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to Juneteenth later?”
    “ Hmm. I thought about
Kelsi.”
    “ Kelsi, again? That’s two
dates in a row, but who’s counting?”
    “ You, and probably her. So
far, she’s fitting the profile.” Parke shrugged.
    “ Run your profile by me
again.”
    Annoyed at his brother’s
forgetfulness, Parke rattled off, “Intelligent, sexy—meaning
petite, good-looking legs, and a warm personality. So far, Kelsi’s
got the sexy part right.”
    “ This is where you lose me,
PJ. Why bother?”
    “ Because I enjoy her other
assets.” Parke winked. He and Kelsi had one thing in common. They
played each other for what they could get.
    “ Okay, keep it up and
you’ll have a houseguest in your castle.”
    “ That’s why I dumped
Vanessa last month.” Parke sucked in his lips. “It hurt to cut her
loose. That woman had the most gorgeous, milk-chocolate legs I’ve
ever seen. But I needed a honey who’s makin’ her own money so I
could throw my hands up at her,” Parke paraphrased the old lyrics
to Destiny’s Child’s Independent Woman .
    “ Slow down, playboy, that
profile of yours might lead you astray. We control our destiny, not
the gods of the kings and princes of our ancestral
tribes.”
    “ I won’t ignore the past,
Malcolm. It holds the direction of our future.”
    “ Maybe. I just don’t
believe that rule applies to our soul mate. Now back to Vanessa.
Wasn’t she the elementary school teacher who invited you to a
career day?”
    “ Yep, and I was up against
a firefighter, a black race car driver, and a TV news
anchor.”
    “ Stiff
competition.”
    Parke loved these philosophical
exchanges with his brother so he wasn’t ready to change subjects.
“I can’t turn on or off our ancestral connection. The warrior in my
blood tells me the right woman will be from a line of African
queens.”
    “ God help the poor woman.
Let’s not digress, PJ. I’m talking about the career day event. You
know, the firefighter, news—”
    “ Yeah, right. Not one kid
had any questions for me. A little White boy raised his hand once
he learned I was an investment broker. He couldn’t have been more
than eight years old. He announced he had stock in McDonald’s,
Microsoft, and Walgreens.”
    Malcolm snickered. “Watch out, the
next Bill Gates. We need to reach out to our youth about saving and
investing. Okay, refresh my memory on Kelsi?”
    “ She’s the loan officer I
met a few weeks ago after one of my investment seminars. She’s
about 5’5” with short hair. Man, her skin is like bronze. She’s a
hottie who drives a yellow BMW convertible, and likes her men to
lavish her before…”
    “ Okay, okay, we’re having a
G-rated conversation here. That’s too much information; so Kelsi is
coming with you to the Juneteenth celebration.”
    “ I said I was thinking
about it. I think I’ll give that honor to Monica.”
    Malcolm slapped Parke on the back.
“Work it, my brother. Work it.”
    “ I am.”
    A half hour later, Parke punched his
security code on the keypad after he closed his exquisitely carved
black front door. The previous owners had the mouse-gray house
custom-built. The structure greeted, invited, and sheltered its
homeowners while beckoning curious visitors inside.
    His footsteps echoed as he crossed the
polished mahogany floor. Detouring to the family room with four
double theater seats and a forty-two inch plasma screen television
as the focal point, Parke hiked up the stairs to shower, then
noticed the flashing green light on his phone that tempted him to
check his missed calls.
    Eying the name, he smirked when former
girlfriend Annette Barber’s number appeared on the caller ID. It
had been awhile since they had spoken. She also was a knockout with
her gorgeous, tiny but mature body, but it was her gregarious
personality that opened many hearts and doors. Despite all her
assets, she wasn’t “the one”.
    Annette had refused to indulge in
intimacy with Parke without a commitment. So it was his