SIXTEEN #4
Nina didn’t even notice that Jio was gone. He went to get his gift. It was fifty thousand dollars and they could do whatever they wanted with it. He approached the circle with stacks in both of his hands and his family started hooting and hollering up a storm.
People clapped before he even reached the bride.
One of his aunties shouted, “That’s my nephew!” like he had just scored the winning touchdown. Jio folded several bills carefully and pinned them near the bride’s shoulder with a gentleness that many didn’t know he had. He leaned down and said something that made her laugh before kissing her cheek.
Nina watched him in admiration. She was honored to belong to him and she couldn’t wait to put it on her man later.
When he made it back to the table, Nina looked at him and said, “If we ever get married—”
“When,” he corrected her.
Jio took a sip of water like he hadn’t just rearranged the sentence and her entire nervous system with one word. She seemed to be undone whereas he was cool, calm and collected.
“Wassup mama?” He pulled her chair close to his and kissed her on the forehead.
Her heart couldn’t take all of this love today.
Nina didn’t know if she wanted to make a joke or be sassy with him for correcting her.
Instead, she refocused her attention to the dance floor.
“When I was younger I used to say I was going to elope, but the other half of me knew I wanted a ceremony in a big Cathedral church with all these gorgeous pink and white flowers. I wanted ballerinas, an orchestra… maybe one of my favorite singers to serenade us during the first dance. I knew every song I wanted to hear. I swore I was going to wear a simple dress but with a twenty-foot train that Charis’s girls would have to carry down the aisle… ”
“Sounds like you.”
“You know me so well,” she grinned.
“But now…” She paused, watching the bride dance with an older man who had tears streaming down his face. “Now I don’t know.”
“I think I’d want something smaller…. More private.”
Jio’s expression shifted as Nina looked down at her hands.
“If my family was more welcoming to you, maybe I’d feel differently.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t speak at all.
“I don’t want to spend my wedding day managing tension or caring about what people are whispering to each other. My dad is going to make everyone feel uncomfortable, including me. And I know my mama will be judging me from the front row.”
“Nina…”
“I know they love me…” she said persuasively.
With tears in her eyes, she told him, “I just don’t know if they’ll ever love you.”
The honesty sat between them. It was cruel but unfortunately very true.
“I can win them over if that’s what you want.” For his baby, he would gladly put his pride to the side.
Nina smiled faintly. “You don’t have to.”
“But for you I will…”
His face was serious.
“You shouldn’t have to spend your wedding worrying about how people feel about me.”
She wiped her tears. “It’s your wedding too.”
“Babe, you know what I mean, it’s your day. I’ll just be grateful to be the one waiting for you at the end of the aisle.” He was tipsy but he meant every word.
Nina’s eyes warmed so quickly she had to blink.
“I’m not supposed to be crying like this at a wedding.”
“Let’s dance,” he stood and reached for her hand.
They held each other as Maxwell crooned loudly about a woman’s worth. Jio stated out of nowhere, “I’m going to speak to your dad when we get back in town.”
Nina’s breath stopped for a second and she looked up at him slowly.
He looked irritated by the idea already, which almost made her laugh.
“For permission to marry me?”
He didn’t know the right word. “Or whatever y’all call it.”
“It’s called a blessing but same thing.”
“Permission…. Blessing. He’s going to say no regardless, but at least I did the right thing.”
She laughed, “Oh Lord.”
“You know I’m right.”
Whether she was pregnant or not, Jio still wanted to make an honest woman out of her.
Not because she needed his last name to be respectable. Nina Marcelle had walked into rooms with a name powerful enough to open doors long before he ever appeared in her life. She didn’t need saving, upgrading, or legitimizing by any man, but he still wanted her to have his last name.
Nina deserved his public devotion. She deserved to be covered during the money dress ceremony too.
Jio had no problem standing in front of God, her family, his family, and everybody else who thought they had an opinion and say, without hesitation, that he belonged to her as much as she belonged to him.
Later, when the music softened and the reception spilled out into the lawn, they slipped away from the tent. They walked without saying much. Hand in hand and madly in love.
Nina leaned against him when they stopped near the water.
“You okay?” she asked.
The question had become their favorite thing to ask each other.
“I’m good.”
For once, she believed him.
He’d bought so much shit for Nina that there was only one thing left he hadn’t given her… and that was his last name.