Chapter 18
Dionne Briggs
Everything We Hoped For
“Hiii. I’m your mommy, and I think you’re going to be a boy,” I said, with a smile on my face, as Blake was standing in front of me with her phone in her hands, recording me.
I chose Blake to be the god mother to my child, which didn’t come to any surprise to anyone because this was my best friend.
She would have probably killed me if I didn’t do it, either.
With her being the god mommy, she was taking her role very serious, even though our baby wasn’t even here yet.
She was filming this TikTok video, where she’d gone around to just about all Tank’s and I family, getting their reaction, asking them what they thought the gender of the baby was going to be.
Today, Tank and I were having our gender reveal.
I was in absolute love with the theme that we’d come up with.
Well, my man came up with it, pitching it to me a couple of months ago, when we were in the process of planning the general reveal.
When he told me, I immediately fell in love with it, wanting to do it because I hadn’t really seen this done before.
We decided to go with a whole country theme.
With that, we found one of the best ranches located in Southwest ranches because with everything that we were coming up with, with our party planner, it was going to have to be held at a ranch.
Because my man loved his horses, it was pretty much horse city where we were, and Tank had been in his element all afternoon, riding horses, showing out, letting everybody see all the tricks that he could do.
Noir was here, and Tank had been having a good time riding her.
When invitations were sent out, we let it be known that we wanted all our guest to follow the theme, dressing in their best cowboy boots, treating this like it was a fashion contest. All the women in my life loved a good theme, so I have been seeing ass cheeks out, denim was everywhere, and even chambray shirts.
I thought that all Tank’s homies were going to be too cool to wear their cowboy attire, but they all followed the rules, and had dressed up for the theme too.
Along with the cowboy theme, the overall saying that we were going with this afternoon was boots vs bows.
The decorators that we’d hired had killed the theme, and all day, people had been complimenting Tank and I, telling us that this was the best gender reveal that they’d ever attended.
There was even a mechanical bull that we had, and it was comical all afternoon, watching people get on the bull, and flying off.
“Okay. I got it. Dionne, I still can’t believe you, girl. I mean, look at this stomachhhhh. This is the prettiest baby bump that I have ever seen in my life,” Blake cooed, coming over to me, handing me her phone, so that I could watch the video that she recorded of me, and give her my approval.
As I was looking, she had her hand on my stomach, that was exposed today, always wanting to rub on my stomach every time that she came around me.
I watched myself on the video, and honestly, all I could do was smile.
Not even in a vain kind of way, or to sound like I was overly obsessed with myself, but I genuinely looked good.
At six months, I was carrying this baby so well.
People had been walking up to me all afternoon telling me that.
I was all baby. God had blessed me because the only thing that had gotten bigger on me was my belly.
Although I still had three months left to go, my bump was sitting super low.
I tapped into the theme as well, having to shut it down, since I was the expectant mommy of the show.
My top was a black leather-fitted cropped blouse, having my belly all out in the open.
The bottoms were black leather pants that hugged my body.
My hair had grown so much with this pregnancy.
Usually, pre- pregnancy, my hair would stop in the middle of my back, but these days, it went far down, stopping just before my ass.
My hair was styled in a middle part with curls that looked like I was rocking body wave bundles.
There sat a cream and black cowboy hat on top of my head.
My cowboy boots were from Miron Crosby, and I’d just broken them in today, so I thought that my feet were going to be killing me, but surprisingly, they weren’t.
My make-up was flawlessly done. Usually, I would have opted on doing it myself, but because this was a special day, I hired a MUA to come to the house, and she did a beautiful job.
As a dark-skinned girly, I was very particular when it came to picking out MUA’s.
Some of these make-up artist didn’t like to carry foundation in my color, and it would be disappointing as hell when my make-up didn’t blend the way that I wanted it to.
Luckily, this artist knew what she was doing, and I loved the way that it had come out.
“It looks good. You can post it. I’m about to sit my ass down,” I let her know, and she followed me, going over to the table and chairs where everyone was.
I spotted the table where my sisters were seated, surrounded by all my girls.
Even my nieces, Tailynn and Tru, were there with them.
Tailynn had flown down for the weekend, just so that she could attend my gender reveal.
I was surprised that Tru’s ass was here because she loved to be on the move, so we rarely saw her these days.
When I made it over, Free was sitting down with Liberty in her lap, and she was bouncing her up, and down.
My big girl was now one years old, she was walking, and always into all kinds of shit.
When she saw me walk over, she started moving around all crazy in her mama’s lap, and I knew that that was her way of trying to get me to pick her up.
I went ahead, and reached for her, holding her in my arms, and I took the empty chair that was right next to Free.
I placed Liberty in my lap, and her small hands went for the thin, Tiffany necklace that I had around my neck. She tried to pull it off, but I was able to pry her hands away.
“How you feel? You tired?” Free asked me.
“Not tired. Just anxious. I’m ready to find out what I’m having. God, I hope it’s a boy,” I released, and when I did, all the women at the table laughed.
“I’m so shocked that you want a boy. I would think that your bougie ass would want a little girl,” Kita said to me.
She wasn’t the first person to tell me this. When everyone found out that I wanted a boy, they would all be shocked. I guess, they could see me wishing for a girl, wanting to have a little shopping partner, or someone to get their hair, and nails done with me.
“I do want a girl. I just want a boy first, so that he can be a big brother, and protect his little sister. I want a mommy’s boy though. I can see me being a boy mom,” I shared, and when I said that, Tommie, who was sitting on the other side of me started laughing.
“Girl, Tank going to have that boy so damn tough. He going to be a country boy just like his damn daddy. Out there riding horses just like Tank. I mean, I knew you told me that Tank was into horses, and that he owned one, but I didn’t know that he was that skilled.
You took that saying literal when they say, ‘about to see a man about a horse’.
I didn’t think he was skilled like that,” Tommie joked, and when she finished, she got everyone to laugh, including me.
“Horsey,” Liberty called out from my lap, pointing to the baby ponies that were out on the ranch, not too far away from where we were.
“That’s a pony, mommy. You want to ride it again?” I asked her, and she eagerly nodded her head up and down, letting me know that she wanted to ride the pony.
I let the girls know that I was going to be right back, and I stood up with my niece, who was clapping her hands, all excited to get on the pony again.
Since this little girl got here, everyone had been taking her to ride the pony.
I’m surprised that she got off it because she had been having the time of her life on it.
I took her over to it, and the workers that were here smiled, and she took Liberty from me, sitting her down on the pony, and the worker guided the pony around the small ranch area, and like the proud auntie that I was, I pulled my phone out, so that I could record the entire thing.
I took my eyes off Liberty for a second, just so that I could glance over at the other part of the ranch, and that’s where Tank was.
I was going to literally have to beg him to get off Noir.
He was in his own little world, riding her up and down the ranch, and my God, he looked so good doing it.
He was dressed in all black, just as I was.
My man had the belt, the boots, the hat, all the things.
For this event, he chose not to wear his twist. In fact, his hair was in curls, and you could see how thick, and healthy it was up under the hat.
That was one of the most attractive things in the world to me…
to watch him riding that horse like that.
Twenty minutes later, Blake was coming over to me, asking me if I was ready to go ahead, and start with the gender reveal. I had been ready since I got here, so I quickly went over, so that I could grab Liberty, taking her off the pony, and that little girl cut up so bad when I got her.
“Ay. Chil out with all that. You be ready to crash out,” June appeared out of nowhere, coming over, dressed up in his cowboy attire as well, and he grabbed Liberty from my arms.
This little girl was so dramatic that she crashed her head into her father’s chest, pointing with her finger at the pony, letting him know that she wanted to get back on.
“Aight. We going to get back on later but stop crying like that. You be tweaking for no reason,” he said to her, and I laughed because you could hear it in his voice that Liberty had his ass stressed out.