Page 36 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

Tatti called her over, grabbed her hand.

“Riyah,” she said. “Let me properly introduce you to my husband. This is Kaseem. Kaseem, this is Nariyah.”

“I know him already,” Nariyah said, matter of fact, pouting a little. “He’s a good guy. But I didn’t know you had a husband. You got married without me there. You didn’t let me be the flower girl or nothing.” Nariyah pouted a little.

“You know the good thing about weddings,” I told her, crouching down to her level, “is you can have as many as you want. We can do it again sometime soon and, make sure you a big part of it this time around.”

I passed her that tie dye rose I’d picked out, and her whole face lit up bright.

I told them both I was taking them home.

I meant exactly what I said about that wedding. I needed Nariyah and Zaire to be a part of it. That was something I needed to talk to my wife about. If she wanted to do it before or after the baby, it was all on her.

When I went to grab Tatti’s bags to load up the car, I stood there in disbelief for a second. She’d come over here with basically nothing, a duffle bag and her purse, and somehow I was carrying damn near ten bags out to that truck.

I looked over at her sideways, shaking my head.

“Give me my damn card back,” I told her, and she just laughed, walking ahead of me toward the car with Nariyah’s hand in hers, both of them looking back at me smiling like they already knew I wasn’t really mad about them spending up my money. I knew now, I was in for a world of trouble.

—

Pulling through them first gates to the compound, I watched Nariyah’s whole face light up in the backseat, eyes wide, taking in every inch of the property like she couldn’t believe what she was looking at.

“I wish my momma could see this,” she said, breathless, pressing her hand against the window.

Then she caught herself, went quiet for a second, glanced over at Tatti with something apologetic already forming on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Baby, don’t ever apologize for that,” Tatti said, twisting around in her seat to look at her. “Never. This is a real adjustment for you, and it’s okay to still be thinking about her, missing what was familiar.” She reached back and squeezed Nariyah’s little hand. “But I want you to remember something for me, okay? When people do bad things, when they hurt us or lie to us, you can’t carry them with you into your next stage of life. You can’t let their mistakes weigh you down forever. I know you don’t fully understand what I mean by that right now. But you will one day. I promise you that.”

Nariyah nodded slow, taking that in, her eyes still moving over the property as we rolled up the driveway.

I parked and got out, walked around and opened both their doors. Nariyah climbed out first, standing there for a second just looking up at that house, mouth slightly open.

“Come on upstairs with me,” I told her, holding my hand out for hers. “Tell me exactly which room you want to be yours.”

She took my hand without hesitating, and we walked through that house together, her peeking into every room we passed, eyes wide the whole way, till we hit the guest room with all them luxury fixtures already in it, big windows, high ceiling.

“This one,” she said, spinning around in the middle of that room. “I want this one.”

I smiled, watching her.

“Bet,” I said. “Today I’m gonna have some people come through and decorate it exactly how you want it, make it feel like home for you. So for the next few days, you can sleep wherever you comfortable. We’ll get you set up.”

We got her settled that night in the old room that used to be Tatti’s, back when I first had her here, before we got married. Made sense, it was the closest one to ours, and I wanted her near us while everything still felt new to her.

That night we all had dinner together, and everything about it felt easy in a way this house ain’t felt in a long time. Nariyah talking a mile a minute about her new room, about school, about whatever cartoon she wanted to watch after. Tatti laughing for real, and enjoying every second of it. My house was finally starting to feel like a home instead of just a house, and I loved every single minute sitting at that table watching it happen.

Me and Tatti tucked her in for the night a few hours later, then I was finally in the presence of my woman alone.

—

Later that night, for the first time in almost a week, I finally got to shower with my wife again.

That shit felt good as hell. I loved her so much it was almost crazy how much space it took up in my chest. We stood under that water holding onto each other, neither one of us saying much, just letting the water run over us, not wanting to know what it felt like to be apart from each other again after everything this last week had put us through.

Once we got out, I ain’t even let her dry off. I picked her up soaking wet just like that, carried her straight to the bed, both of us laughing the whole way there.