“Easy, Annabelle,” I say, holding my hands out for her.
“You calling my baby a demon?”
Julian takes two steps into the living room before his daughter reroutes. A head of black coils and a snowflake onesie shuffle around the coffee table into his waiting arms.
“Is Uncle Ant behaving?” Julian asks his giggling daughter as he kisses her cheeks.
“Ant.” She shifts in his arms and points to me.
If it weren’t for their matching hickory-brown eyes and chocolate hue, I’d question if my best friend was in the room when Anite was conceived. Seeing him hang on to his daughter’s every word tugs at the very small part of me that’s curious to know how it feels. Fatherhood looks good on him.
Julian is still the same person who likes anime and old jazz records. We’ve been friends since our dads put us in rugby when we were kids. He’s four years older, but my size and speed hadhis coach poaching me for scrimmages after my practices. He’ll say I followed him around, which is a bald-faced lie.
We grew up in the same neighborhood and have been rocking ever since. Julian tries to act like he wasn’t one of DC’s notorious bachelors. I let it slide because bro is crazy in love.
Life shifted for him the minute he met Ella and her two kids. His house, once a destination for game nights that ended in X-rated sleepovers, is now babyproofed, with gates and outlet covers overtop the fossils of a former bachelor pad.
El rushes up from the basement like she just worked a double at the childcare center she runs. Her hair is frizzy on one side and falling out of the bun that’s struggling to stay up on the other.
“Who jumped you down there?” She had one of those messy updos during dinner less than an hour ago.
“Very funny, Antonio.” Her eyes cut to me before she motions for her carbon copy. “I’ll take her.”
“Èske ou gen dòmi?” Are you sleepy, little one?” Julian asks in Haitian Creole. “Li le pou kouche.” He kisses Anite and passes her to me. “Say goodnight.”
“You’re growing too fast.” It was only yesterday Julian smacked me upside the head for palming Anite like a rugby ball after Ella gave birth. I promised to visit at least once a month, no matter how busy the season gets.
Anite sprouted from a tiny thing with new-car smell to a joyful soul who plays with her shadow and performs pop-rap when her parents aren’t watching.
Mini Ella stares with thick brows, big cheeks, and a pouty mouth. I tickle her sides and blow raspberries on her neck. “Sweet dreams, Annabelle. See you next month.”
“And we’re done.” Ella bumps me with her hip and takes Anite.
“Hey, Ella Bella? Your shirt is inside out.” I point to her sweater.
Her eyes glide down to ivory seams that shouldn’t be visible. “Oh.” She looks everywhere except at her husband. “Sundays are laundry day.”
My ass!
“Laundry, huh?” I scrub my jaw and peer down at her. “That’s one hell of a spin cycle, to flip your sweater inside out.”
Never mind the fact that the washer and dryer areupstairs. Not in the basement—a soundproof basement Ella snuck in and out of when Julian stayed down there before they got married.
The guilty party, the Lance Gross look-alike of DC, hasn’t stopped shooting fuck-me eyes at his wife since she stumbled up here. Can’t say I blame him. Ella is a beautiful medley of natural hair, curves, and child-bearing hips that Julian keeps begging to spread. Bro inherited Jackson, his eleven-year-old son, Haile, his almost nine-year-old daughter, had Anite with Ella, and still stays on his wife’s ass.
Between Jackson playing youth rugby for a team Julian coaches, Haile’s Brazilian jiujitsu competitions, and chasing after a fourteen-month-old, it’s a miracle these two have the energy to run off like teenagers.
“Did you two dip off for a quickie and leave me on babysitting duty? Minute Man here wasn’t gone that long.” I dodge Julian’s fist, laughing at the times he told me he ran out of the basement to come through the kitchen. His white tee and gray sweatpants are the perfect ’fit to drop dick and dash.
Freaks.
“Don’t shortchange my sister,” I chide.
Ella’s smile widens. “He’s been up here for longer than a minute, running my bath after checking on the kids. I’ll get Anite down and say goodbye before you leave.”
“Need me to double-check the water temperature?” Julian gazes at his wife with a tone that borders on Barry White.
“Hello, you have company,” I remind them.
