by Anna Black
“Aw,” Nakia slid back onto the sofa. “My bad. Hell, I didn’t even think about last night. Shiiiid, we got our drank on!”
“We did, now calm down, chick, and here,” she said with an outstretched arm. “I brought you here because I wanted to give you this in person.”
“What is it?” Nakia said taking the envelope.
“Open it, silly. I hate when folks do that. Just open it.”
Nakia’s hands trembled as she opened the sealed envelope. She slid the check out of it, and her head fell backward. “No no no, you didn’t. This does not have my name on it.”
“Yes, it does. Now you can pay off all of your student loans and get you another car, because that Honda is on its last leg. I was shocked to see you were still driving that hooptie.”
“No, Madison. Man, this is too much. I can’t accept this. I mean, what kinda prank is this? Is this room set up with hidden cameras? You want me to jump up and down and scream, so somebody can come out and say I’ve been punked?”
“Nakia, no, this is a gift to you from me, because I was blessed with it. I paid for my house with this, and my house is paid in full, thanks to my settlements. And now, thanks to Chase, it’s yours, even if Chase and I didn’t make it. I still have a good amount to keep me for a while, so it’s yours.”
Nakia’s eyes welled. She leaned in and hugged Madison as tightly as she could. “Thank you, my friend. I never expected something this grand from anyone, and this is more than generous of you, Madison. Thank you,” she cried.
“Well, my parents are good. I’m an only child, and even if Chase and I have children, believe me, they will be well taken care of. I just want you to not stress about so much financially. You have said a dozen times how you want to go out on your own and start your own agency, and now you can do that, Nakia. I believe in you.”
She pulled back. “Oh my God, I can’t believe my eyes. I’ve never seen this many zeros on the same check as my name.”
They laughed. “Well, hopefully, in the future, after you get your business going, this won’t be the last time. Now, go online and see where the nearest Bank of America is and deposit your money, and then make your trip out here perfect.... Fly your man out here.”
Nakia jumped up. “Girl, I’m on it,” she said and raced into the bedroom and came out with her phone. She dressed quickly, and the car service took her where she needed to go. Madison made it back to her room and was surprised to see Chase was up, out on the terrace with a cup of coffee.
“Hey, baby, how long have you been up? Why didn’t you call me?”
“Well, I checked my phone for location and saw that you were right here in this building, so I knew you were with Nakia. Did you give her the check?”
“I did.”
“How do you feel?”
She smiled. “I feel great. I mean, I never thought I’d ever live like this,” she said with a hand gesture to the view. “My parents did well when I was growing up, and I never lacked for a thing. I had piano lessons and ballet and a singing coach and so many things in a huge gated home. Even at our public school, most kids were well-off, and because my parents paid for my education, I didn’t know about scholarships and grants and loans until I met Nakia. That girl came into the dorm with the bare minimum of things with her aunt, not her mom. My parents were there, setting up my room with fancy bedding and curtains, and I had brought so much stuff that my parents had to take some of it back home. I had a brand-new Nissan Sentra that I had gotten for graduation, and when my parents left, I remember Nakia saying with attitude, ‘I didn’t know I’d be rooming with a rich girl,’ and I replied, ‘Who me? I’m not rich,’” and she just laughed.
“I asked, ‘What’s so funny?’ and she just walked out of the room. I stood in our common area and looked into my room, and then I looked into hers. She didn’t even have a TV or curtains, not even a tenth of what I had, only a used-looking comforter and one large suitcase that she didn’t bother to unpack.
“The first few days there was tension, and she barely spoke to me until one evening I was in the bathroom doing my hair, and I was doing my regular Mariah Carey thing, and I burned myself with the curling iron. My high note turned into a high-pitched scream. She ran to the bathroom to see if I was okay. My neck was on fire, you hear me? And she told me to put butter on it. I laughed, of course, and she laughed, and that was the first time we had a conversation, all over a burn on my neck. I learned that her aunt raised her because her mom left one day and never came back. Some of the things she told me were so terrible I couldn’t believe my ears. That winter break, she went home with me, and here we are now.
“She’s a good person and a beautiful friend, and I feel so good that I was able to do that for her.”
“I’m happy too, baby,” he said and stood to wrap his arms around me. “This view is so amazing. I’m glad we came. To get a break from Tyler makes me feel like we’re in an entirely different world.”
“Yes, and it’s certainly gorgeous out here.”
“Gorgeous enough to get married?”
“Oh no, oh no, we are not getting married out here, Chase Storm. I want to get married at home with my parents and family and friends attending.”
“We can still do that, baby, but think of how cool it would be to do it here and now.”
She turned to him. “Are you serious, Chase?”
“Yes, why not? Look, my brothers are here and their wives. Nakia is here.”
“Aw, baby, as tempting as that sounds, I want to wait.”
He frowned. “Okay, I understand. My parents would probably tie me to a tree if I didn’t do it the Storm way anyway.”
“So, what’s up, family? What are we getting into today?” Travis interrupted. He and Deena came out on the terrace to join them.
“First order is food, guys. I’m hungry as hell,” Gina said and then sat.
“Me too,” Madison added.
“Let’s check and see if Lance and them are up. We can order room service or go out.”
“I say room service because I don’t want to get dressed just yet,” Deena said. The guys went inside to call Lance’s suite, and the ladies stayed out and just enjoyed small talk. By five that afternoon everyone was dressed and ready to have fun. The couples decided to split up and do couples stuff, and Madison was so happy that Charles was able to catch the next flight out, so he’d be there later on that evening. Nakia decided to get a massage and do some shopping so she wouldn’t be a third wheel with Chase and Madison. They stayed in Vegas until that Wednesday, and then it was back to Tyler, back to work, and back to wedding planning.
Chapter Thirty-one
“Madison, you can make potato salad for Sunday, right?” Chase’s mother asked.
“Yes, ma’am, I sure can.”
“And make sure you get here on time. We want to get dinner started.”
“Well, that’s your task. Deena, you got veggies, so the corn and broccoli are on you. Gina, please say you made the desserts.”
“Yes, ma’am. Lance is bringing them in now.”
“Momma, what’s wrong?” Tasha asked. All the women had noticed Mrs. Storm seemed out of character.
“I’m fine. I’m just overjoyed that this gal,” she said, holding a hand out toward Madison, “has come back into my son’s life.” Her eyes welled, and she wiped them. “My baby,” she cried. “My baby wasn’t himself.” Madison stood frozen. “Madison, I know you and Chase have work to do on y’all’s relationship and all, but when you left, there were times that I didn’t recognize my boy.” She paused and grabbed a dishcloth. “I’d go to check on him, and it’s like nothing I could say or do would comfort him. But when he walked in tonight with you, he was my Chase again, my baby. And I know it’s because you came back.” She lowered her head. “My boys messed up; thought they were doing more good than harm.”
“Mom, I’m fine. I was angry at first, but now I’m fine. I know what they all did was out of love, not to hurt Chase or me. T
he way it started and how it came out was just terrible, but love . . . Love is so strong, Mom. Love wouldn’t let me stay away from him, and I’m glad to be back. I’m not mad at my brothers-in-law anymore, because if it had not been for them, I would have never fallen in love with Chase. The here and now is all that matters.”
The women listened to Madison as they all chatted and prepared the food. It felt like old times.
“Baby, how long?” Lance yelled, walking in and interrupting the girl moment. “I’m starving,”
“Baby, get out of here. Dinner will be ready soon,” Gina promised.
He backed out, and the ladies got back to work. Five minutes later, Chase came into the kitchen and whispered something in Madison’s ear. She smiled, and he kissed her on the neck before walking back out.
“Okay, spill,” Tasha said.
Madison blushed. “I can’t this time, for real.”
Deena held up a knife. “You know there are no secrets in this kitchen.”
“For real this time, I can’t tell. It’s too, too personal.”
“Do you want to be kicked out of the circle?” Gina asked.
“Okay okay okay. He said to meet him upstairs in his old bedroom so he can taste my bud,” she confessed. The other women laughed.
“Well,” his mother said, “you’d better hurry. Dinner is almost done.”
Embarrassed, Madison put the lid on her bowl of homemade potato salad. “I’ll be back.” She hurried up the steps. As promised, Chase was there to service her. Twenty minutes later, after she came, she rejoined the ladies in the kitchen. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing but a bunch of horny Storms,” Gina said. “Two seconds after you left, Deena met Travis outside in the guest house, and, Tasha, let’s just say she didn’t share. She just disappeared.”
“Damn, I miss those days,” Chase’s mother said. “Back in the day before these boys came along, Legend and I would do it anywhere,” she blushed. Tasha and Deena walked back into the kitchen, both giggling like schoolgirls.
“Okay, what are we chatting about?” Deena asked and grabbed her wineglass and went to refill it.
“The good old days, before my boys were conceived.”
“Speaking of,” Gina interrupted, “Lance told me something about you and Dad breaking up back in the day over some hottie name Corrina.”
“What?” she laughed. “Legend told them boys about that story?”
“That’s what Damon told me,” Tasha said.
“Oooooowwwwweeeeee, let me tell you girls about this man-stealing tramp, that’s what I used to call her back in the day. She was stacked, you hear me. Big boobs, tiny waist, round hips, and an ass that was so natural, not all man-made like this crazy plastic surgery generation today. Corrina was ‘Sexy Red,’ them boys used to call her back then. She had all eyes on her everywhere she went. I think I was eighteen, and Legend was around nineteen, and it was right around the time he started working at the warehouse.
“They hired that old man-stealing heffa as a clerk, you know, to file and keep records of stuff. Any who, word got out that she had an eye for Legend, and I told him too. I said, ‘Legend, that woman is interested in you,’ and he replied like all simple men with no clue, ‘No, Stelle, she’s just a friendly gal.’ Yeah, she was damn sure friendly, all right. She invites him over to watch television one evening while her folks were away, and that gal was all over him.”
“What did Dad do?” Gina asked.
“Ran up out of there like a scared little girl—as he should have. See, at first, I didn’t know what happened because the word was he was now courting her since a neighbor saw him hightailing it out of her front door.”
They were all laughing. “What did you do, Mom, when you found out?”
“I dropped his ass like a hot potato. Yes, I did and told him I don’t have no time for two-timing dogs.”
“Then how did y’all end up back together?”
“Well, what Legend doesn’t know is I overheard Miss Corrina at the local café telling her girlfriends how he behaved, how he was scared to touch her. She said she wanted a real man, not a little boy who don’t know what best for him. So, I marched up to her and demanded the truth. I asked to her face, ‘Were you messing around with Legend when he was courting me?’ and she told me no, that she had tried and nothing happened.
“It had been four months, so with that news, I rushed back and got my man,” Estelle said proudly, “and been with him ever since. Madison, ask your mom about how Corrina tried to get her hooks in your father too. Martha dragged her ass in the middle of the street and whipped her tail!”
“My mother did what?” Madison asked, stunned. Martha had never told her about the Corrina story, so she was dying to hear the details.
“Dragged her in the middle of the street and told her if she didn’t stay her ass away from Will, she was going to give her a good old East Texas ass whoppin’, and we were in our twenties then. Martha and William were newlyweds, and that girl used to go by your daddy’s auto shop pretending something was wrong with that old Nova she drove, and one day, she told yo’ daddy if he ever needed something extra on the side, to call her. Well, he threw her out and made the fatal mistake of telling Martha, and yo’ mother drove up in her driveway with her shiny Cadillac, banged on Corrina’s door, and dragged her off her porch and into the middle of the street. All of the neighbors were on their porches watching, and the whole town got wind of it. Not even a month after that, Corrina moved outta East Texas and didn’t come back till many years later after her parents passed, and people still would remind her of that ass whoppin’ that Martha put on her.”
The women were laughing so hard, they didn’t notice Lance walked into the kitchen.
“Ladies, ladies, what’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing, baby, just girl talk,” Gina said.
“Well, we are starving out here. How much longer? Dad sent me to get the 411.”
“You tell your father it will be soon. We’ll call you fellas shortly,” Estelle said, and Lance hurried out of her kitchen. The women finished up and then set the table. Finally, the entire Storm clan and their wives and the new fiancée were at the dinner table again.
“Let us all bow our heads. Father God,” Legend began. He blessed the food and was sure to add a word to God for his sons and their families. The group laughed, ate, and had a good time as they normally did when they got together. After dinner, the women cleared the table and cleaned while the men found their way to the den to smoke cigars, have drinks, and discuss sports and cars. Madison felt like she belonged. She was happy not only to have Chase but to have her soon-to-be mother-in-law and sisters.
They were all so loving, so giving, and their bond and circle was a place where she felt warm and at home.
“You’re ready, baby?” Chase said.
“Yeah, I think so. Mom, is there anything else you need?” Madison asked Chase’s mother.
“No, baby, y’all did it all. You two go home and enjoy each other.” She winked.
Madison shook her head. Chase’s mom was just as freaky as her mom. She hoped she and Chase would have the same fire at that age.
Chase and Madison talked nonstop on the ride back to his place. He was grateful to have a lady like Madison in his life. He’d never thought he would stop chasing women, but Madison was the cure to that addiction, and he vowed to love her and treat her like a queen for the rest of his days. They got home, made passionate love, and fell asleep holding each other. Things couldn’t be any more perfect than that.
Chapter Thirty-two
Madison was in a horrific mood. It was only two days before the wedding, and too many last-minute things needed to be done, and the forecast was calling for rain on the day they had planned an outdoor wedding. They had the civic center as a backup, but she had been so excited about getting married outdoors. Now it looked like that idea was a bust. Family and friends from out of town were blowing up her phone about reservations and detail
s that had already been emailed to them weeks ago, and Madison was about to pull out every strand of hair on her head. She was happy that Nakia had finally arrived so she could help Deena with the things she didn’t want to handle.
“Madison, where are you going?” Nakia yelled behind her. She was moving as quickly as she could to get outside and suck in some air. They were at the convention center getting ready to start rehearsal soon, and Madison was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.
“Air, Nakia. I need air,” she yelled back and kept on walking. Chase hadn’t arrived yet, and she was pissed because no way was he under as much stress as she was.
Nakia jogged to catch up. “I’ll go with you,” she said.
As soon as Madison stepped outside, she looked up at the overcast sky. “See, this is exactly why I didn’t want to set myself up on hopes for an outdoor wedding.”
“Well, at least we have a beautiful alternative. Now, everything will take place here, so no one has to leave after the ceremony.”
“There’s an upside,” she laughed lightly.
“Madison, come on; level with me. What’s really going on with you?” Nakia asked, taking her hand. “I was with you on your wedding weekend with Dre, and you were not acting like a bridezilla. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I have a really bad case of the jitters, Nakia. This wedding. . . A wedding is like the most special and blameless vow between a man and a woman, and I keep thinking about my wedding day with Dre, and how I was so happy and how things were so perfect, and then God took him away, just like that,” she snapped her fingers. “Now that I’m in love, and I’m so deeply in love with Chase, I have this crazy fear that something terrible is going to happen, like God is setting me up again. I know it’s crazy, Nakia, and I promise you I’ve tried to convince myself that I’m wrong and that this foolishness is all in my head, but I have this crazy feeling that something horrible is going to happen.”
Nakia grabbed her friend by her shoulders. “Listen, stop it. Stop it right now, okay? Enough with this melodramatic bullshit, Madison. I know it was tough and a very hard thing to go through when you lost your boys, but life is so full of what-ifs and maybes. No one knows what tomorrow holds. All we can do is wake up and deal with it. If you base your decisions on what-ifs, you might as well live in a damn bubble. You are marrying a young, sexy, funny, loving, and compassionate person. Chase is your tenfold.”