Chapter 4 #2
From the moment me and Nic got into the car, I felt Otto’s eyes.
My brother was ’bout nosy as hell and enjoying the fact that she was giving me the silent treatment too much.
She intentionally ignored my ass the entire ride but answered Otto’s questions and indulged in his every fucking delight.
He picked up on it, which was why he conversed with her, fucking with me.
“So, sweetheart, how is my son treating you?” my mother, Alora Carter, asked, seated at the kitchen table across from me and Nic. Dinner had come and gone, now we were indulging in dessert and my mother was picking.
Nic looked at me briefly before a grin covered her lips. “This is the first time I’ve seen him in a week..”
My mother scoffed and looked at me. “Hondo, you just put a ring on her finger and run off?”
“We’re snitching now, Nic?” I glared at her playfully before looking at my mother. “I’ve been busy, but I intend to make that up to her if she'll allow me.”
“Don’t say it to me, you should be telling her that. Had you been your father, I would’ve gone upside your head with a cast iron. They do more than fry the fish hard.” She winked in Nic’s direction.
Nic laughed and that shit warmed my whole chest.
“You’re telling her to put hands on me, Ma?”
“Maybe, but I think we need to get down to business about this wedding. After all, I’m told it should be within the next two to three weeks. Where is it happening? The O’Leary esta—”
Nic shook her head. “No, sorry for interrupting, but that’s the last place I want to have a wedding. If I could uninvite them to the wedding, I’d do just that, but not the estate. I’ll look into some places. I have the week off work, so I guess I should busy myself with wedding plans.”
“Understood. Why don’t you have it here? We have a wonderful ballroom that has not been used since Amethyst's sixteenth birthday and she’s twenty. We could hire a decorator and planner and work on it together, if that’s fine with you.”
Nic nodded. I saw how emotional she was even though she usually hid it well. “Yes, I would love that.” Until she said it, I hadn’t realized there were no women in her family. It was just her and her sister, almost like survivors of their bloodline.
“Good, then it’s settled. Your mother was a really good friend of mine. Not only would it be an honor for you to be my daughter soon, but also to help you through this momentous occasion. I got you and I’ll start going through some of my contacts first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Carter.”
“I told you about that. Girl, we're family,” she corrected and Nic nodded.
My mother excused herself, leaving me and Nic alone.
“You know if you missed me you should’ve said that instead of getting dressed up to go tell a nigga he doesn’t have access anymore.”
She shook her head, setting the wine glass in front of herself. “What is there to miss, Hondo? You proposed and disappeared, but not fully because you have your men following me. So what I used him for a meal to let him down easily, my so-called fiancé was too busy to grant that.”
I laughed at her statement. “Look at you, making shit so hard you don’t even know what the fuck you want. You want me in your life or do you want your space?”
She looked at me before she held her hand up. “I want whatever this ring on my finger constitutes and not a half step less.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Her eyes searched mine for something before she nodded. “Yes.”
“Bet.” I leaned forward into her space before I spoke again. “And don’t you ever let me see you without that motherfucker on your finger again.”
We spent a while longer at my parents’ spot before we headed out. My brother had left several hours earlier, talking about he had something to handle. Knowing him, it was definitely somebody.
“Your mom is so sweet. She has this way of making you feel so seen and felt,” Nic said randomly.
“Sweet to you, because you aren’t on her bad side and she loves you. You’re the daughter she never had.”
She smiled. “Yeah, she said some things along those lines and apparently she’s very serious about the grandkids she feels she’s owed.”
I laughed. “I’ve gotten the spiel too many times to count. For Alora, this marriage is one step closer to them.”
“And what is it for you?” Her voice had me looking in her direction not a second later.
“The same thing it should be for you. Some type of proof that people like us get forever.”
“How do you even know you want forever with me, Hondo? How do you know you want anything with me?”
“Because I’ve known it since we were kids and you have too. Probably just downplayed it as some crush, but you knew just like I did. Even now you know, you’re just doing that shit you women do when y’all overthink and under process.”
She crossed her arms, that stubborn expression plaguing her features. “And how many women have been in your life to under process and overthink?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t trying to keep count.”
“Why not?”
“Because none of that shit was my problem.”
“But mine is?”
“You damn right.”
“And yours is mine?” she asked.
“If that’s what you want to consider it. I rarely overthink and und—”
“Yet you did tonight, showing up at my dinner and threatening to kill a man if I didn’t put my ring back on.”
I laughed hard as fuck because she had definitely clocked my shit.
“Maybe but had you DMed him and been wearing your ring, I wouldn’t have. For that reaction and situation, you should be blaming yourself.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “Um no, I haven’t seen you in a week, how did I know I’d see you tonight?”
“Easy, baby, you gave another nigga your time.”
“But it doesn’t take away from the fact that I haven’t seen you in a week."
“I was giving you your space. Now stop bringing that shit up and tell me you missed me, so we can get on to other shit.”
She grinned. “What is there to miss?”
“A whole fucking lot apparently.”
“I don’t know about that. You’re gonna definitely have to show me.”
“I got you, now come over here,” I demanded, not liking that she was so far away.
She shocked me when she didn’t give me lip. She scooted into my space easily.
“What? No lip, you good?” I asked, just to fuck with her.
“Yes, I’m fine. I just had some time to think. If this with you is for the rest of my life, I don’t want to spend it miserable. I wanna be happy… with you.”