Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Bailey
I barely made it to my bedroom before my phone was ringing.
“Hello?” I questioned after seeing Collins’s name flash across my screen.
“I hear you need your hair done.”
“What?”
“Bright told mom that you need your hair done. Come to the lodge right now. Perkins’s chair is free.”
“First of all, hello, Collins. How is your day going? How’s my niece? Is she ready to come out?”
Collins chuckled. “Hey, Bailey. I’m fine. Your niece is fine. Now, stop playing with me. We don’t have a lot of time.”
I whined her name. “Collins.”
“Bright’s taking you on a big girl date. You need to look the part. Come over to the lodge.”
“I’m married. I shouldn’t be dating. I’mma text him and tell him that this is not a good idea.”
“There’s no crime in two people going out to eat. Plus, your paperwork is filed. A month from now, you’ll be divorced. Start heading this way.”
“I can’t. First of all, I’m starving. I need to eat. Second, did you forget that I don’t have a car?”
“Church is on her way. I’ll have her grab you some food before she gets there.”
“Okay.” I agreed reluctantly.
Perkins had just set me under the dryer when our mom and Mrs. Strong entered the salon pushing two racks of women’s clothing.
“Oh, Bright is showing off,” Perkins commented with her hands on her hips.
“Let him cook,” Church insisted, walking up to the racks.
“What is all this?” I asked.
“My son asked us to pull together some options for you,” Mrs. Strong told me. “My sons don’t typically involve me in their dating lives, but Bright really doesn’t involve me in anything. This is special.” She clapped happily.
“Bright and I aren’t dating.”
Everybody in the salon ignored me while the nail tech rolled everything she needed to start on my manicure over to the dryer.
Over an hour later, as Perkins styled my hair, Collins waddled over holding a white eyelet crop top and matching form-fitting wrap-around midi skirt. “With that pink hair and tanned skin you’re gonna look so pretty.”
While Church gave my face a light beat of makeup, my mother, Mrs. Strong, and Collins helicoptered around me. “Stop!” I fussed, making a shooing motion with my hands at the three of them. “Not only are y’all making me nervous, but you’re making me feel like a virgin on prom night.”
“Uh . . .” I could see Perkins’s twisted lips in the mirror. “As if you were still a virgin by prom night.”
My sisters and even Alisha laughed.
“Not you trying to go there, Perkins. Not when I was an auntie by the age of eight.”
“I was one by the age of eight months.” Church chimed in.
“Stop lyin’!” Perkins said through her laughter. “Forget both of y’all.”
“Right, because I’ve always been the only innocent Kingsley sister,” Collins told us.
“I beg your pardon.”
Collins glanced at Church. “I don’t know, Church.”
We all laughed again.
“All of you girls were innocent,” Alisha lied to us. “Y’all were my sweet innocent girls.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Collins tried to hug her around that oversized belly.
“When are you having that baby already?” I questioned.
“Right,” Perkins agreed, “because you’ve been pregnant for at least two years at this point.”
Collins pretended to cry. “I know. Every day I keep hoping she’ll come, but she keeps faking me out.”
“My granddaughter will come when she’s ready,” Mrs. Strong said. “She knows her Noni is waiting to spoil her rotten. She’ll be my first little girl. Four sons and two grandsons. Now I’m finally getting a little girl to fawn over.”
Church eyed our mother. “That’s the opposite of you huh, Ma? You had four daughters. Perkins turned around and gave you three granddaughters, now you’re getting yet another granddaughter. We can’t get any testosterone in this family to save our lives.”
“I’m all right with all my girls. I wouldn’t trade any of them and I’m looking forward to this one, too.”
Mrs. Strong checked her watch. “It’s forty-five minutes to pick up. We should probably let you get home.”
I jumped out of the styling chair and my eyes hit on my reflection in the mirror.
I looked pretty. I hadn’t taken the initiative to fix myself up since the day the OB/GYN told me that my baby wouldn’t survive to term.
I stared at myself silently before grinning.
I was finally starting to see glimpses of the Bailey I thought I lost. It felt good to see her again.
When I answered the door for Bright at exactly 7:45 that night, he looked even more handsome than usual.
He worked with his hands, which meant his typical style of dress leaned heavily casual.
But that night he was wearing cream colored button-up and matching cream colored cargo pants.
But it was the smile he gave me that sent the butterflies in my stomach into overdrive.
I reminded myself that I was married before smiling back at him.
I remembered that feeling from back when Xander’s gazes used to give me life.
I missed having a man look at me like I was something good to look at.
“Hey.”
“Hey. These are for you.” He handed me a bouquet of wildflowers featuring two prominent sunflowers. I smiled again as I took the bouquet from his hand.
“I’ve always found myself drawn to sunflowers. Thank you.”
He followed me into the house. I needed to put the flowers in water because I wanted to enjoy them for days to come.
“I heard that sunflowers track the sun. Wherever the sun is, sunflowers lean to catch the sun’s rays. That kinda reminded me of you. You’ve been fighting through a dark space, but you haven’t given up. You’re still tracking the sun. Looking for the light. Being the light.”
“You’re gonna make me cry.” I shook my head to shake away the notion of messing up my light beat with tear streaks.
“I’ve been kinda emotional these last few days.
Starting from when I watched Xander trying to destroy my mother’s front window.
Talking to my delusional ass mother-in-law.
Then talking to Xander. Today has truly been everything I’ve needed, Bright.
I needed that drive up, what’s it called? What’s the name of the road?”
“Road to the Angels of God.”
“Yeah.” I grinned at the memory of the beauty of the drive.
“I needed that drive. I needed the thoughtfulness behind the breakfast and this date.” I blushed slightly.
“I needed the way Perkins pampered me while she did my hair. I needed your mother and my mother bringing in racks of outfits choices for me. Oh my gosh!” My giggles floated into the air.
“I’ve never had anybody do that for me before.
” I felt tears threatening again. “I needed these flowers and the explanation of what they represent.” After sitting the bouquet on the island, I stepped closer to him and threw my arms around his waist.
He pulled me into a tight embrace. “You deserve it, Bae-Bae. You deserve all those things.”
“Thank you for making me feel soft.” My whisper barely carried from my lips into the atmosphere, so I wasn’t even sure if he heard me until he spoke.
“You are soft, lil mama.”
Bright took me to Good Ashes at the lodge.
I wasn’t mad at all. I loved the food at Good Ashes.
Brewer was the head chef, and his food was some of the best I’d ever tasted.
As a girl from Chicago, I didn’t play about food, because my city had some of the best that the world had to offer. But Brewer always fed me properly.
Bright helped me out of the SUV, led me into the restaurant, and didn’t stop until we were at the chef’s table.
“It’s so nice here,” I gushed. I’d eaten a lot of food from Good Ashes since I’d been in Jackson Falls.
Bright was always bringing me take-out to the bed and breakfast. And I was devouring the Dungeness crab cakes and mac-n-cheese from the Good Ashes booth at the spring festival.
But I’d never actually sat down and had a meal in the restaurant.
It was just as swanky as I would’ve imagined.
It gave wild west, but it also gave masculine and upscale luxe.
It was a gorgeous place, and the aromas wafting through the air had my stomach grumbling.
Bright waited for me to take a seat then sat across from me.
“I already know exactly what I want.” I picked up the menu.
“Let me guess, you want crab cakes and either mac-n-cheese or the butter and lobster loaded mashed potatoes.”
I grinned at him before the two of us fell into a companionable silence.
I really liked that about being with Bright.
I grew up in a house filled with women. There was always chatter, giggling, crying, yelling, and laughing.
There wasn’t a lot of silence. Then I married Xander.
When he was around, he talked constantly, seeming to need to hear himself talk.
When he wasn’t around, the silence was deafening.
It was a different experience for me to get to be quiet with somebody.
I liked that Bright didn’t have the impulse to constantly prattle on and on.
“It’s so quiet and relaxing here,” I mused.
“Yeah. Brewer is the quiet one of the Strong brothers. If any of the other of us had a restaurant it would probably be a sports bar. Only Brew would want a place where patrons felt encouraged to whisper.”
We both laughed.
“I think the people are so quiet because the food is so good. Who wants to talk when you can eat food that makes your tastebuds act up?”
The waiter took our orders. Bright went for the T-Bone steak, the loaded butter and lobster mashed potatoes, and the collard greens.
I got my beloved crab cakes, along with the creamy three-cheese grits, and broccolini.
The waiter set a bowl of soft, steamy bread down on the table and filled our glasses with ice water before walking away to put in our orders.
“Earlier, you asked me what I dreamed about,” Bright said.
“Yeah. You played me off, so I let you make it.”