Heat Wave: Southport

By La Toya Hankins

When Zora comes to visit her childhood hometown for the Fourth of July, she expects to be helping with the family business, greeting old neighbors and friends, and carefully avoiding the topic of her sexuality. But then Zora's old mentor introduces Zora to her granddaughter Sarah, a blast from Zora's past, now grown into a leggy brunette who remembers Zora more than fondly.

As the two women reconnect over old memories, sweet treats, and tales of the intervening years since they'd last met, Zora begins to suspect the attraction she feels for Sarah might be returned. The sparks flying between them ignite into fireworks celebrating their independence from sexual solitude when they explore a new way to use the town library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Aug 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781611528220

La Toya Hankins

La Toya Hankins is a native of North Carolina and currently resides in Raleigh, NC. A graduate of East Carolina University, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in journalism with a minor in political science. During her college career, she became a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority and later served as second vice president for one of the largest graduate chapters in North Carolina.After working as a regional reporter and features editor in the Charlotte metro area for seven years, she entered the world of banking. Presently employed with the State of North Carolina, she divides her time between being a proud pet parent of an 8-year-old terrier named Neo and volunteering in the community.Currently serving as the co-chair of Shades of Pride, organizer of the annual Triangle Black Pride, Hankins is an active supporter of LGBT issues and addressing health disparities that affect her community. Her literary influences and loves include Zora Neale Hurston, Walter Mosley, Anne Rice, and Pearl Cleage. Her motto, borrowed from Hurston, is “I do not weep at the world, I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

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Heat Wave: Southport

By La Toya Hankins

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2015 La Toya Hankins

ISBN 9781611528220

Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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Heat Wave: Southport

By La Toya Hankins

Zora knew she should have said no when her mom asked her to come home for the Fourth of July. If I had stuck to my guns, this dark chocolate cutie could have been in Charlotte enjoying a cookout and making eyes at the currently unattached graduate student next door, she thought, wiping her forehead with the back of her plastic-gloved hand. Instead, she was selling shrimp burgers and French fries in a hot ass food truck back in the town she had called home for the majority of her life. Damn that sense of family loyalty.

I’m so glad you decided to come down and help out. Your father would never say it but it means so much to him that you want to help promote the restaurant. It’s always so much fun when the family works together and we rarely see you anymore since you moved so far away for your job, her mother said, bustling around the cramped space like an over-caffeinated humming bee. Zora took in her current situation. The sizzle of grease, the languid whirl of an ineffective fan, and the chatter of the crowd building outside the bright robin blue and white kitchen on wheels came close to drowning her mother’s Jamaican lilt. Yep, this is how I wanted to spend my day off, she thought to herself. Zora could think of at least five things she’d rather be doing than stuck in a mobile kitchen with her mother, father, and older sister, but when duty calls, she realized, you can’t just send it to voicemail.

Watching her whippet-thin father drop a basket of his namesake Connors Crispy Crustaceans products in the fryer, Zora replied, Sure, anything I can do to help. But I would say I wish you would have given me more than a twenty-four hour warning you needed me to come home to help out.

Zora did not feel that her tone was disrespectful, but judging by the pointed stares from her parents, it seemed the intent was lost in translation. One thing the daughter of immigrant parents doesn’t do is challenge a request from the ones who gave you the gift of life, provided your food and shelter, and taught you right from wrong.

Hurriedly, she clarified she didn’t have an issue with coming home to help. Rather, she explained, if she had known they needed help, she would have made plans to stay longer than just for the day. Satisfied with the answer, her parents resumed preparing and selling various fried seafood products. Refocusing