“Yeah, you called me an airhead with a little booty who was an addict.”
“Do the words hammerhead hick sound familiar?”
Both laughed at their earlier times.
“Look at us now,” Devon bragged, his words whispering against her temple. ‘God, I love you.”
Chloe tilted her head back, her soft chin raised. “I wuv you too,” she countered softly, puckering her lips for a kiss.
And he blessed her with one that was short, sweet, and loving.
∞
Deshawn continued his distant treatment of Anika throughout dinner, not even remaining long after he downed his meal. He remained oblivious to the extraordinary meal Anika took her time to prepare. Completely ignoring how beautiful she looked in a strapless cotton dress that matched her eyes. Completely avoiding the attempts at conversation that she made.
Anika felt angry and totally confused by his behavior toward her.
She wanted to grab his face and scream, “Notice me. Tell me I’m beautiful. Tell me you want me. Don’t you still love me?”
Yes, she wanted to see those beautiful lips form around the words “I love you, Anika.”
Now he didn’t even like her.
Anika left the kitchen, crossing the foyer before she could change her mind.
“Anika,” Chloe called out from the living room, just as she pulled open the front door. “Where on earth are you going?”
“To Deshawn’s,” she called over her shoulder, never missing a step out the door.
What if he’s not alone?
What if he’s in bed?
What if he doesn’t want to be disturbed?
These were the questions roaming through her head as she drove the short distance to his house.
“Well, his truck’s home,” she told herself aloud, as the house and its surrounding lands came into her view.
Anika pulled into the driveway, hopped out of the truck in her heels, and jogged up the steps leading to the porch. She opened the screen door and rapped her knuckles on the door twice before she could change her mind.
∞
Deshawn was quite surprised to see Anika standing on the other side of his front door. “Can I help you with something?” he asked, his voice monotone and distant.
No welcome. No smile. Nothing.
Anika stepped up to enter the house, assuming Deshawn would move back to allow her entrance into his domain. He didn’t budge and so she stepped back down. “I need to speak with you for a sec,” she told him, absolutely refusing to ask him to let her in.
Deshawn looked at her briefly, almost dismissing her, before he directed those piercing ebony pools to a spot above her head. “I’m kind of busy right now.”
She raised a brow, crossing her arms over her chest as the fall winds blew briskly around her. “Oh.”
“Look, what do you want from me?” he asked, a trace of annoyance in his tone as his eyes finally settled on her.
“Not a damn thing,” Anika snapped.
“I’ll tell you what. You have proven to me that I made the right decision not trusting you again. You’re a hypocrite,” she added, poking his chest with an accusatory finger.
He said absolutely nothing as he just continued to look at her with that blank expression on his face.
“You just remember how much of a jerk you’ve been this week. I asked for respect, not rudeness.”
Anika turned and strode off the porch and climbed back into Chloe’s SUV, screeching the tires as she peeled down the road.
Deshawn closed the door after she was out of sight. It was then that he smiled, broadly and with much pleasure. A deep rumbling laughter erupted from his massive chest. He knew he would never be able to tame the anger of his future wife. “It worked,” he told himself successfully, as he plopped down on one of the leather green recliners in front of the television.
He and Anika would wed and have sons—twins! He knew that for sure now. He was ready to sleep with her in his arms every night and wake up to that beautiful face every morning. Absence does make the heart grow fonder, he thought.
It had been pure torture ignoring her all week, but there was a greater good in the end, and that was having Anika in his life forever.
Chapter 19
No One Else
“Ma, the baby has hiccups.”
This was one of many calls that Anika made to her mother in Jersey as Chloe and she ran into little obstacles that they felt needed a “real mother’s” advice.
“Two successful career women who can make a man quiver in his boots with their tongues and you let yourselves be flustered by a baby,” Tasha teased, laughter in her voice. “Anika, sweetie, please pay attention while you’re down there so that when you have my first grandbaby I don’t have to answer all these questions again.”
Anika rolled her eyes heavenward as she listened to her mother fill Granny Bert in on their “dilemma” with way too much amusement. Placing her hand over the mouthpiece, she turned to Chloe. “They are having a ball laughing at us.”
Chloe just smiled sheepishly, rocking Nia in an attempt to quell the hiccups.
Seconds later Granny Bert got on the line. “Listen, Anika. Ya’ll get a brown paper bag—”
Anika frowned. “For what?”
Gran sighed. “Listen and learn,” she snapped impatiently. “Tear a small piece of the bag off—about the size of a dime. Lick it and stick it on the baby’s forehead. Them hiccups will stop in no time.”
“Say what?” Anika shrieked. It was Chloe’s and her time to laugh when she relayed the instructions.
The laughter stopped minutes later when it worked. Would wonders never cease?
When Anika’s time wasn’t filled with staying updated on The Haven and helping Chloe out as much as she could with Nia, she was busy wondering about Deshawn’s continuing odd behavior. The past few days he had taken to avoiding the house altogether, not even coming over for his meals. A pointed and deliberate slap in her face. Or at least that’s how she took it.
She hadn’t laid an eye on the devil in four days. When Chloe questioned her about the apparent chill between them, Anika didn’t have an honest answer except, “I told him to leave me alone and I guess he finally got the hint.”
She was getting exactly what she asked for and she was woman enough to admit to herself that she missed the rascal terribly. “Can I give you some advice, Chloe?” she asked quietly and suddenly.
“What’s that?”
“Be careful what you ask for.”
Knowing her friend, Chloe remained quiet knowing the words would come.
“I miss Deshawn,” she admitted aloud for the first time. “I told him to go away, to leave me alone, and he’s doing just that. I didn’t know I would miss him this much. It’s been two weeks almost and I feel like something really vital is missing in my life.”
Chloe reached for Anika’s hand, squeezing it. “You love him,” she stated, not asking Anika but telling her.
“How can you love someone you don’t trust?”
Chloe chose her words carefully, “Trust me, you are my best friend, hell, my sister as far as I’m concerned. I have listened to my husband’s advice to remain out of this thing between you and Deshawn. But no more. Enough is enough.”
Anika winced.
“I would never in a million years tell you to accept that crap Deshawn pulled in New York. But I know him, Anika, I see a change in him since he returned from New York. Devon saw it as well and he believes Deshawn’s in love with you. In fact, Devon admitted to me weeks ago that Deshawn, for the first time ever told him he was in love.”
Anika stared at her friend, caught up in her words.
“He told him he loved you, Anika.”
Tears filled her eyes. He might have lied to her, but what reason would he have to lie to his own brother? Hope sprang to life in Anika’s chest. Deshawn loves me.
“I see the way his eyes light up when you come into a room. The way he smiles at
your jokes, the way he touches you. It’s the same things I see in Devon and I know he loves me. And even though his stunts with the ad and the flowers and the band were a little carefree, it’s not like him to wear his heart on his sleeve about a woman. It was romantic.”
Yes, it was, Anika thought.
“Then why has he been acting this way? Is he seeing someone else now . . . like Poochie? She and I had a little run-in—”
Chloe interrupted her with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I know all about it,”
Anika’s face was surprised. “How? I didn’t even tell you.”
“Cyrus,” they both said in unison, laughing.
“He can not hold water,” Chloe mused. “Anyway, Deshawn’s not seeing anyone. I even heard Poochie’s been wagging behind him on the sneak and he’s turning her down left and right.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked Devon. Those two tell each other just about everything. You know Devon’s just as puzzled as we are about Deshawn’s behavior these past couple of weeks.”
“So another woman’s not beating my time?”
“Your time, huh?” Chloe teased.
Anika pulled air between her teeth. “You know what I mean.”
“Humph. I sure do.”
Anika fell silent, her thoughts filled with him as if she swallowed him whole. Her gaze was reflective as she stared into the lit fireplace. Deshawn loves me.
“Go to him, Anika. Y’all can work this out,” Chloe insisted softly.
Slowly Anika shook her head.
“I’ll tell you what. Three more weeks and I get the go-ahead from my doctor,” Chloe began, rising to easily tower over Anika’s sitting position. “Now you might not want to handle your business and get you some Jamison loving, but I’m gonna put something on Devon where he won’t be able to walk for a week. In the words of Cyrus, ‘You can believe dat! ’ ”
∞
Deshawn was tired of his own company. His self-imposed isolation was boring him. He missed Chloe’s cooking. His frozen microwave dinners were tasteless and unfulfilling in comparison.
All of it—the bad food, the loneliness, and the abstinence—was worth it, though, if it brought his Anika to him sooner. He didn’t doubt that they were going to reunite and one day wed, but he was impatient and felt this would succeed in bringing her to him sooner.
The night of Nia’s birth, once he realized just how much Anika and he were destined to be together, he had contemplated how to win her love sooner. With his eyes to the ceiling all night long, a scenario from his childhood came to him. He and his twin were trying to catch fireflies with a jar and a lid. His parents had sat on the porch laughing at his and Devon’s futile efforts.
Finally his father stepped down off the porch. He gently removed the jar and lid from Deshawn’s slender hands. “Son, some things in life you don’t chase,” he told him, as he stood still and held the jar up in the air with his massive callused hands. “Just sit back and let them come to you.”
Indeed a firefly had flown into the jar on its own accord.
Just as Anika would come to him.
Rising from the bed, he felt his stomach grumbling. He could go for a burger from Donnie’s but he didn’t feel like another confrontation with Poochie, nor did he want to listen to Alicia’s gripes about Chloe and Devon. He definitely did not feel like going downstairs to throw a Hungry Man meal in the microwave; he decided to have sleep for dinner.
Lying on his bed, he allowed himself to imagine Anika in the kitchen cooking for him as he played with their twin sons in the yard. A smile filled his face. She was the love of his life and he couldn’t wait for their relationship to come to fruition.
Yes, it was all worth the wait.
∞
The week of Thanksgiving began with a beautiful Indian summer day. Anika and Chloe had already completed their shopping for the big holiday by Monday. Tuesday they were up to their elbows in pie dough. Wednesday they got all of the side dishes out of the way, leaving just the bird, ham, and deer meat for Thursday.
“I’m glad you’re here for Thanksgiving,” Chloe told Anika as she laid Nia inside her portable rocking bassinet.
Anika was busy glazing the ham. “I want to spend as much time with you two as I can because I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to get this much time off again. Everything’s going well at The Haven. It’s running along just fine without me. I promised you six weeks and six weeks you shall get.”
“Oooh, but I know you’re gonna miss Gran’s corn bread stuffing,” Chloe told her as she moved to the sink to wash her hands.
“I’m going to miss Granny period. The whole crew, matter of fact,” Anika told her as she slid the ham into the oven. “Do you know this will be my very first Turkey Day without the whole Foxx clan since I graduated from college?”
“Oh, Anika. I’m so selfish. Of course you want to be with your family for the holidays,” Chloe said.
“Girl, please. I’m all right, so kill those sad hound dog eyes,” Anika reassured her with a smile while using her hip to close the heavy oven door. “Only for you though. And Nia too.”
The ladies fell silent as they worked, the soft sounds of Ms. Mary’s CD No More Drama playing in the house’s sound system. In her thoughts, Anika admitted to missing her family more than she let on. She’d even considered driving to Jersey to spend the Turkey Day with her crew and then driving back on Friday to fulfill her promise to spend the first six weeks of Nia’s life with Chloe.
In the end she decided against it, not wanting to battle the holiday traffic on the roadways. Besides, she couldn’t reach anyone at their various homes all day Wednesday. Only her brother Trevor had a cell phone and he reassured her that everyone was fine. The phone lines were down, he said, but he promised that as soon as he arrived at their parents’ home he would let them use his cell to call her.
“I’m going to get dressed,” Anika told Chloe, as she set the timer on the oven.
“Yeah, me too, especially while Nia’s sleeping.” Anika had already laid out a pretty ivory knit Gigi Hunter wrap dress to wear. After a quick shower, she put on her makeup and slipped the dreamy creation on. The material molded to her plush frame perfectly, falling to a delicate scalloped hem just below the knee. Matching suede strappy sandals completed the elegant but comfortable outfit.
She of course wondered if Deshawn would like her appearance. Today would be the first she had seen of him in a full week. Happiness coursed through her body when she thought of Chloe’s declaration that Deshawn loved her, but she refused to go to him. Even if she told him to go away, he was being rude and Anika couldn’t shake the feeling that another woman held his attention. Poochie did say that Deshawn was calling her.
It hurt like the devil to even think of him with someone else, but she tried not to. Even with Chloe’s words, Anika just could not fathom that he truly loved her, with his current behavior. So she resigned herself to letting him go on his way. The cat-and-mouse game between them was finally at its end.
With one last spray of one of the body mists from the kit Deshawn gave her, Anika left the bedroom and headed back to the kitchen to check on the meats in the oven. The front door opened, letting in brisk air that tickled Anika’s calves. Devon walked in carrying an armload of wood for the fireplace.
For a second Anika had thought he was Deshawn and her heart had done its customary flip-flop. But as soon as he smiled warmly at her, Anika knew she was mistaken.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Anika. You’re really gonna turn my brother’s head today,” he teased, disappearing into the living room and then quickly reappearing without the logs.
Anika didn’t really like being in Devon’s company, because he reminded her so much of Deshawn. They were identical in all physical aspects. It was a little disconcerting at times.
“I think your brother couldn’t care less if I wore a potato sack,” Anika mused.
Devon threw his arm around her shoulder.
“You’re right, he’d like you regardless of what you have on,” he told her, hugging her to his side.
“That’s why he’s hanging around here all the time, right?”
Together they strolled into the kitchen.
“Hey, a man can only be told to go away so many times before he finally does,” was his solemn reply. “You love him, don’t you?”
Anika diverted her eyes, hiding the truth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You can lie to me and everybody else, but you can not lie to yourself.” With that said, he moved to the sink to wash his hands.
Anika moved to the oven to look at the nicely browned bird. Quickly, she basted it once again, before picking up the phone. “Trevor should be to the house by now,” she told Chloe, as she dialed his cell phone number.
The doorbell rang throughout the house.
Chloe turned from the oven with a spoon in her hand. “Anika, could you get that for me?” she asked, looking lovely in a rust two-piece suede suit
“Sure,” Anika answered, carrying the cordless phone between her ear and her shoulder as she strode to the foyer. She was wondering why her brother wouldn’t answer his phone as she swung the front door open.
“Surprise!”
Anika was engulfed by the familiar sight, smell, and touch of her rambunctious family as they each crossed the threshold and hugged her close. “You tricked me!” she exclaimed with happiness, as she ended the call.
Always a daddy’s girl, she hugged her father close around the neck. “Hey, Daddy,” she sighed, her eyes closed as she inhaled the familiar scent of cigar smoke and his aftershave.
He laughed rich and deep in his chest as if he had the power to yell down trees. “Happy Thanksgiving, Sugarplum.”
Anika turned and eyed each of them: her parents, Granny Bert, Auntie Luv, her tall handsome brothers, Chloe and Devon. “You all tricked me, but thank you so much for this surprise. It’s going to be the best Thanksgiving ever. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Chloe shook her head slowly. “Actually it was all Deshawn’s doing.”
Anika was surprised yet again. “Deshawn?”
Granny Bert, who was busy looking around as she took off her coat, paused to throw in her two cents. “Your young man rented a van. What kind you say it was, Mal?”
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