The more domesticated I get, the easier it is for me to see her even more than I did before.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head, pulling my other arm through the jacket.
“Tell me.”
She tugs the front of the jacket, shrugging and sighing.
“Tell me…”
“So will my sister-in-law always be standoffish with me?”
I blubber out a laugh that makes her swat my shoulder. “I’m not laughing, Rich. I decorated a whole bedroom for her, and she wants to stay on the Strip?Really?”
“Slim…I told you to give her a minute. She’s been the?—”
“Only girl for thirty years besides Faye. Yeah, I get that, but I’m trying, Rich, and I don’t think it’s fair that I’m the one kissing her ass while she pays me dust. I sent her a picture of the bedroom, and do you know what she texted me?”
My heart does that happy stutter that only Slim can make it do while I get lost in the way her brown eyes grow bigger the more frustrated she gets.
“What she text you back, mama?”
“She said, ‘Oh. I already booked a room at Mandalay Bay’. No ‘thank you’ or anything, by the way. Now I have to pretendnot tobe mad at dinner.”
I laugh harder—not at her and Arnez and their constant beefing, but at the fact that I went so long without experiencing regular ass shit like my lady and my sister bickering.
I reach down and slide my hands under her dress, pushing it up while she keeps going on about Arnez and Mandalay Bay. I pick her up and she wraps her legs around my middle with ease while draping her arms over my shoulders.
“After all we’ve been through, we should really be closer. Yesenia says I need to be patient, but how much more patient can I seriously be?” she rambles while I walk her over to one of the floor to ceiling windows in our bedroom.
I push her back against it, then stoop down and press my lips against hers, swallowing the rest of her words.
“Mmm…” she moans, pulling away. “She has no problem texting me for outfit advice, but anything more than that is too much for her? What about when we have kids, Rich? How am I going to explain to my son that his aunt hates his mama? These things keep me up at night…”
I laugh with my lips hovering over hers.
“It’snotfunny.”
“You right…you right. It’s not.” I murmur, digging my nails into her ass. “You want my advice?”
“If it’s generic, I don’t.”
I snort, pecking her lips. “Listen, my smartass baby, I’m trying to tell you how to get on her good side so my son won’t have to hear about his aunt hating his mama.”
Her body melts into mine in the same way it always does when she says I’m acting more like an empathetic human and less like the Tin Man.
“You listening?” I ask.
“Uh-huh.” She nods, holding me tighter.
“Banana Laffy Taffys.” I peck her nose. “And when she reads you the joke on the wrapper—you gotta laugh no matter how bad the shit is. She a real simple girl.”
The last time I saw Arnez in a dress was the night she came home from Jazzy’s all drunk and giddy, telling me about a dude she met in the parking lot after accidentally scraping his car door with her purse.
Tonight she has on a little black mini-dress that makes me smile when she stands up from our table. Her long hair is straight and hangs down her back in a way that I forgot it could.
She hugs me first—throwing her arms around my neck, then slapping me upside my head for making her wait fifteen minutes by herself.
