“I don’t know how I could ever thank you or Geren.”
“You can thank us by making good grades and becoming the best pharmacist this city has ever seen.” Tempest was happy when Janessa finally started digging into her food. “See, I knew your behind was hungry.”
They both giggled.
“I’m starving,” Janessa confessed, picking up the drumstick part of the wing and sucking all the meat off it.
“You’re not lifting anything heavy down at the post office, are you?” The thought suddenly hit Tempest that Janessa’s job might put too much physical strain on the fetus.
“Naw, they have me on light duty until I go on maternity leave. I only sort envelopes.”
“Good!” Tempest exclaimed with a sigh of relief. “When are you planning to go on leave?”
“My due date is February 15, so probably sometime in mid-January.”
“Oooooooh, you might mess around and have a Valentine’s baby. That would be so romantic.”
Janessa grimaced. “Romance. What a crock of bullshit. Love is nothing but a delusion.” Janessa saw the disappointment on Tempest’s face and added, “Except in your case, of course.”
Tempest smiled at her and finished off her glass of tea.
“How are the wedding plans coming along?” Janessa asked. “I’ve been so caught up in myself lately, I haven’t even asked. When’s the date?”
Tempest almost choked on the last of the tea. “We haven’t set one yet,” she answered, setting the glass back down.
Janessa sat up on the edge of her seat. “Why not?”
“We’ve just been trying to enjoy each other. Besides, Geren’s been running back and forth to NYC a lot lately. This whole situation took both of us by surprise. I definitely wasn’t planning on falling in love, rather less getting married, and I doubt Geren was either.”
“Have you met his dad? The great almighty Phoenix Kincaid?”
“Yes, I have.” Tempest laughed at Janessa’s characterization of her future father-in-law. “He came down last weekend just to check me out.”
“And?”
“He’s a sweetheart. Just the typical everyday bro man. He just has a lot of money, is all, but he’s real cool. He made a point to assure me that I had his stamp of approval. He even offered to send us to a private island in the Caribbean for our honeymoon.”
“That’s great!” Janessa exclaimed. “Are you going to go?”
“We’re not sure. It depends on when we get married because we definitely don’t want to fall up in there during hurricane season, like Brandy and them did in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.”
“That was the bomb movie!”
“Hell, yeah, it was,” Tempest agreed, and they both giggled.
Janessa reached up her hand so Tempest could give her a high five. “My gurl, marrying the son of a multimillionaire. Who would have thought?”
“Not moi, that’s for damn sure,” Tempest chuckled. “Geren and his father are both extremely down-to-earth, though. I’m taking Geren down to Florida next weekend to meet my parents.”
“I guess this proves the theory that good things happen when you least expect it.”
“I guess so.” Tempest sighed. She decided it was time to broach the next topic, since Janessa’s frame of mind had improved. “Have you spoken to Dvontè?”
Janessa rolled her eyes in disgust, her mood changing back to negative at the mere mention of his name. “Just once, about a month ago,” she answered. “He called to see if I’d come to my senses, as he put it, and wanted to know if I needed any money for an abortion. Dvontè can be so damn cruel at times. He acts like I imagined everything that happened between us.”
Tempest’s mood drastically changed as well. “Fuck him and the horse he rode in on!”
There was silence at their table for a few moments. The brotha who spoke on his way in decided to speak again on his way out with his carryout bag but they both igged his ass.