Yazmine Benjamin has spent most of her adulthood learning how to keep what matters close. At thirty-three, she edits film and television for a living, raises two children who know exactly where to find her, and has finally settled into a life that feels less like a series of restarts and more like something she can trust to last.
Malcolm Cole has been woven into that life for nearly twenty-eight years.
He’s recently retired from the NBA, but Malcolm has always lived somewhere just outside the lines people draw around friendship. He’s the man with a key to Yazmine’s house, the one her children call Uncle Mal, the person who remembers which days the trash goes out and who shows up for the small, unremarkable moments that make up a life.
Then, one evening, Malcolm asks her to have his child.
Not to date him. Not to marry him.
Just to raise a child together, on purpose, with all the history and comfort they already share.
What starts as a practical agreement between two people who know each other too well becomes something neither of them can keep tidy. Yazmine and Malcolm find themselves facing all the things they have quietly carried for years: old history, unspoken want, the family they have already built around each other, and the unsettling truth that love might not be something new after all.
Maybe it has been there, steady and familiar, long before either of them was ready to name it.
Set in the warmth and history of Newark, Before We Call It Love is a grown Black romance about friendship, family, motherhood, longing, second chances, and the quiet ways someone can become home before you ever find the words for it.
Ratings & Reviews
Yazmine Benjamin has spent most of her adulthood learning how to keep what matters close. At thirty-three, she edits film and television for a living, raises two children who know exactly where to find her, and has finally settled into a life that feels less like a series of restarts and more like something she can trust to last.
Malcolm Cole has been woven into that life for nearly twenty-eight years.
He’s recently retired from the NBA, but Malcolm has always lived somewhere just outside the lines people draw around friendship. He’s the man with a key to Yazmine’s house, the one her children call Uncle Mal, the person who remembers which days the trash goes out and who shows up for the small, unremarkable moments that make up a life.
Then, one evening, Malcolm asks her to have his child.
Not to date him. Not to marry him.
Just to raise a child together, on purpose, with all the history and comfort they already share.
What starts as a practical agreement between two people who know each other too well becomes something neither of them can keep tidy. Yazmine and Malcolm find themselves facing all the things they have quietly carried for years: old history, unspoken want, the family they have already built around each other, and the unsettling truth that love might not be something new after all.
Maybe it has been there, steady and familiar, long before either of them was ready to name it.
Set in the warmth and history of Newark, Before We Call It Love is a grown Black romance about friendship, family, motherhood, longing, second chances, and the quiet ways someone can become home before you ever find the words for it.