Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Good morning.” He offered me a Café de Monde cup.
“Thanks.” I took my drink. “Any updates on your connection at HomeGoods?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Omari pulled over an aluminum stool and sat down. “Martin will be in town the Saturday after next.”
“Crap,” I muttered. When he arched a thick brow, I elaborated. “I’ll be at a winery with Wash.”
“Okay, Sunday.”
“It’s in Shreveport.”
“Damn, so y’all are making a weekend of it?”
Pending some technicalities. Shonda said, Big toe. If my toe touched the threshold of my old home on Friday night, then yep, we’d have a helluva time at that vineyard. I said, “We can make it back Sunday afternoon.”
“How about that Monday? I’m rooting for y’all.”
“You are?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Besides, one word from him, I catch a case.”
“Touché.” I smiled, walking toward the cement building’s exit.
Out front, Zuri’s Maserati sat parallel outside, and I climbed in. “What’s on the menu for lunch?”
“Brightening up Momma Virginia’s day.”
“What?” I reached for the door handle.
She pressed the lock button, and my heart channeled a marching band, beating fast. First the cops kidnapped me for hours, then Washington threatened to pull a Bundy and Dahmer by not wanting me to leave him. Now this?
“Look,” Zuri said, “CeCe Winans and The King of Zydeco aren’t doing anything for her today. So, I was thinking, me, you, Phoenix, and G—”
“If you finish with that woman’s name, I will leap from this car. Slow to a good twenty-five miles per hour. I’m not that confident in my tuck and roll.”
“You know they use safety gear.”
“I do. I watched a lot of behind-the-scenes footage on HBO in college. Of course, I’d tapped into someone else’s cable.”
She stared at me.
“Don’t judge. I’d dropped out of Stanford, swapped the law track for art. My parents had financially abandoned me.” Or full-blown abandoned me if we wanted to get technical. “So, I was thinking, with the controlled speed, body positioning, and a tucked chin, and perhaps you slowing down near a patch of grass, I’d be all good.”
“Maddy, you’re not getting out of this car. Besides, you owe me. We’re supposed to be going bridesmaid shopping.”
“Who. Are. Your. Bridesmaids?”
“Obvi, you. Phoenix. She’s gotta get with Tennessee. They’ve been friends since elementary school, right? I’ve lived here half a year; their love is painfully obvious.”
“Agreed. They have been playing games since pitty-pat and the sandboxes,” I mumbled.
“See? I may be a doctor and know the tangible qualities of the heart, but I can see its intangible qualities too … which is a miracle considering my own love trauma and living on the run for years with Darius. I guess Montana brought out the love in me by being so annoyingly charismatic.”
“Mm-hmm.” I smiled, elated that she was free from her son’s father. Satan’s minions now kept that man preoccupied in the special all-inclusive resort in hell that he bargained for.
“Zuri. Stop deflecting. Who’s the third maid? There’s no way Montana doesn’t have a groomsman position for all his brothers. It better be someone not local.”
“Oh, c’mon, you know I grew up foster. The only friend I had after procreating with Dr. Menace was the wife of a college buddy. The one who helped me create all those fake identities? Anyway, they’re going through IVF … so she couldn’t commit as a bridesmaid.”
“Still deflecting?” I narrowed my eyes, although her story touched me. Zuri had moved to New Orleans to protect her son from Dr. Menace. She’d spent Darius’s entire life undercover, sacrificing all her education and eventually working at Hot Chicken & Peach Pit Maison, where she met Montana. She’d definitely humbled him, and he was better for it.
“A woman … who shan’t be named.” Zuri turned down Royal Street. “She’ll walk with her cousin, Tex.”
“Ugh, I knew it! Lord knows Genèse will wear the hell out of a knockoff, but she better bring a refund for her lifetime subscription of attitude after we get our bridesmaids’ gifts. We are getting gifts, right? Not that I need one. I know Montana is—”
“On a mission to grace every gossip magazine for Most Expensive Wedding Ever. Even if he only has ten people on the guest list, since humans annoy him. ‘They want his Dodger money.’ ”
“Yeah, that. He’s the only bougie person I know who wants everybody to see him shine, without having that you-get-a-taco-and-you-get-a-taco mentality.”
“That bougie baller will allow others to watch him eat a taco stuffed with gold leaves,” Zuri said.
We laughed as we climbed out of the car, and I held the door open for her at the Babineaux restaurant. I stared at her in awe. “Sis, where you been all my life?”
Zuri smirked.
“No, really, you’ve mastered the art of clowning this family and still loving them. You’re amazing, Dr. Babineaux.”
“Madison, I love the sound of that.” She thanked me and entered the plush restaurant first. A second later, our smiling faces vanished. “Now, we’ve gotta help Momma Babineaux find Tex.”