Chapter 27
Juniper Weaver
“I don’t like any of it,” Margret Snidley responded with a loathing expression.
”Good thing this isn’t your wedding. I love the red velvet and the vanilla,” I said to the baker who looked like she was two seconds from breaking out in tears.
I couldn’t blame her either. Dealing with Margret took a special type of person, and by special, I meant God because he was the one who loved all his children–despite how rude, mean, or evil they could be.
Personally, I didn’t have any tolerance for Margret at all.
When I say she never had anything nice to say, I was serious.
Kojo’s parents had ever so graciously offered to pay for this wedding, not because they were thrilled for our upcoming nuptials.
Margret wanted to control anything connected to her life which meant she wanted to be a part of every aspect of our wedding planning.
She’d picked the venue, some park, even though I told her I’d preferred an indoor wedding.
Then she decided the theme of our wedding was classical royalty.
I had no idea what the hell she was going for with that.
However, when Kojo sided with his mom, I threw the towel in.
I let Margret plan this wedding like it was hers.
I gave zero fucks about anything; I only showed up because it was the bridely thing to do, and I liked to piss Margret off when the opportunity came.
Since we’d arrived at Bake & Cake a bakery, Margret insisted we come, claiming it was the best in town.
The way she’d been showing her natural ass had me questioning her sanity.
How do you demand to go to a specific place then turn around and act like it’s the worst bakery in the world?
We’d tried almost twenty different cake flavors, and every last one of them were disgusting to her.
Margret was just being a bitch, majority of the cakes were amazing.
The few I didn’t like were because of personal flavors I didn’t care for.
Nothing to do with the quality of the cakes.
How Kevin, Kojo’s dad, stayed married to her for over thirty years amazed me.
You couldn’t pay me to believe that man didn’t do drugs.
That had to be the only someone who could put up with her ass everyday.
Margret had the ability to piss off any and everyone she came into contact with.
Even the preacher was ready to quit after his run in with Margret’s evil ass.
She walked around face screwed up like a clenched ass hole, and hateful stuff was the only thing that came out her dirty ass mouth.
The more time I spent with Margret, I noticed where Kojo got some of his ways from.
I hated to admit he took after his mom in one too many ways.
Kojo was very critical about a lot of things, and at first, I thought it was his deep passion.
When in reality, he was just negative as hell like his mammy.
I had half a mind to tell her to marry him and let me go on my way, but my wedding was a few weeks away.
It was too close for me to cancel for petty things.
Kojo wasn’t all bad, he’d been there for me when most niggas would have left me high and dry.
I suppose I owed it to him to give him a fair shot at love.
Even if it meant dealing with his sour-ass faced mama.
“Too bad for you my husband is paying for this expensive ass wedding. So, I have the final say so on what is being paid for,” Margret condescendingly said while shooting me a dirty look across the table.
With her nose turned up in the air, she looked at the nervous baker.
“We’ll do the six tier cake with three strawberry layers and three chocolate layers.
We want a traditional white wedding cake with minimal decorations. ”
Of course, her evil ass picked the two flavors I liked the least. Scoffing, I tuned them out as Margret finalized all the details she wanted for the cake.
This woman never ceased to amaze me. I had to get away from her.
There was no way in hell I was finishing the planned day we had.
Fuck them dress fittings, it was time for me to make my exit.
Abruptly standing up, I picked my phone off the table, ignoring the daggers Margret was shooting at me and the curious eyes of the baker.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Margret snidely asked.
“Uhh, I forgot I had other obligations today. I’ll see you later,” I quickly replied, turning to leave.
”Excuse me? I am not taking you anywhere but to our fitting for our dresses. Did you forget we rode together?” Margret raised up to her feet smacking her hands on the table.
“I got two feet that will work just fine,” I smartly replied looking back over my shoulder. I wanted to laugh because Margret's light honey skin was beet red right now. She looked like a tomato about to explode.
“My son will not be pleased by this behavior once I call him and tell him about it. I’ve told him you are not the one. You aren’t taking this wedding serio-“
Blah,blah,blah. I mocked Margret with my hands as I walked out the front door of the bakery.
Thank God it was a beautiful day out. It was the perfect day to take a stroll downtown while I waited on a T-Ride, the biggest rideshare company in Beaumont.
As I walked down the sidewalk, I snickered to myself thinking about how mad Margret was.
I knew a call from Kojo was coming, but he could kiss my ass just like his mama could.
If he wanted me to marry him, he needed to tread real light with me.
I promise I was milliseconds from calling this entire wedding off.
Truth be told, I probably shouldn’t even be getting married, but I figured it would be the best way to get over Faheem’s trifling ass.
When it came to Faheem, nothing was able to get him out of my system.
My heart still beat for him, and I hated that shit with a passion.
It was like my heart refused to get the memo that we were done with that nigga.
The love I had for Faheem felt like it never wanted to end.
It seemed like it would be in my heart until the day I died, and I hated that for me.
Getting over Troy wasn’t this hard, and I was with that nigga for years.
Faheem had me going in circles that all led back to him.
At some point, I was going to have to deal with him solely because we shared a child.
The nigga was going to lose his shit when he found out about Ryver.
I’d prepared myself to deal with his rage.
I half expected that to be the nail in the coffin for us.
Or whatever was left of us. I wished I hadn’t allowed so much time to pass without Faheem or his family knowing about Ryver.
Which is why I chickened out on my lunch date with Daelite and Frankee.
As much as I missed Frankee, I knew she was going to be pissed at me for keeping Ryver away.
It wasn’t intentional, I was dealing with a lot, and my heart was hurting.
I never cared to think about how my actions would play out in the long run.
My focus was on myself, and I should have felt more empathy over my actions but I didn’t.
I shouldn’t have kept my pregnancy a secret, but at the same time, I was doing what was best for me, and sometimes that was more important than how other people felt.
I wouldn’t apologize for making myself a priority when I had failed to do that too many times in the past. Even though my actions made sense to me, it didn’t mean others would accept them.
At the end of the day, Frankee was Faheem’s sister, and no matter what, she’d be on his side.
I’d rather keep my distance and only deal with Faheem’s anger, only because I had to.
”Juniper? Is that really you?” I looked back at the patio of the restaurant I stood in front of.
“Frankee.” I turned around smiling at Frankee who had stood up from her table.
With her arms outstretched, we both walked over to the metal frame that fenced the patio area of the restaurant. We embraced each other happily.
“Houdini in the flesh. Bitch disappeared on me like I’m the mutha fuckin’ plug she ran off on,” Frankee teased, pulling back from our hug.
“No, ma’am, I had to get away before I lost my mind dealing with your brother. ”
“Annnd what does that have to do with me?” Frankee sarcastically asked, placing her hand on her hip.
“Faheem would’ve run you crazy trying to get to me. After our blow up, I just needed space.”
“I still to this day haven’t seen Faheem as mad as he was that night. He didn’t talk to me for almost three months. His petty ass didn’t even tell me when my nephew was born.”
“Mmm…” My heart skipped a beat hearing that Faheem had a son with Mixie. It kind of made me sad. “See, it was best I stayed away. I caused enough chaos,” I put on a fake smile, ignoring the odd feeling in my gut.
”Unh-huh. Is that the reason you stood Daelite and me up last week?” Frankee questioned me, eyeing me up and down.
“I chickened out. I’m sorry.”
“For what though? I’m not that mad at you. A little salty ‘cause you broke up with me too, but I still fuck with you.”
I smiled at Frankee, because she was glowing and I could tell she we genuinely happy.
In her fitted red skirt suit, with the gold buttons and cuff links made her look like walking money.
She wore a black cami tucked into her skirt, with black six inch heels on her feet, Frankee looked amazing.
Her hair hung in loose curls framing her face.
I would have missed her small baby bump had she kept her blazer closed.
“I see you been busy.” I placed my hand on her round stomach.