37
You lied to me, Thaddeus Sims.”
Thad looked down at Ashanti’s upturned face, his eyes narrowing at the smile that played across lips he would give anything to kiss right now.
“When did I lie?”
“You told me you didn’t dance,” she said.
He swayed with her from side to side while gliding his feet in a slow circle.
“Actually, I told you I danced all the time at functions just like this one.” He looked around the tastefully decorated ballroom teeming with elegantly dressed people in various stages of drunkenness. “Except the various military balls I’ve attended didn’t have quite this much free-flowing alcohol.”
She laughed. “It’s a New Orleans wedding. Free-flowing alcohol is as mandatory as the preacher.” She tipped her head to the side. “Come to think of it, one can be married by the justice of the peace, but to be married without hurricanes or Crown Royal and Coke? Blasphemous.”
The band brought the slow ballad to a close. Moments later, the unmistakable opening notes of the “Electric Slide” started.
“That’s my cue,” Thad said, turning on his heel.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Ashanti caught him by the wrist. “This is the kind of dancing I want to see you do.”
He closed his eyes and groaned, but then took two steps to the right, joining in with the dozens of others who had rushed to the dance floor. And, since he was here, he decided to play it up, getting some shoulder action in and adding some oomph to the kick.
He probably looked like a fool, but seeing the sheer delight on Ashanti’s face made it worth it.
Thad had been unsure whether she would still be up for attending the wedding after the tumultuous week she’d had. He’d barely seen her between her taking care of Duchess—who, thankfully, had fully recovered from the Akita attack—hiring two bakers and setting up the kitchen for that big grocery store order, and dealing with her sisters.
He’d been surprised when she’d texted him early this morning to find out if the wedding had a certain color theme—apparently, that was something people did these days—and mentioned how much she was looking forward to a night out.
Knowing that he could take a little of her anxiety away, even if just for a few hours, made the satisfaction in his chest expand like helium filling a balloon.
The dance ended and Ashanti pleaded they stop for a breather. Not because she’d tired herself out from dancing, but rather from laughing. At him.
Thad grabbed two bottles of water from the bar and joined her at their table. The moment he sat down, someone hooked an arm around his neck and kissed his cheek.
“I don’t know what kind of magic spell you’ve weaved around my brother, but I like it,” his sister said to Ashanti.
Thad rolled his eyes at Nadia’s intrusion, but he couldn’t fault her for being surprised. He would be surprised as hell if he were in her shoes too. The last time he’d danced like this was probably a family reunion when he was twelve.
“Ree Ree plans to throw the bouquet soon. Let me know if you want it and it’s yours,” Nadia said with a wink.
“Enough with the matchmaking, Frances,” Thad said. She was as bad as his grandmother.
“Speaking of, Grams said that somebody had better bring her wedding cake first thing in the morning. She wants it for breakfast.”
“Of course she does,” Thad said, his good mood dulling at the thought of his grandmother and what he’d promised himself he would do when his sister came to town.
“You’re thinking about that ancestry thing, aren’t you?” Ashanti asked as soon as Nadia left the table.
“I guess my poker face needs some work too,” he said.
“You haven’t talked to your sister about it?”
He shook his head. “She’s been looking forward to Reshonda’s wedding. I didn’t want to ruin it for her. But she knows something’s up. She’s got a sixth sense for shit like this. The moment she walked into the house, she asked me what I was hiding from her.”
Ashanti fiddled with the cloth napkin at her place setting. “When do you plan to tell her?”
“Tonight,” Thad said. “She’s flying home tomorrow afternoon.”
She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “This won’t be easy for either of you. I’m sorry.”
He would give anything to have Ashanti be the one coming home with him tonight. Maybe he could offer to put Nadia up in one of the hotels in the French Quarter. The benefits would be twofold, he could put off telling her about their philandering grandfather until the morning and finally wake up with Ashanti in his bed again.
Thad scratched the idea.
He owed Nadia more than just a few hours to process this kind of news before she had to fly home to her husband and daughters. He would have to tell her tonight so that they could decide together what to do about it.
The wedding reception ended sooner than Thad had hoped. After following the bride and groom in a second-line parade along the riverfront, he, Ashanti, and Nadia piled into Von’s car. He’d borrowed it, figuring it was more appropriate for the occasion than his truck.
Nadia and Ashanti chatted the entire drive to Ashanti’s house, with his sister dropping more poorly veiled hints about Thad and Ashanti taking their relationship to the next level.
Thad walked Ashanti to her door—and not just because his sister had demanded it—before heading home. Nadia continued with the relationship talk for the remainder of their drive home, balking when Thad told her that he wasn’t sure if he and Ashanti were even in a relationship yet.
“Bullshit,” Nadia said as she unsnapped her seat belt. “You and Ashanti had more chemistry than Reshonda and Michael. You two should have been the ones getting married tonight.”
“Please, don’t do this,” Thad said, thanking God that she hadn’t said this while Ashanti was still in the car.
“You need to settle down, and she is perfect for you. Like, ridiculously perfect for you. And why are you in such a pissy mood tonight?” his sister asked, shoving him in the back as they climbed the steps of their grandparents’ house. “You just spent the evening with one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. You should be floating.”
“How does one float?” Thad asked.
“How did your grumpy ass ever manage to talk that amazing woman into going out with you in the first place?”
“I’m charming when I’m not around you,” Thad said.
She shoved him again as he let them into the house.
Nadia took off for her grandparents’ old room, which she’d claimed after telling Thad he was a fool for choosing to sleep in his old, much smaller bedroom.
He kicked off his shoes, hung up his jacket, and loosened his tie, but he didn’t change out of his clothes. The longer he stalled, the more likely he was to come up with an excuse for why he should hold off from telling her about their newfound family in Alabama.
Thad walked over to his grandparents’ room and rapped on the door with his knuckle.
“Nadia, can you come in the dining room for a minute once you’re done?”
He grabbed a beer from the fridge, and not one of those flavored IPAs he’d been sampling for the bar. He needed something with meat for the conversation he was about to engage in. Tonight called for a dark, malty lager.
“You finally ready to tell me why you’ve been moodier than usual?” Nadia asked as she entered the dining room. She’d changed into a Bruno Mars T-shirt and purple sweats. Her face still had makeup from the wedding, but she’d taken out the pins holding up her hair.
“You may want to sit for this,” Thad told her.
Her smile disappeared.
“You’re dying,” she said. “Grams is dying!”
“No one is dying,” Thad said.
His grandfather was already dead, so his sister wouldn’t be able to kill him when she found out what he’d done.
She sat at the table and Thad pushed the laptop in front of her.
He started with the first email, and methodically went through each subsequent correspondence, ending with the picture of the woman’s mother.
Nadia looked shell-shocked as she stared at the screen, her mouth agape. After several heavy moments ticked by, she looked up at him and said, “That son of a bitch.”
Thad grimaced. “Normally, I would say it’s disrespectful to speak of your grandfather in that way, but this time I think it’s warranted.”
“This had to have been going on for decades,” Nadia said.
Thad nodded. “According to what she shared, there’s sixteen years between her mom, the oldest, and her youngest uncle, who is only a few years older than you are, by the way.”
“That son of a bitch!” Nadia grabbed his beer from his hand and took a long drink. “You know if he was still alive I would be charging into that room with a butcher knife, right?”
“Again, warranted,” Thad said.
“What does she want?” Nadia asked.
“I thought she was after money, but it appears she just wants to get to know her relatives,” he said.
“Goodness.” Nadia rubbed her temples. “What are we gonna do?” She held her hands up. “What am I talking about? There’s only one thing we can do. We have to tell Grams. You haven’t said anything to her, have you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said, rising from the table. “She would have called me.”
Thad worried his bottom lip with his teeth, regarding his sister as she paced the length of the room while calling his grandfather everything but a child of God. He gave her the space she needed to vent. He’d had time to digest this news; she hadn’t.
“Nadia, are you sure about this?” Thad asked when she finally calmed.
“Am I sure that the man I thought was a saint was actually the devil?” she asked. She pointed at the computer. “That picture tells the story.”
“Not that,” Thad said. “Are you sure about telling Grams? Does she really need to know about this?”
His sister looked at him as if his head had flown off his body and set itself on the table.
“Are you out of your mind? Of course we have to tell her. You want to talk about disrespect? Disrespect is letting my grandmother go on thinking that her husband was this upstanding paragon, when he was actually a lying, cheating bastard.” She slapped her palm to her forehead. “I cannot believe this. I cannot believe we’re talking about Gramps.”
Her voice broke on the last word.
“I know,” Thad said, his voice raspy with the same hurt and disappointment he could tell his sister was feeling. He rubbed the back of his neck. “If you think we should tell Grams, then that’s what we’ll do. She has a right to know.”
When he awoke the next morning, Thad had a hard time remembering another task he’d dreaded as much as the one that lay before him today.
Nadia packed her luggage so that he could bring her straight to the airport following the visit with their grandmother. Thad picked up the piece of foiled-covered wedding cake—Grams had texted twice already this morning—and added water to Puddin’s bowl before leaving the house. He was actually getting better at being home alone if Thad only left him for a few hours.
His grandmother would be upset that he hadn’t brought her dog, but it would only last for a minute. She had other things to upset her this time around.
With traffic as light as it was on Sunday mornings, they made it to the assisted living facility in a matter of minutes. Grams was in her unit, which was nicer than some of the studio apartments that rented for ridiculous amounts in this city.
“I hate that you have to go back home so soon,” Grams said as she wrapped Nadia in a hug. She pinched her on the arm. “That’s for not bringing my great-granddaughters with you.”
“I already told you that we’re coming back for Thanksgiving,” Nadia said.
“That’s too long to wait.” She looked to Thad. “Where’s my cake? And why didn’t you bring Puddin’?”
“I have to bring Nadia straight to the airport. Puddin’ would have just gotten in the way.” Thad swallowed. “Grams, we need to tell you something.”
Grams looked from him to Nadia. “Who’s dead?”
“Nobody died,” Thad said. What was with the women in his family? “But I… uh… I recently got some disturbing news about Gramps.”
Her brows arched. “Well, he’s dead, so it can’t be too disturbing.”
Thad looked to his sister, who nodded.
“This is hard to say, Grams, and I swear I debated the whole drive over whether or not we should even share this with you—”
“Boy, would you say whatever it is you’ve got to say so I can eat my cake,” his grandmother prompted.
Thad sucked in a deep breath. Then, before he lost his nerve, said, “Someone contacted me a few weeks ago, claiming to be Gramps’s granddaughter. I haven’t confirmed her story, but we have a strong feeling that it’s true. He was having an affair, Grams. For a long time.”
She stared at him for a moment, then her lips tipped up in an amused, sardonic grin.
“You’re talking about Sybil Jackson in Mobile?” she asked.
Thad and Nadia both looked at each other, their mouths falling open at the exact same time.
“Grams.” Nadia was the first to find her voice. Thad was still searching for his. “You know her?”
“Do you children think I’m stupid? Do you know how long I’ve been on this earth?” his grandmother asked. “I knew he was up to something from early on. There aren’t that many damn dry cleaning conventions in a single year.”
“But… but…” Nadia stuttered. “You knew about it and you didn’t say anything?”
“I didn’t say anything to y’all. Why would I tell my grandchildren what’s going on in my marriage? That wasn’t nobody’s business but mine and your grandfather’s. And Sybil Jackson’s, I guess.”
Nadia brought her palm to her forehead, her eyes still wide with shock. “But how did you just let him get away with this without doing anything about it?”
“Let him get away with it? How do you think I got that man to put both his house and his business in my name?”
“Holy shit,” Thad whispered.
His grandmother wiggled her fingers toward the kitchenette. “Grab me a fork so I can try this cake. I hope it doesn’t have that waxy fondant icing. I hate that kind.”
“Grams!” Nadia said. “You can’t drop this bomb on us and then eat cake.”
“I’m not letting my cake get stale.” She shrugged. “And what else is there to say?”
“How did you stomach it for all those years?” Nadia asked.
“Thank goodness they went with buttercream,” his grandmother said as she peeled back the foil. She set both the cake and fork on the coffee table and addressed Nadia.
“Look, times were different back then. Your grandfather was a deacon in the church and a pillar in the community. If word got out about his second family in Mobile, that status would have been lost. Never mind what it would have done to the business. I wasn’t about to sully my good name or mess up my money because he wanted a little something extra on the side.”
Holy shit. His grandmother was savage.
“I hope you children haven’t spent any time getting worked up over this. There are more important things to be concerned about, like why Thaddeus is dragging his feet when it comes to Ashanti.”
Thad dropped his head back and sighed up at the ceiling. “Nadia, isn’t it time for you to get to the airport?”
“No, I’ve got time,” his sister said. “And I agree, Grams. I met her last night and I love her already. We gotta figure out how to get those two together, permanently.”
God, save him from the women in his family.