked, “Yo, why do you think you know so much about me already?”

This time, it was me shrugging. “I don’t. I’m just really good at reading people.”

Grabbing the tray with our food and drinks, he asked, “Oh yeah? Then tell me more about me. Since you’re so good at reading people.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised when the first thing that came to mind was, “You have a big dick. It’s in your energy.” But thankfully, the walk to the table gave me a chance to think of something with more substance beyond what the sexy devil was telling me to say when I threw out my first guess. “You’re… in a new phase of life.”

“How you figure?” he asked, taking his sandwich and drink from the tray before pushing the entire thing to me.

Just the smell of the melted pepper jack cheese had my mouth watering and my stomach rumbling again with anticipation. But I held off on digging in so that I could answer, “Tomorrow is the holiday and you’re here, in a new city, being a driver for my cousins instead of spending time with your own family; instead of visiting wherever home is. Because you’re so focused on moving forward from whatever your alleged past life was.”

His short chuckle in response was filled with more disbelief than anything as he peeled the wrapper of his sandwich back and replied, “Nothin’ alleged about it, little mama. That shit was very, very real. But it was all I knew.”

While he was first to mention my eyes, it was the troubled look in his as they drifted off that told me so much about him without me needing any details. Maybe one day I’d get the details, but not right now. Right now was about letting his very real past be the past and fostering whatever positive changes his new phase was bringing about.

Obviously, I was already way more invested than I should’ve been. But him even being willing to share that little bit with me only encouraged me to reach across the table and give his hand a supportive squeeze, his eyes shooting up to mine in surprise when I told him, “Welcome home, Orlando.”

When he only returned a look of confusion, I continued, “Here. This city. It’s your home too now, right?”

With a nod and a smile, he answered, “It is.”

“So… welcome home,” I repeated with a smile of my own, giving his hand another squeeze before I dropped it. And while I wasn’t looking for a response, I couldn’t help but smile to myself when I heard him mutter, “Back at you, little mama.”