The only person missing was Serenity. Rita had mentioned her earlier, pulling Quest aside and saying she’d spoken to herthat morning on the phone and that she was doing better in rehab. “She sounds clearer,” Rita had said. “More like herself. She’ll be home soon.” Quest had nodded and kissed her forehead and I could see the relief in his shoulders even though his face stayed composed.
“Is that young man single?” Rita suddenly asked, pointing her cane in the general direction of the bar where one of Mekhi’s friends was standing.
“Grandma, you can’t even see him,” Justice said.
“I can feel his energy from here. He’s handsome, isn’t he? Somebody tell me if he’s handsome.”
“He’s aight,” Prime offered.
“Aight is good enough at my age. Is he single?”
“Grandma, he’s like thirty,” Quest said.
“And? I said is he single, not is he age-appropriate. I’m eighty-five, baby. The dating pool is a puddle. Let me have my fun.” She sipped her champagne and the whole table was in tears laughing. Dream climbed into Rita’s lap and Rita held her close and whispered something that made Dream giggle and I watched this woman, blind, aging, fierce, hold court over her family with more authority than most CEOs held over boardrooms.
I looked around the table at all of them. Prime feeding Zainab a bite of oxtail while she held Kheris on her hip. Justice with his arm around Storie’s chair, whispering something that made her laugh and shove him away. Mekhi and Zephyr arguing louder now, probably about the Commanders. Quest’s hand still on my thigh, his thumb tracing slow circles against my skin through my dress.
This was a family. A real one. Messy and loud and imperfect and held together by something stronger than obligation. They fought for each other. They threw each other in trunks when they had to. They showed up even when it was hard, and theylaughed even when things were heavy, and they loved without conditions even when the people they loved made it difficult.
I had never been part of something like this. And sitting here, in a sequined dress I’d bought with Quest at Nordstrom, with his hand on my thigh and his grandmother wearing a tiara and his brother feeding his wife oxtail, I felt something crack open in my chest that I’d been keeping sealed shut for years.
Belonging. That’s what it was. I belonged here.
The cake came out on a rolling cart pushed by two servers. It was three tiers, white fondant with gold accents, and “Happy 85th Rita” written in elegant script on the top tier. The room erupted in a very off-key rendition of the birthday song that Rita conducted with her cane from her seat.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Rita said, holding up her hand before anyone could cut it. “This ain’t big enough for a man to jump out of. I specifically requested a male stripper. Now, where he at?”
“Grandma, nobody is jumping out of that cake,” Quest said.
“Then what’s the point of three tiers? You could’ve gotten a sheet cake from Costco and saved the money for my stripper fund.”
“You do not have a stripper fund,” Justice said.
“I do now. Somebody start a GoFundMe.” She pointed her cane at Mekhi. “You. The handsome one’s friend. Do you know how to set up a GoFundMe?”
Mekhi nearly choked on his drink. The room was falling apart with laughter and Rita was sitting there with a straight face like she hadn’t just asked for a GoFundMe for a stripper at her own birthday party and I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt.
Quest leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“I want to show you the rest of the casino.”
“Right now? They’re about to cut the cake.”
“We’ll be back.” His lips brushed my ear when he said it and the temperature of my entire body shifted by about ten degrees. He stood up and offered me his hand and I took it because at this point saying no to Quest Banks was a skill I no longer possessed.
We slipped out of the private room while everyone was distracted with cake and Rita’s ongoing commentary about the absence of male entertainment. Quest led me down a corridor lined with framed blueprints of the casino’s design, past the main gaming floor that was dark and empty and waiting for opening night, and through a door marked “High Rollers Lounge.”
The room was dim. A few poker tables covered in green felt. A blackjack table near the window. A bar that wasn’t stocked yet. Everything still smelled new—fresh paint, new carpet, leather seats that had never been sat in.
Quest locked the door behind us.
“You did not bring me in here to show me poker tables.”
“No, I did not.” He was already walking toward me with that look in his eyes that I’d learned to recognize as the preview to losing my ability to form sentences. “I’ve been staring at you in that dress for two hours and I’ve been very patient and my patience just ran out.”
“Your grandmother is in the next room.”
