Chapter 16 Depth
Chapter sixteen
Depth
I couldn’t even enjoy the ceviche in front of me.
The fresh lime and snapper might as well have been cardboard because I was so locked in on Nique across the table that I didn’t have an appetite.
I wanted to be the one beside her as she faced her mother, but from the outside most people would think she was handling it just fine.
That was the problem. I wasn’t most people.
I read her body language like a map I’d been studying for years.
Her shoulders were stiff, her smile was forced, and she kept nervously tucking her curls behind her ear, a sign she was overstimulated.
She’d barely touched her plate, which was a red flag because ceviche was one of her favorites, and she was already hitting the bottom of her second pina colada in under thirty minutes.
I had to pull her out.
Stella was firing questions back to back, trying to compress a decade of silence into one dinner service. Nel was doing his best to run interference but every few minutes Stella would lean in looking to Nique for a response Nique clearly didn’t want to give.
“Yo, Nique,” I called across the table.
Beside me Amina tensed up. I didn’t care.
Nique looked over, a slight frown on her lips.I knew she was still fuming about Amina and my mother staking their claims on either side of me.
Amina was smart about it too. She knew as long as she stayed glued to my mother I wouldn’t push her away in public.
She was using that like a calculated shield and it was working, for now
“This ceviche might actually be better than that little Cuban spot we hit in Miami,” I said, catching Nique’s eye and holding it. “What you think?”
She hesitated, then picked up a plantain chip and loaded it with the citrus cured fish. She took a bite and for a split second the mask slipped, her face lighting up with something genuine.
“Dang, that is good,” she admitted, a real smile finally breaking through.
“Eww,” Amina chimed in, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t see how y’all eat raw seafood.”
Her remark got swallowed up by Stella, whose eyes had drifted down the table and landed on me for the first time all night.
“Dexter? Is that you?” Her face transformed instantly.
“Yes ma’am. How are you Ms. Simmons?”
“It’s Mrs. Becker now, but I’m doing well Dex. So good to see you.” She looked from me to Nique with something warm and proud in her expression. “You know I still keep y’all’s prom picture in my wallet.”
She dug into her Louis Vuitton bag and held up a small worn photograph a moment later.
I remembered that night perfectly. I’d been a nerdy Black kid at a predominantly white private school where none of the girls were checking for me.
I’d told Nique everything and without a second thought she stepped up.
She’d already gone to her own prom at Murphy with Prez but she called him up and told him she was going to be my date for the UMS-Wright prom too.
Prez hadn’t even tripped about it. Back then he didn’t see my nerdy ass as a threat.
Nique moved through that ballroom like she’d been born to do it.
She was the kind of woman who could fit in at a hood cookout or a black tie event and not miss a beat either way.
She made that night something I’d never forget.
“Can I see that?” I asked.
Stella passed it down the line. It went from Nique to Kyson to Paris to Amina before landing in my hand.
I looked at the seventeen year old girl in the photo and then at the woman sitting across from me.
Back then she hadn’t filled out yet and her hair was relaxed.
Now with her natural curls and those curves she was even more dangerous.
She was aging like fine wine and she didn’t even seem to know it.
“Let me see Dex,” my mom said, reaching for it. Her face lit up the moment she looked down. “Oh, I have this photo on my fireplace!”
“You’re Dex’s mother?” Stella asked, leaning forward.
“Yes, Lisa Nash. I don’t think we’ve ever had the pleasure.”
“I’m Stella. Nique and Nel’s mom.”
My mother, who had been distracted taking photos with Aunt Maxine and had missed the earlier tension at the table, looked genuinely surprised. Her eyes moved from Stella to Nique and back. “Oh my! I thought you might be a sister I didn’t know about. You look so young!”
“I’m her sister!” Whitley chirped from behind Stella, leaning into the light.
“Mighty strong genes,” my mom said, her voice carrying a genuine warmth as she looked between Stella, Nique, and Whitley. “Very beautiful women.”
I felt a quiet jolt move through me. My mother hadn’t paid Nique a real compliment in years, not since the shooting when she made up her mind that Nique was trouble my future didn’t have room for. Hearing her say it now felt like a crack in something that had been frozen for a long time.
Beside me Amina went rigid. She didn’t say a word but she grabbed her margarita with a tight grip and took a long slow sip, her eyes fixed on the tablecloth.
She had spent the better part of a year being the woman my mother approved of and watching that approval extend to Nique clearly wasn’t sitting well.
Stella beamed, encouraged by the warmth. “Thank you Lisa. I was just telling Nique how much she reminds me of myself at that age. Same fire.”
Nique didn’t respond. She just traced a slow pattern in the condensation on her glass, her eyes somewhere else entirely.
“Dex,” Stella said, turning to me with a playful glint. “Seeing that picture makes me wonder, are you two still as close as you used to be? Tevin used to say he couldn’t keep you from around the house.”
The question landed like a live wire across the table. Nique looked up, her eyes wide and full of warning. Beside me Amina set her glass down just a little too hard, waiting on my answer.
Before I could say a word Uncle Elliot jumped in from further down the table.
“That boy used to come over claiming he wanted to hang with Eli,” he chuckled. “Eli would be inside on his video games and those two would be outside racing down the street like a pair of Great Danes.”
“It was so exhausting timing them,” London added, her smile nostalgic.
“Exhausting just being around them period,” Kyson said with a smirk. “Those two acted like nobody else existed.”
“Can we please move on from memory lane?” Nique asked, a flush creeping up her neck.
The table laughed, the tension easing for just a second before Stella dropped the bomb.
“I really thought you two would be married with kids by now,” she said softly, like she was just thinking out loud.
Amina didn’t hesitate. “He already has a daughter,” she said, her voice cutting clean through the laughter. “With me.”
Stella’s eyebrows lifted, her eyes shifting to me with a flicker of regret like she’d just realized she’d walked into a room without a map. “Oh wow. You’re a father now Dex? I’ve missed so much.”
“I wonder why,” Nique said under her breath, quiet but sharp enough to draw blood.
Stella looked at her, her posture softening just a fraction. “I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
“Dex and I are still just friends, Stella,” Nique said, her voice turning clinical, detached. “Plus, I’m a lesbian.”
The table went dead silent. Even the ocean seemed to pull back.
“What? Since when?” Stella asked.
“I was in a relationship with a woman for two years,” Nique said, her eyes steady.
“Was?” Michelle asked, her voice soft with concern.
“Yeah Auntie. Kel and I broke up.”
“Where are you living then?” Tevin asked, already in protective mode.
“Transitioning back to Grandma’s with Nel for a little while.”
I watched Stella’s face move through the shock and land somewhere that looked too much like judgment for my comfort. “I knew Nel was part of the LGBTQ community,” she said, her voice pulling tight. “But not you.”
Nique read it the same way I did. She didn’t flinch.
“Yeah well Stella, you don’t know much about me anyway.”
Stella’s mouth opened and closed once before she pressed her lips together, her eyes going glassy.
Wendell reached over and put his hand on top of hers but she didn’t move.
She just sat there absorbing it, and something about the way she took it without defending herself told me she knew Nique was right.
She didn’t have a rebuttal because there wasn’t one.
The second course arrived under a heavy cloud, but by the time the fourth course was cleared, the wine and tequila had done their job to blur the sharpest edges of the conversation. Stella had retreated into a quiet, observant shell, only speaking when Tevin pulled her into the conversation.
I spent most of the meal watching Nique.
The tension in her shoulders had finally started to ease, mostly because of Whitley.
The girl was relentless with questions about Nique’s business, her life in Mobile, her favorite music, and instead of shutting down Nique answered with a patience and warmth that made something tighten in my chest. That was the version of her most people never got to see.
The soft one. The one she only showed when she felt safe.
By the time the dessert plates were cleared the room had loosened into laughter and comfortable exhaustion.
London stood and tapped her glass. Her waves were starting to lose their battle with the humidity but she still looked radiant.
“I hope you all enjoyed dinner. If any of you are night owls please join Eli and me in the lobby for karaoke.”
The younger end of the table cheered.
I was already pushing my chair back when Amina’s voice came in low beside me.
“Will you walk me to my room?”
“My mom is headed back that way. Walk with her and my aunts,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“I feel safer with a man.”
“My uncles are with them.” I nodded toward Kurtis and Elliot already on their feet adjusting their jackets. “The whole group is covered.”
Amina’s sweetness evaporated. “What’s so important that you can’t walk the mother of your child to her room?”
I leaned in, keeping my voice low.
“Amina, we might have shown up at the airport together but we are not here together. I’m here to celebrate my cousin. I’m not here to cater to you.”
Her mouth opened. I kept going.
“I have a lot of respect for you because you’re a good mother to Demi. But that’s where it starts and ends. We co-parent. That’s it.”
Her face cycled through about three shades of frustration before she snatched her clutch off the table and disappeared into the crowd moving toward the villas without a single word.
I exhaled and felt a thousand pounds lift off my shoulders. Across the table Nel caught my eye and gave me a slow approving nod that said everything without saying anything at all.