Bleu, Grass, Bourbon

by Olivia Gaines

  “Wassup, Baby?” he asked with his head teetering.

  “This package is for us,” she told him, ripping open the envelope to find a note with a set a of keys. Maya screamed at the top of her lungs before reading the note aloud.

  “To the best parents, two kids could ever hope to have...all my love, DeShondra.”

  “What does it mean?” Xavier asked.

  “She has gifted us with her house. She gave us her house. It’s all paid for and everything. We get to move into a bigger house,” Maya said.

  “Whoop!” Xavier said as he passed out on the floor, the meatball still dangling from the toothpick.

  Joe Neary walked into the room spotting Xavier on the floor. True, he liked this one a whole lot better than the Inquisitor Gabriel was stuck with for a father in law, but Xavier couldn’t hold his liquor. On a positive note, he wasn’t a rowdy drunk, but a hugger. He disliked that more than the fucking fairy covered necktie which still hung around his neck.

  “Thank God he is down,” Joe said. “If he hugged me one more damned time, I was going to shoot him!”

  Mary smiled at her husband, going over to the table to help Maya start sorting the presents. Pookie had come inside as well to begin the cleanup. The envelope with his name on it was in Maya’s hand as she told the designer about the gift DeShondra had given to she and Xavier.

  “Oh, I finally get to decorate that house,” she said, calling for Pookie. “Pookie! Pookie! I have great news. DeShondra has left me and Xavier her house. We get to decorate that one, too!”

  “I hope you have a budget ‘cause Pookie Jenkins ain’t cheap,” he said getting Joe to help him get Xavier off the floor onto the couch.

  “I have a budget and coupons too on everything from paint to plaster,” Maya said with a grin handing Pookie the envelope. “DeShondra left this for you Pookie!”

  Uncertain what the envelope held, he opened it slowly to find the deed to the second office DeShondra had offered to Bleu. The deed read, Alfonzo Jenkins. She had given him his own building to start his business as a designer. The envelope held keys, a business license for Pookie’s Creations and a check for ten thousand dollars. A handwritten note was inside.

  “Just between you, me and the wallpaper; a queen needs a castle.

  Please accept this as the start of your kingdom.

  Love you fiercely – D. Neary.”

  Pookie Jenkins did what he had been unable to do in six years. He took a seat, kicked off his boots, and took a good stiff drink of Bleu’s special bourbon. Then he began to cry. Mary and Maya sat next to him, arms around his shoulders as the emotions poured out of him like a leaky cauldron.

  “You two...are so lucky. Ms. Maya, you raised an awesome daughter. Ms. Mary, you get to spend time with a daughter-in-law that is so easy to love,” Pookie said through tears.

  He didn’t need to tell either of them that- they both already knew.

  Epilogue

  A year passed with Isiah finding his groove with the new job, a new baby boy, and a spitfire of a wife whom he felt still worked too hard for his comfort. Abraham Micah Neary was an adorable baby boy with caramel colored skin, hazel eyes, and a mop of curly hair on his head. He was the apple of his grandparent’s eyes and was easily becoming spoiled by being held by one of the four grandparents at any given time.

  Joe and Mary, now only two hours away, found reasons every other weekend to drive to Louisville for a visit. It was on one of the same weekends that Isiah would fire up the grill and visitors would pop in for a sausage, a cigar, and a glass of bourbon. Xavier’s skills on the grill had improved, but not enough for his son-in-law to relinquish the tongs. The old dentist sat on the deck in his favorite chair watching his grandchildren run amok in the backyard as DeAndre tried to teach them to fish.

  The Weird Sisters often avoided the children and Mr. Wellington, the dog, had adopted Isiah as his new owner. He had shown up on a Saturday with his master but refused to leave. Even after DeAndre tried to lift the dog to put him back in the car, the dog snapped at him to get away, running back into the house with Isiah.

  “I guess it’s your dog now,” DeAndre said.

  “I guess so,” Isiah said.

  DeShondra stood in the home office, holding Abraham to her breast as he fed while she looked over the model of the community. Red flags adorned the board as properties were purchased. Green flags meant properties sold. Blue flags meant houses to be acquired. There were more red flags than blue ones with the number of green flags changing daily. The area had been labeled as an up and coming community with the offices of Bleu’s Crew on site, working on flips each and every day.

  Buster, his wife, and the family moved into the Leman’s old home with Shelly, Buster’s wife knocked out the wall that Maya had layered with too much paint, opening the house up and making room for an island in the kitchen. Buster appeared happy with the amount of work the crew received which kept them busy from the beginning of the year all the way through the cold season. The real estate market was booming, houses were selling as fast as they could flip them, and Leman Realty was growing.

  Monica, who ran the main office alongside Zach, who had grown a big set in the past year, chose saleable properties to list, increasing his commissions four-fold with sales in less than 90 days. DeShondra loved it. It lessened her time in the office so she could spend more time at home with her infant son, who appeared to learn at an astronomical pace. Before she knew it, he went from tummy time to crawling and pulling up on furniture.

  “I told you he was going to be a genius,” Isiah said, “because his father is one.”

  “Or he is making room for a brother or sister,” Maya said, offering a wink.

  “Mom stop that nonsense,” DeShondra said, picking up her briefcase to head to the office. “I won’t be late today. I have a showing at three and a meeting at 4:30. I should be home no later than six.”

  “What should I have Jacob make for dinner?” Maya called back. “I just hope him and his little Chef Boy R Dee friends aren’t in there putting stuff together that doesn’t belong on the same plate!”

  “No need to cook tonight, maybe order a couple of pizzas,” DeShondra said. “There are some coupons in the drawer in the kitchen. Plus, he has finals today.”

  “Listen to you, using coupons,” Maya said, kissing her grandson on his chubby cheek.

  “Well, I learned from the best,” DeShondra said with a wink. “Hell, if you can get a private plane ride to and from Miami with a Groupon, I have learned to be a coupon clipping, money-saving fool.”

  Maya laughed as Isiah came into the kitchen to collect his lunch bag. He passed out hugs and kisses to everyone before helping his wife out the door. “See you soon, son,” he told Abraham.

  The child kicked and cooed, wanting his father’s attention. Isiah held him briefly before the child grabbed him by the tie, nearly choking him.

  “That’s a firm grip, son, but Daddy will play with you this evening. Also, this weekend, Daddy is going to put you on Hamlet, let you get a feel for sitting in the saddle,” he said turning his attention to his mother in law. “Maya, there are some bills in the coffee can should you need anything for you and my boys.”

  “We are good. Go make my money,” she said, prepping the child for a morning nap after story time. Isiah loved the idea of Abraham not having a nanny or to be in daycare. He paid Maya for her time, although she didn’t want the money, Isiah told her to save it to take the boy on his first trip to Disney. She of course, would only take him if she were able to get tickets using a Groupon to take all her grandbabies. Both he and DeShondra was okay with that.

  “Love you, Mom,” DeShondra said, kissing her mother on the cheek as she and her husband left to start their workday.

  On the front porch, she stopped, inhaling the clean air of the farm, just on the outskirts of town. The white house with blue trim and a red door was the place she called home. She would have a talk with Isiah over dinner about the horse comment
. If it wasn’t him or Joe Neary with the horses, it was always something.

  Mr. Wellington rested on the front porch, raising his head for a scratch behind the ears. The ducks waddled past, and she spoke to them on her way down the front stairs. In the far pasture, Hamlet and Lady McBeth grazed freely, often stopping to sip from the pond loaded with fresh fish that brothers, fathers, and friends fought over to get to the farmhouse on weekends to sink a line and wait for a bite.

  To DeShondra Leman Neary, life could not be any better.

  -Fin-

  Ya’ll come back for a visit real soon. Here is the home of Deshondra and Isiah before it was painted.

  In the meantime, I’m heading to the mountains for our next reading adventure- The Tennessee Mountain Man.

  Yep, it’s a treehouse. Pre-orders are up.

  Did you love Bleu, Grass, Bourbon? Then you should read Montana by Olivia Gaines!

  Pecola Peters found herself standing in a courtroom before a judge in the middle of nowhere Montana getting married to a burly rancher with kind eyes and thick black hair - because of two ugly women. Hideous would be a correct term for how the two women looked in appearance but not in temperament, yet they had gotten married – to two good men. Good looking men of means. For a decent looking woman like Pecola with a horrible dating history, combined with the recent reality of two men physically running away from her, such an imbalance in the fairy tale is what pushed her to this ending. Today she was getting hitched. In Montana. In the middle of nowhere. To a burly rancher with kind eyes and thick black hair named Billy Joe Johnson.

  Read more at Olivia Gaines’s site.