Tease

by Stevens, Camilla

And I’m the only white face.

  But at least her immediate family has had plenty of advance notice about me before the two of us came down for Memorial Day weekend.

  “So we finally get to meet this Giuseppe of yours,” a man says rolling up to us with a grin on his face.

  “My brother, Brandon,” Honey says, dropping her eyes toward his red cup. “Don’t tell me you’ve already spiked the punch.”

  “I spiked my own dang cup, thank you very much, and don’t act like you ain’t gonna do the same. Anyway, why you gotta out me as a lush in front of your man?”

  “If you’re the worst he sees, we’re in for a dull night,” she says with a smirk.

  “Girl, if you don’t come over here and hug me—”

  “Oh hush,” she says laughing and falling into him. He practically crushes her into a hug.

  He lets go amid her protests and turns to me.

  “Nice to meet—”

  My sentence is finished with the same bear hug he had for his sister. Good grief, if this is what it’s like I’ll be strangled to death before I can eat.

  “We ain’t formal down here,” he says letting go of me with a laugh. “So long as you have an empty stomach, you’re good.”

  “Speaking of which, I’d better show him what he’s in for, let him get something in that tummy before he salivates to death,” Honey says, poking my stomach with a laugh.

  She takes my hand and drags me through the backyard, if you can call it that. It’s an even wider open space with a large patio. People have set up camp in folding chairs under trees that are dotted around the area.

  My eyes are zeroed in on the long table piled with bowls, dishes, pots, platters, and more food than you’d find at your average buffet.

  “Yeah, it’s a lot.” Honey laughs as she drags me closer. “But it’s all good, so go slowly.”

  “Are there…four different potato salads?” I ask with a wrinkle in my brow.

  “Yeah,” she says rolling her eyes. “My cousin, Kanisha likes it extra mustardy and let’s just say, aunt Dot has this thing about putting mayo in hers. Gross. Pat hates celery in hers so she goes out of her way to make her own out of spite and Marie for some reason likes chili powder in hers. Hers is the best, so maybe there’s something to it, but don’t tell Pat I said that. Just be prepared for a kick after each bite.”

  I nod along, my eyes dancing across the cornbread, rolls, coleslaw, mac & cheese (which looks nothing like I’ve seen before, for the better), some kind of greens with huge chunks of meat in it, about ten different kinds of salads, none of them healthy, and that doesn’t even factor in the meat.

  “Say, you’re that attorney fella everyone’s been talking about?”

  My eyes roll up to see an older man wandering over. “Maybe you can help me out with somethin’. You see I got this issue with my—”

  “Oh no you don’t, Terrance. You’re not gonna pester him for legal advice today. He’s strictly off-limits. Besides, he’s an entertainment attorney these days and the only entertainment you bring to the table is when I kick your butt at spades.”

  “Hmm,” he grumbles. “I guess New York got you forgetting yourself. Dang it girl! I’m your—”

  “I know who you are and no,” she sasses with a smile. “Blame it on New York all you want.”

  He grimaces for a bit, then smiles. “Come on over here and give me a hug.”

  She does and they laugh about it. Just like family.

  “So are ya’ll gonna stare at the food all day or come on over and introduce yourselves?” a voice shouts out.

  We all turn to find the man I recognize from Honey’s photos as her dad. He’s grinning at us from the grill he’s camped in front of. I hate to leave the table of food without at least getting a sample of something but I curl an arm around Honey’s waist and head over anyway.

  Priorities.

  Fortunately, there are so many people here, they wisely congregate in groups as Honey continues on to introduce me around to brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, grandparents, great-grandparents, second cousins, aunts and aunties (apparently there’s a difference), uncles twice removed, “uncles”, and uncles (with a wink).

  The family tree must be the size of a redwood, with plenty of offshoots, but they’re all family, complete with the teasing and joking and friendly arguing that I’m used to back home.

  Which means I fit in perfectly.

  Especially after adding enough of Uncle Dickey’s moonshine (mint flavored to start) to my iced tea.

  After several servings, the sun is low in the sky and I’m setting back in a chair watching a group of men play dominoes. It feels more like a convalescence considering how bloated I feel. The crazy thing is, I still crave more food.

  I can only imagine what Thanksgiving is going to be like.

  The moonshine has put a nice sheen on things. I’m currently sampling something that has hints of orange and vanilla, sipping it straight up. Mostly, I’m just trying to keep up with what’s going on in front of me.

  Honey is on the patio dancing with some other women and hell if that isn’t doing a number on me as well. Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her” is playing and somehow it seems to fit the mood. It certainly fits with my current state of mind. I feel a stupidly drunk smile touch my lips.

  “So you’ve survived your first barbecue,” Honey’s mother says, coming to take a seat next to me.

  “Looks more like the boy is barely hangin’ on,” a man says from the other side of the game. That gets everyone laughing.

  “You leave the boy alone,” her mother chides with a smile. She turns to me with a fine wrinkle in her brow. “You are doin’ okay, aren’t you, hon?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a lazy smile.

  “So, you and Allie been dating for some time now.”

  “I love her.” I blurt it out with no forethought. Maybe it’s just Stevie Wonder working his magic through the power of verse. Looking at Honey, there’s no doubt I was made to build my world around her.

  “That boy’s drunk as a skunk,” one of the players says causing an eruption of laughter.

  “No, I really do.” Even I can hear how wasted I am, and part of me feels like a damn fool. Especially when the laughter only increases. I should have remembered how dangerous this moonshine is.

  “Don’t you listen to them,” Honey’s mother says with a soft laugh. “We all know the truth comes out with enough of Uncle Dickey’s moonshine.”

  “In vino veritas,” I mutter, not letting what little Latin I learned go to waste.

  “No idea what that one means but I’m feeling pretty satisfied that our Honey is in good hands,” her mother says as she pats my knee.

  “I don’t think those hands will even be able to handle that cup he’s holding before long.” Plenty more laughter to that one uttered by another player.

  I see Honey making her way over with a sympathetic smile, no doubt having heard the laughter.

  “Are y’all teasing my man?”

  “Your man is making a damn fool of himself.” More laughter.

  “Don’t you listen to them, Allie. Your man is just being honest.”

  “Is that so?” Honey says, falling into my lap and throwing her arms around me. She stares at me and breathes out a laugh. “Oh, Uncle Dickey…”

  I feel a sudden sense of clarity as I gaze into those big brown eyes. The moonshine hasn’t affected all my senses, but it’s damn sure lowered my inhibitions. Enough to say, “I was just telling them how much I love you.”

  Her smile softens and she stares at me a while longer.

  “I certainly hope so, because I damn sure love you too, Giuseppe.”

  Epilogue

  I wake up with one tiny foot planted firmly in my face.

  My brow furrows as I pull away and rise up in bed, resting on an elbow. I stare down at the small form in the dark wondering how the hell she, one, managed to get turned around so her head is facing the foot of the bed
and, two, how she managed to take up so much of the bed in the first place.

  Even at almost four years old, Caroline—Honey and I agreed that our children would all grow up with perfectly “normal” names—is as much of a diva as her mother is.

  I grin in the dark, remembering how she managed to talk us into sharing the bed tonight. I think it’s the huge pink headboard she loves more than anything, the same one under which I first spent the night with Honey.

  But now that the “boogeyman” seems to have been cast away in favor of sleep, it’s time for Daddy to swoop in and fly Princess Caroline back to her own perfectly safe bed.

  I gently pick her up and quietly walk her out of our bedroom.

  The house is blessedly silent this time of night. Come morning the chaos will set in as usual.

  Of course, today will be even more crazy.

  I walk Caroline past the first bedroom, taking a quick peek at Steven and Michael, ages nine and five in their bunk beds. Baby Chris, almost a year old, is in his crib on the other side of the room.

  Danielle and Jennifer, seven and two-and-a-half, are in the next bedroom shared with Caroline. I walk her in and pull back the covers on her pink unicorn bedspread. She thankfully stays asleep until I tuck her in, pushing that mass of Shirley Temple curls away from her angelic face.

  Even in the dark, and without my glasses on, I feel my heart swell as I look down at her, then feel it grow even more as I turn to watch her sisters as they sleep.

  The house isn’t a mansion, but it’s home. I feel blessed knowing that my kids are going to have the same adventures, the same fights and squabbles, the same tight bonds, the same ties to family that both Honey and I had growing up.

  I work as an entertainment attorney these days with my own firm. Frankie Peck was indeed a great help once I left ABC. I put my very generous severance package into the one-man firm—now with three associates and two paralegals—and we have more work than I can handle. I’m still opposed to growing any larger, for fear of becoming too corporate.

  Still, it’s certainly enough to support a stay-at-home mom and six kids and still help out the rest of my family and Honey’s. Not hard to do when you live in New Jersey rather than the Upper West Side.

  I walk back to the bedroom I share with my wife of ten years—official as of almost an hour ago based on the bedside clock.

  Honey shifts as I settle in the bed next to her. I take it as a sign that she’s awake and curl into her back, pulling her in as my little spoon now that we finally have the bed to ourselves.

  “Monsters and dragons officially slayed?” she asks with a smile in her voice.

  “Never to be seen again, at least until tomorrow when she works her charms on us yet again.”

  Honey laughs softly and twists around so she’s facing me. “Daddy the hero.”

  “Daddy the sucker.”

  She laughs again. “She is good, isn’t she?”

  “She gets it from her mother,” I say in a wry voice.

  “Mmm,” she says, snuggling in closer. “But you make it so easy to pour on the sugah.”

  “I prefer honey.”

  She laughs. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, and we do have the bed to ourselves yet again.”

  “And we mustn’t forget the date.”

  “Date? What day is it?” I tease.

  She reaches around to pinch my ass.

  “Ay!” I growl against her forehead.

  “Keep teasing me and you’ll get plenty more of those, Mister.”

  “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I say, pressing my body in closer so she knows I’m already fired up.

  “Mmm, I think this is a fine way to start our anniversary,” she says, her hand coming back around to stroke my cock.

  “Enough to make up for Valentine’s Day?” I say.

  It was exactly a week ago. As per tradition, we ordered ethnic food with the kids—this year it was Ethiopian—with beers for Mommy and Daddy.

  We save the good stuff for our special day one week later, this year sharing it with everyone we know, considering the milestone. Today is the big 1-o. As such we’ve invited all our friends and family. My parents, brothers, sisters, and all their kids. We’ve flown in Honey’s parents, brothers and sisters, and kids as well. The Girls are coming with their families. Jerome will be here, along with his new troupe of singers—whom the kids all love.

  It should make for a circus of a day.

  And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “So, neighbor, are we getting down or what?” Honey asks in a sultry voice.

  Yeah, she’s still got it. Her days performing on stage may be long gone, in favor of a role that she’s ten times as talented at, but she still makes my blood go hot with desire.

  “For you, Honey? Always.”