Kael jumped to his feet and rubbed his hands together. "Dinner's the deal," he said over his shoulder as he made his way into the dining room.
Lisha shook her head as she rose to follow him. "Lord, that man."
Kade and Kahron were the last to follow the family out of the living room. "You and Garcelle disappearing in the woods for hours at a time?" said Kahron. "You best mind those fish dreams ain't all about you, big brother."
"Curiosity killed a nosy-ass cat," Kade drawled as he took his seat at the table, in between Kaeden and Kadina.
Kahron just laughed as he took the seat across the table, next to his wife.
Lisha walked out of the kitchen, carrying a huge platter. She sat it in the middle of the table, amid side dishes of macaroni and cheese, okra stew, white rice, and corn bread. She cleared her throat as she took her seat.
"Lisha Mae Strong, now enough is enough!" Kael roared as he looked down at the big platter of fried fish. "I thought you said you were frying chicken."
Lisha cocked her eyebrow as she eyed each and every one of her children.
Kade shook his head before he reached over to kiss the top of Kadina's head.
Bianca and Kahron looked at each other before they paid way too much attention to fixing their plates.
Kaitlyn reached in her purse and slapped her birth control pills on the table as she calmly poured a glass of lemonade.
"I wish somebody would go ahead and piss on the damn stick," Kaleb grumbled before he focused on piling his plate high with food.
Kaeden reached in his pocket for his inhaler.
"Daddy, what's with all the talk about fish lately?" Kadina whispered to him.
Kade scooped rice onto her plate and then topped it with a spoonful of okra stew. "We'll talk about it later," he whispered, praying like hell they didn't attract his mother's attention. The woman was on an all-out mission.
"Papa Kael, thanks so much for making the okra stew," said Bianca. "I have been-"
"Craving?" Lisha asked delicately as she glanced at Bianca before taking a bite of her food. "I remember each time I was pregnant, I would crave cheesecake. Had it so bad each and every time that Kael would start buying Pampers as soon as I started asking for cheesecake."
Bianca just massaged her temples with her fingers.
"Anyway, we brought you all here because we have good news," Kael said, ignoring his wife as he rose to his feet. "In December your mother and I are going on a two-week cruise to Negro, Jamaica-"
"Negril, Jamaica," Lisha corrected him around a bite of food.
"Yeah, right," said Kael as he rubbed his hands together. "It's time I really start enjoying my retirement full time. So, Kade, I'll be relying on you more than ever, Son."
"No worries, Pops," Kade said. "It's well deserved ... for both of you."
A round of questions about anything and everything concerning their trip followed, and then Kade watched as Kahron rose to his feet, with his glass raised. "Here's to working hard and learning how to play even harder. It is time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor-"
"And the fruits of my children's loins," Lisha added.
Kael dropped his head in his hand as everyone at the table dropped their forks and released a long, heavy breath.
Garcelle glanced at her watch as she sat in her car in the parking lot of the movie theater. Kade was running late for their date. "Humph, date," she said, only slightly sarcastic. "For a real date, the man picks the woman up at her house, and they ride together to the movies. They don't meet in separate cars, like two bad-ass adulterers."
She watched the couples arriving and walking into the movie theater together. It irked the hell out of her. I must be PMSing, she thought as she picked up her ringing cell phone.
"Hey, you."
"Kade, I've been calling you for twenty minutes," she said, sitting up in the seat of her car.
"I must have turned the volume down on my phone."
"Where are you?" she asked as she scratched an itch in the palm of her hand.
Knock-knock.
She nearly jumped out of her skin as Kade bent down to look through the driver's side window of her car. She slapped the phone closed as he opened the door for her. "Come on. The movie's started."
Kade frowned. "Are you mad?" he asked, obviously confused.
Garcelle forced a smile as she looked up at him. "No ... no. Of course not. I just wanted to see the movie. Can we ... go see the movie?"
Kade's frown deepened.
Garcelle turned and walked up to the line of people, which ran down the stairs of the movie theater. She looked up at Kade briefly as he came up to stand beside her. She had to admit he looked nice in khakis and an orange Hilfiger polo.
"My parents are going on a cruise," he said into the quiet between them.
"That's nice," she said shortly. From the corner of her eye, she saw him wipe his mouth.
"Garcelle, what's going on with you?" he asked, lowering his head to speak directly into her ear.
She gave him another one of those fake smiles that made her face muscles tense. "I wish you'd stop asking me that," she said in a low voice as the line moved forward.
"I wish you'd tell me what's going on with you."
Garcelle stepped aside as they reached the outdoor box-office window. She watched Kade as he paid for their movie tickets. As he walked up beside her and held the door, she avoided his eyes. She was angry, and holding it in, pretending she wasn't angry, was making her even angrier.
"You all right? You want something?" he asked, looking down at her as they passed the snack counter.
"I'm fine.
She felt him tense beside her.
When they walked into the dark theater, the movie was playing, and a loud action sequence of gunfire and bombs coming through the surround sound made it seem like they were in the middle of World War III.
Garcelle followed Kade to a spot near the far wall. She tugged his hand once they settled into the seats. "Are you sure you want us to sit together? Somebody might see us."
"And?" he snapped as he turned in the seat to look at her.
"Hell, it's your issue, not mine," she snapped back.
"Sshhh."
They both ignored that from the people behind them.
"Listen, what the hell is your problem?" said Kade.
"My problem?" she asked, sitting up in the theater seat to face him. "What is my problem?"
Kade threw his hands up as if exasperated.
Garcelle crossed her legs and then crossed her arms over her chest as she rocked back and forth in the reclining theater seat, mumbling under her breath in Spanish.
Kade mumbled something unintelligible under his breath.
"What did you say?" Garcelle asked, knowing she was being childish and not caring one bit.
Kade stood up. "I said you're crazy," he said, looking down at her.
"Hey, sit down!" someone yelled from behind them.
Garcelle jumped to her feet. "And you're selfish."
"Y'all need to take that outside," someone else yelled.
"Shut up!" both Garcelle and Kade roared at the theatergoers.
Garcelle pushed past him and stormed out of the theater just as an usher entered. She heard Kade say, "Oh, trust me, we're out of here."
She was walking out of the building and toward her car when she felt a hand wrap around her upper arm. She felt a tingling sensation, and she knew without looking that it was Kade. She pulled away from him. `Just leave me alone, Kade," she said coldly as she reached in her purse for her keys.
"You want me to leave you alone?" he asked just as coldly, moving up to walk beside her. "You ain't said nothing but a word."
He quickly walked past her, climbed into his SUV, and sped away, without giving her a second look.
Garcelle fought the urge to flip him off, jumped in her car, and sped away as well.
Kade slammed his hand on the wheel in frustration. He was still lost as to what the hell
had just happened. The Garcelle who acted like a child needing to be spanked was not the fiery, up-front woman he thought he was involved with. This night was nothing but drama with a capital D, and it wasn't something he had the time or patience for. Ever. Period.
He pulled up to a red light and glanced down at his cell phone, which was sitting on the passenger seat. He patted his hand on his thigh in time to the music playing on the stereo as his eyes kept darting to his phone. He shook his head. "I'm not calling her," he told himself aloud as he pulled away.
What he had thought was going to be a fun night out with his woman had turned into one of the most embarrassing and frustrating spectacles of his life. Catch a flick. Maybe go by Ye Old-Fashioned Cafe for ice cream and then spend the night at their favorite hotel. How the hell had those plans become a hollering match in the middle of a movie theater?
Kade had just left Charleston and entered Summerville when he picked up his phone and turned it off. He wasn't sure if Garcelle even wanted to call and talk to him, but he did know that they both needed a little time to cool off.
Garcelle couldn't sleep. She would doze for an hour and then jump up and check her cell phone to see if Kade had called. She truly needed her sleep. She had her first pathophysiology test in the morning. She tossed. She turned. She knew she would have bags as big as one of her textbooks under her eyes.
She sat up in bed and picked up her cell phone, which lay by her pillows. This couldn't be the end for Kade and her. Could it? Not over a silly little argument in a movie theater. It was not like anyone there had known them, right? They hadn't said anything yet that they couldn't get past, right?
They needed to talk.
She dialed Kade's cell phone number, but then she stopped, her thumb hovering over the SEND button.
It was one in the morning. Maybe he was sleeping. She couldn't believe she felt nervous about calling her man. She was being ridiculous. She hit SEND.
"Your call is being transferred to an automated voice mail system."
She sat up straight in the bed. His phone was turned off. "Oh no, he didn't," she muttered to herself as she dialed him again.
"Your call is being transferred to an automated voice mail system."
Garcelle fought the urge to leave him a voice mail before she turned off her phone and flopped back down on the bed in frustration.
The next morning, before the sun even began to rise, Kade busied himself getting Kadina ready for school. His daughter wasn't exactly a morning riser, and she grumbled as he led her into the bathroom. "Teeth. Face. Wash. Underwear change. Go," he told her, placing fresh undergarments on the sink before he left the bathroom. He walked in her bedroom to find out which of her new outfits she'd chosen to wear.
Not that he had anything to worry about. Garcelle had taken her shopping, and each coordinated outfit had been hung in her closet, with a little Polaroid pinned to each one showing which shoes to wear with it. Garcelle had really tried to make sure that everything ran smoothly during Kadina's first couple of weeks of school.
He smiled at her thoughtfulness.
Kadina dragged herself into her bedroom. "Why can't it still be summer, Daddy?" she asked as she came to stand in front of where he sat on the edge of her bed.
He chuckled as he held the jeans for her to step into. "Because your job is to go to school and get good grades, so your vacation is over, kiddo," he told her as he zipped up her pants and buckled her sparkly belt.
"One day I'm going to work on the ranch with you, just like Aunt Bianca works with her daddy," she told him as she raised her arms over her head for him to put on her pink- and white-striped polo shirt.
"Oh, you are?"
Kadina nodded. "I'm never leaving my daddy," she said, with the utmost confidence of a child.
Kade snorted as he handed her her matching pink sweater jacket. "We'll revisit this when you're thirteen," he said dryly.
She jumped on the end of the bed, beside him, and threw her legs onto his lap so that he could pull on her socks and sneakers. "Daddy, can I try to tie them again?" she asked.
He nodded and watched as she knelt on the floor and fought like hell to tie the laces herself. Another Garcelle contribution. Kadina wasn't quite there, and Kade had to tighten the loops, but she was on the road to her first bit of independence.
She grabbed her bucket of hair accessories before she knelt between his legs, with her arms over his thighs. "One pom-pom, please," she said. "And do it like Garcelle."
Kade frowned as he loosened the band in her hair and rubbed her hair with hair grease before he brushed her edges back up. "I'll do it the best I can," he said, his face determined as he twisted the band back around her hair.
She handed him three pink and white balls to wrap round the curly Afro puff atop her head.
He thought about Garcelle. About leaving for work in the morning without his belly filled with her strong and sweet coffee and homemade breakfast pastries. About the scent of her perfume no longer lingering round the house. About not coming home to her in the night. About their argument last night. About not speaking to her all night.
"Yeah, I miss her, too," he admitted as he felt a literal pang in his heart.
Kadina jumped up and checked her appearance in her mirror. She nodded in satisfaction before she turned back to press her forehead against Kade's. "You're a good daddy," she whispered to him before puckering her lips.
"Now that's the best compliment I've ever received." He kissed her briefly before rising to his feet. "Let's go have some waffles before the school bus comes."
"With strawberry syrup?" she asked as she left the room.
"What else is there?" he joked, grabbing her rolling book bag as he left her room.
Kade was sitting in front of Garcelle's house when she walked out the front door. She paused on the top step of the porch as her eyes locked with his through his windshield. He was glad to see her, even though a big piece of him was still annoyed at the way she'd acted last night.
Garcelle looked away as she closed and locked the front door before she jogged down the stairs. She specifically ignored him as she climbed into her car.
Here he'd thought, after a night of both of them cooling their heels, she would be ready to have an adult conversation. Hell with it. He was starting to wonder if jumping into a relationship with Garcelle had been the right choice.
"Kade."
He turned his head. His eyes filled with surprise when he saw Garcelle standing beside his driver's side window. He lowered the window farther. "Are we going to argue like we did in the movie theater?" he asked.
Garcelle stepped forward. "Listen, I should have come out and said what was bothering me last night ... what has been bothering me for the last few weeks. You did ask-"
"Several times," he insisted, with a hard look.
"Kade. I mean seriously. Seriously." Garcelle tilted her head back and shook it before she looked at him again.
If she acts up again, I'm pulling away and leaving her here to argue by her damn sef, he thought. "Garcelle-"
Hot Like Fire (Dafina Contemporary Romance) Page 18