“You stayin putting a lot on your plate nigga,” he said as he was getting up.
I agreed.
“Pressure build diamonds, I was built for the shit.”
Keith walked outta my office talkin about how I was finna be stressed, and I didn’t even respond. I just turned back around in my chair and started locking in on the plans like I had it all figured out.
At first, it looked easy. I was sitting there scrolling through different beach spots, resorts, villas, looking at the water view, and all that shit, thinking about Islah standing there with the sun hitting her, with Amir standing right beside me. It was that simple; that was all we needed.
I started calling around to places, but the more I called, the more shit started stacking up on me. One place was already booked. Another place wanted a deposit. That wasn’t the problem. It was the date they had open that was. I hung up and didn’t think about callin another place for them to tell me I gotta wait to see what they had, like I was trying to buy a car or some shit. I sat back, rubbing my face. This shit was not gonna be as easy as I thought it was gonna be.
I called Islah after that just to hear her voice, and she answered, sounding calm, like she wasn’t doing nothing stressful. I told her what I was trying to figure out with the wedding shit, and she started laughing at me like she already knew what I was going through, and that made me click a lil’ because she had been dealing with this shit for months, and I see why she was so stressed.
She calmed me down a lil’ bit, and I got back on it, not wanting her to lift a finger to do shit. I called different people with different connections. I switched plans and changed ideas, trying to make something small happen fast, and every time I was close, something else came up, and by the time I got tired of it I realized I had been in the same chair all damn day trying to make my marriage happen in a week.
I left the shop later than I expected and went and picked Amir up from school. When he got in the car, talking about school, I switched the subject and told him the plans for the wedding had changed and that it was going to be soon. He stared at me, then looked out the window like he had to think about my changes.
“I’m cool with all of that, but am I still gonna be able to wear my suit?”
I laughed. “Yeah nigga, you can wear your suit.”
I did my normal stop and picked Islah up some flowers, letting Amir grab whatever he wanted, and we went home.
As soon as we walked through the door, we were hit by the smell of good food being cooked and music playing from the kitchen. Amir dropped his book bag at the door and ran off into the kitchen, and I followed behind him and stopped at the entrance, watching how he embraced Islah and how she embraced him back.
She damn near stopped everything she was doing to ask him about his day, school, and whatever else they had talked about when I wasn’t around.
She finally looked my direction and smiled.
“Oh, my big baby, I didn’t see you standing there,” she said as I walked further in.
“It’s cool, I like seeing y’all together.”
I handed her the flower and a kiss across the island as I looked at what she was cooking.
“Dinner ready?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nah, boo, give me a few more minutes.”
I nodded and told Amir to go get changed and washed while I went down to my man cave for a lil’ bit.
As soon as I sat down, I pulled my phone outta my pocket and got back to work on our wedding shit, thinking about what I could do to make shit happen the way I wanted it to.
When I thought about Turks and Caicos and that smile that she had on her face. It made me smile just thinking about it, and I made a call. After talking to a few people and explaining to them what I was trying to do and how many wasn’t a problem, they were able to work on my time frame, and I locked everything down.
Once I hung up the phone, I clapped to myself. The hard part was done.
A short time later, Islah yelled that dinner was ready. I walked up there and sat at the head of the table and smiled at my lady.
“What is going on?” she asked me.
“I locked in the wedding shit.”
Islah and Amir cheered and clapped.
“Where are we getting married?” Islah asked.
I opened my mouth to respond, then closed my mouth thinking about what I was about to say.
