Chapter 14
“Hi, Mr. Gentry!”Kizzie said as she waved her hand excitedly.
I smiled big. Maybe I was wrong about Clayton after all. Maybe he was really uncomfortable with the kids being around me. For him to let them come around me today shocked me. While we had a decent time last night, I felt like that was intentional. I felt like he planned to not make it home last night before he even left.
Maybe this was done in good faith to show he was trying. I didn’t know. My gut usually never steered me wrong, so this had me thoroughly confused. When they got to the back patio where I was standing, I said, “Hi, Princess Tiana! Hi, Kota!”
They both smiled, and I stooped to extend my hand. Kizzie shook my hand and said, “Wow! You’re tall!”
I chuckled. “So I’ve heard. You think so? I thought I was short.”
She giggled and put her hands over her mouth. Man, she was so adorable… a mini version of her mother. I was pretty sure if I looked at baby pictures of Giselle, she probably looked just like this beautiful princess. Dakota shook my hand then turned and pointed at the pool. “Poo!” he said.
I chuckled. “Can we swim?” Kizzie asked.
“You have to ask your mom,” I said as I pulled Elle in my arms.
She smiled as she slid her arms around my waist. Lifting her head, she puckered her lips. I kissed her softly, and the heat from it scorched my fucking lips. Damn. The passion was back. I wanted to take her inside the house and have my way with her. “Are they staying overnight?”
“No. I threatened him again, but I’m gonna follow through this time. After I told him I was filing Monday, he let them leave with me but asked me to bring them back tonight. I’ll let him make it with that for now.”
“You seem so much happier.”
“I am.”
I kissed her lips again, then she pulled away to find Kizzie and Dakota staring at us. I wanted to tell them that I was their stepdaddy, and that stepdaddy season was here, but I knew that would piss Clayton all the way off. I chuckled inwardly as Kizzie asked, “Mommy, do you live here?”
Giselle glanced in my direction, and before I could tell Kizzie the explanation we’d come up with, she said, “Yes. This is where I’ve moved, and I’m trying to get things situated. You wanna see your rooms?”
“Yeah!” Kizzie yelled.
Giselle winked at me then picked up Dakota and went inside. “Come on, Mr. Gentry!” Kizzie yelled.
I chuckled and followed them inside. Kizzie’s eyes widened as she looked around. She stretched out her arms and said, “This house is big!”
“Yep, and it’s all for us. This is your mom’s, Dakota’s, and your house too.”
“Really? This is where we’re going to live?” she asked me, her eyes still wide.
“Yes, ma’am. Is it fit for a princess?”
“Yes!”
She surprised me by running over to me and hugging me around my legs. I stooped down to her, and she threw her arms around my neck. Man, she had already wrapped me around her fingers. Had my ass all tangled up between all ten of them. Dakota, not wanting to be left out, he wiggled out of Elle’s arms, forcing her to set him on his feet. He ran over to us and hugged me too. This was what I thought would have happened almost a month ago.
I supposed things got harder right before the breakthrough. I was about to give in, only to have the children in our house the very next day. I stood with both of them in my arms, and they laughed as they did their best to hold on. Giselle smiled big as she watched us get along perfectly.
“I need to take a shower after I show you your rooms. So come on! Those pancakes at IHOP are screaming for me to hurry up!”
Kizzie laughed hysterically, and that only caused Dakota to laugh too. He probably didn’t have a clue about what he was laughing at. We ascended the stairs as they looked down at the floor. “We get to climb stairs!”
I chuckled at just how excited Kizzie was. When we reached the landing, I set them both on their feet. Giselle and I had worked hard to get their rooms to their liking. I was proud of how they both looked. Since Dakota liked Paw Patrol, we had stickers of dogs all over the walls and Paw Patrol bedding. When he walked inside, he gasped.
Giselle and I laughed as he ran straight to the wall to touch the stickers he could reach. We left him in there to explore while we took the princess to her room. It was fit for a princess and adorned green and pink sheers. The bed had a Princess and the Frog canopy and bedding, and there was a huge rug in the shape of a lily pad in the middle of the room.
“Oh my God! Mommy! I love it!”
“Wait until you see your bathroom,” I said.
“I have my own bathroom?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Elle led her to it, and her screams were deafening. The bathroom looked like a whole swamp. The rug was Louis the gator, and there were lightning bugs all over the shower curtain. Ray was in the center, missing teeth and all. There were also vines all over the walls. She came running through the doorway and hugged me around my legs again. “Thank you, Mr. Gentry!”
I stooped and kissed her forehead. “You’re welcome, Princess Tiana.”
She ran and hopped into the bed, staring up at the ceiling. When she noticed Ray up there, staring at Evangeline, she nearly came unglued. I chuckled and made my way to Dakota’s room to check on him. He was on the floor playing with the cars he’d probably found in the toy box. When he saw me standing there, he smiled. “Kiz woom?”
I assumed he was either asking if Kizzie was in her room or saying that he wanted to see Kizzie’s room. “Kizzie’s in her room. Do you want to see it?”
He smiled as he stood and walked to me, reaching up for me to pick him up. I obliged him, and I truly felt like their dad in this moment. When we walked to her room, I placed him on his feet again, and he took off inside, staring all around the room. Giselle was still in there staring at Kizzie as she explored her room.
She looked up at me and said, “We may not leave to go to breakfast.”
I chuckled, and she did too. “Come here, baby.”
She bit her bottom lip and walked over to me. The woman before me was the woman I’d gotten to know in Honolulu, not the stressed version of her I’d gotten acquainted with the past few weeks. When she made it to my arms, I hugged her, noticing the kids were watching us. They seemed to watch everything we did. I kissed the top of her head. “I love you so much, Giselle. This is all I ever wanted… for us to live in peace as a family. Today is going to be perfect.”
She stared up at me then pulled my face to hers and kissed me tenderly on the lips, somewhat sucking my bottom lip into her mouth. I pulled away from her. “Go take your shower before I lock us in another room and wear that pussy out, girl.”
She smirked and bit her bottom lip again. She needed to get out my face before I couldn’t hide my erection in front of the kids. Turning to them, she said, “I’m going to take a shower. Y’all be good for Mr. Gentry, okay?”
“Kay!” Dakota said with his hands lifted in the air.
I chuckled. He looked more like Clayton. “Kizzie? Do you hear me?” Giselle asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
When she left out, I went to Dakota’s room and got the cars he was playing with. I sat on the floor and handed them to him. He smiled and began rolling them on the floor while Kizzie put on her play jewelry. They played well by themselves. I pulled my phone from my pocket to take a couple of pictures of them.
Kizzie looked up at me, and when she realized I was taking a picture, she posed. I chuckled. This little girl was a whole character. As I edited the pictures on my phone, she said, “Mr. Gentry?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Do you have any kids?”
“No. I don’t have any.”
“So who do you play with?”
“Well, you aren’t going to believe this, but I play with animals all day at work. Mostly dogs, cats, and horses. One time, somebody brought in a peacock! Can you believe that?”
“At work? That must be fun! I like dogs.”
“Yep, at work. You know why?”
“Why?”
“I’m their doctor. I make them feel better.”
Her eyes widened, and I could see the sparkle in them. “So, are you going to marry Mommy?”
“Absolutely.”
She giggled. “I used to wonder why my mommy and daddy didn’t get married. They said they were friends that agreed to raise us. It’s confusing. When will we get to stay here? I wanna stay in my room. It’s so pretty!”
She stood and twirled around the room. “Hopefully, really soon.”
“I hope so. I don’t like staying with Daddy all the time. He doesn’t play with me as much as Mommy does. We play makeup and dress up! Daddy won’t because he’s a boy.”
She giggled and put her hand over her mouth again. I found myself smiling the entire time I stared at her until she said, “And sometimes he doesn’t play with us because his lady friend comes over. She’s not very nice.”
She quickly covered her mouth, and her playful demeanor became serious. “Oh no! I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
I moved closer to her. “It’s okay. Who told you to keep that a secret?”
“Daddy,” she said softly. “The lady doesn’t talk to us like you do. She just looks at us and goes to Daddy’s room. He would rather play with her instead of us.”
I swore I wanted to go find that muthafucka. How dare he put stipulations on who these kids could be around with Giselle, when he’s allowing a woman to be around them that Elle knows nothing about. “Well, sometimes grownups need to interact with other grownups,” I said, trying to coax more information out of her.
“Well, he plays with other grownups all the time. Sometimes his friend Paul comes over. Then there’s Lauren, Monique, and Stacy. They never come on the same days though. That would make it easier if they all became friends and played together.”
Her innocence about the situation was somewhat funny, but at the same time, the shit was irritating as fuck. He was having sex with multiple women while the kids were in the house. I supposed there was a frown on my face because she said, “Uh oh. Am I in trouble? I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody.”
“You’re not in trouble, sweetness.”
“Please don’t tell anybody.”
She started crying, and that action took my heart and turned it to mush. “Shh. Don’t cry. I won’t say a word, Princess Tiana.”
I said those words to ease her mind, but my petty side was smiling like the Joker. While I knew this information would give Giselle leverage, I didn’t understand why he was so adamant about keeping the kids away from me. It had to be more than him being jealous that Elle had found love the unconventional way.
I gently wiped Kizzie’s tears and said, “Come on. Let’s play with this jewelry. I’m gonna have you icy, girl.”
She wiped her face and smiled. Following me to her vanity, she sat on the stool and looked up at me. “Are you gonna be our daddy too?”
I went to my knees and hugged her. “I am going to be here for whatever you need me for. Okay?”
“Okay. Can I go to work with you so I can see the animals?”
“Hmm. We’ll have to check with your mom and dad about that, but I would be cool with having an assistant.”
She giggled as I put a necklace on top of the necklace she already wore. “I already have on a necklace, Mr. Gentry!”
“I know, but I said I was finna make you icy though. You finna look like the next female rapper.”
“Like GloRilla?”
I frowned. How in the fuck did this lil girl know who GloRilla was? As if sensing my questions, she said, “My daddy was listening to a song. He said I couldn’t say the bad words though.”
Maaaaan, this child was dropping all kinds of fucked up information. There was no way I would be able to sit on all this tea. I smiled slightly then put another necklace on her as she giggled. I glanced at Dakota to see he was still playing with his cars. After I clipped earrings on her ears, she said, “My daddy said that he would always love us.”
“That’s good, baby. I can agree with that. He’s your dad, and he loves y’all a lot.”
“But he said it like he was mad.”
I frowned slightly. Something was up with that nigga. Those kids could very well be getting traumatized living with his toxic ass. Giselle was gonna hear about this shit later. I couldn’t respond to her. I just started putting bracelets on her. I was surprised she hadn’t told her mama all this shit. I supposed she was considering me a friend that she could confide in. I would have to be sure Giselle kept this shit to herself when I told her.
Instead, I decided to be real with Kizzie. “Baby girl, I need you to listen to me right quick, okay?”
“Okay!”
“Some secrets aren’t good to keep. I think your mom needs to know everything you told me.”
She lowered her head. “Will I get in trouble?”
“Not at all. There are some things that she needs to know though. I’ll let her explain it to you. I’m not the greatest at explaining things to kids, because I’m never around them.”
She giggled. “Okay. I’ll tell her when she gets out of her shower.”
I nodded and went back to loading her up with jewelry. Giselle was gonna blow a fucking fuse.