Still no response.
“Look at me.” Geren lifted Tempest’s chin so she had to and gazed into her eyes. “I love the way you laugh. I love the way you cry. I love the way you walk. The way you talk. I love the way you poke your bottom lip out when you’re trying to get your way. I love that little birthmark on your ass. I love the way you moan, the way you cum, the way you hold me when I need to be held.”
Tempest blushed but still refused to respond. She was too busy deciding if she was experiencing a dream or a nightmare. How could she expect him to give up his dream of having a house full of kids?
“I couldn’t get used to the idea of changing my name to Washington, D.C. Why couldn’t you have been born in Chicago? Naw, that sounds like a pimp’s name. Or Tempe, Arizona? Then we could have been Tempe and Tempest Kincaid.”
Tempest chuckled and pulled away from him. “You’re so crazy!”
“Crazy over you!”
Tempest got out of the car and sat down on the hood. All sorts of things were running through her mind at the speed of light.
Geren got out and came around to join her. He pulled off his shirt, exposing a tattoo of a heart on his chest. The name Tempest was placed in the middle, directly over his heart.
Tempest reached out nervously to finger it. “Is it real?”
“It’s real, and it’s permanent—just like my love for you.” Geren reached into his left pants pocket and pulled out a velvet box. He snapped it open. “And so is this!”
Tempest almost choked on her own saliva when she saw the ring. The diamond had to be at least six carats. She finally managed to utter, “It’s gorgeous.”
“Give me your hand.” Geren took it before she could offer it, pulled the ring from the box, and placed it on her finger. “Say yes.”
“Geren—”
“Say yes, or my life is over.” He kissed each one of her fingertips, kissed her gently on the forehead, and whispered in her ear, “Save my life, Tempest. Don’t force me to live in a world without you. I could never do that.”
She was still trembling, so Geren gathered her up into his arms. “You’re sure you don’t mind adopting, Geren?”
He brushed her hair back out of her face and gazed at her lovingly. “Say yes!”
“Yes!” Tempest finally yelled out, grinning from ear-to-ear.
Geren kissed her on the lips. “Thank you!”
“For what?” Tempest asked.
“For saving my life.”
They made love for the remainder of the afternoon on the hood of his car and then went home to start making calls, informing their friends and family of the good news.
CHAPTER 27
you’ve got a friend in me
tempest glanced across the table at the Florida Avenue Grill and noticed Janessa had barely touched her fried chicken wings and fries. “Janessa, you’ve go to eat something,” she implored.
“I’m not very hungry.” Janessa put her elbows on the table and held her head. She was battling a serious migraine. The stress from the unwanted pregnancy had really gotten to her.
“But you need to maintain your health, Janessa. Especially during your pregnancy.”
Janessa sucked her tongue and snapped at Tempest, “Sis, I don’t need you to remind me that I’m pregnant. It’s all I ever think about.”
Tempest slammed her glass of iced tea down on the table. “Well, shoot me for being concerned.”
Janessa looked at Tempest, who was sitting across from her, pouting, and realized she was taking her frustration out on the wrong person. When Tempest had showed up at the Brentwood Post Office to take her out to lunch, Janessa was very rude to her and almost refused to go.
“I’m sorry, Tempest. I didn’t mean to cop a ’tude with you.” Janessa reached over and patted Tempest lightly on the hand. “You know I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Tempest responded, intertwining their fingers. She noticed that the older, gray-haired sistah behind the counter was staring at them as if they were dykes and pulled her hand away. “Have you at least been keeping up with your ob/gyn appointments?”
“Yes, like clockwork.” Janessa picked at a chicken wing and put a morsel into her mouth in an attempt to make Tempest happy. “I’ve got a great doctor at the Columbia Hospital for Women.”
“Oh, yeah?” Tempest was glad to know Janessa was at least seeing a doctor. From her experience at the center, she was all too aware that a lot of young women neglect to go to an ob/gyn in hopes that the pregnancy will just miraculously go away. “What’s his name?”
“Her name is Tamika Brown. I made it a point to request a female doctor because the last thing I want is another man, any man, looking in the direction of my coochie.”
“Tamika Brown?” Tempest chuckled. “Now she’s got to be a sistah!”
“Yes, she is,” Janessa confirmed. “She’s one of those African-American women who got through the hard times, went for the golden ring, and made it.” Janessa stared at Tempest with envy. “Just like you.”
Tempest took a bite of her cheeseburger and looked out the window. There was a young girl, probably no older than fifteen, struggling to get up the steps of a Metrobus with a baby in her arms and a toddler holding on to her pants leg.
“Too bad I won’t be able to do the same,” Janessa continued. “I really wanted to become a pharmacist. Instead, I’ll be stuck in the postal system until I’m old and gray.”
Tempest took a deep breath and decided it was time to reveal her plans. “Not necessarily, sis. In fact, that’s the main reason I invited you to lunch.”
Janessa raised a curious eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”
“I think I’ve worked out a feasible solution to all of your problems. Maybe not all of them, but a couple of the major ones.”
“What are you talking about, Tempest?”
“Good afternoon, ladies!” Tempest and Janessa looked up to see who had spoken to them. A tall, handsome, dark-skinned brotha was walking past their table.
“Good afternoon,” they both replied in unison.
He sat down on a stool at the counter and got a menu out of the metal holder in the center. He kept darting his eyes at Janessa, and she couldn’t help but blush from the attention. Maybe she did still have it after all!
“That guy’s checking you out big-time,” Tempest observed. “He’s a cutie-pie too.”
Janessa smirked and went back to her chicken wing. “Yeah, but he’s probably married or bisexual or just a plain ole dog like the rest of them.”
“Janessa, I hope you won’t let what happened with Dvontè turn you against all men. I mean, look at me and all the crap men put my ass through before Geren.”
“You’re right, gurl,” Janessa said, even though she felt Tempest was wrong. She doubted she would ever trust a man enough again to date him. “But still, you must admit there are a lot of pit bulls running around D.C.”
“True,” Tempest wholeheartedly agreed. “Maybe they should just install metal detectors at the entrance of all the hangouts in D.C. to detect the thousands of wedding rings stuffed in men’s pockets.”
“Naw, too many gold teeth would set those bad boys off.” Janessa and Tempest both snickered.
Once the laughter wore off, Tempest decided to get back to the matter at hand. “As I was saying, I think I may have it all figured out. You can still go to school and work, even with the baby coming.”
“How do you figure that?” Janessa inquired, thinking Tempest must have forgotten to cash her reality check that week.
“Well, you have a scholarship, so you don’t have to worry about tuition.”
“But what about the big-ass baby-sitting bill I’m going to have?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Tempest said with a sanguine smile. “Check this out. When you’re in school during the day, I can arrange for your baby to go to the day care next door to the center. I’ve already talked to Sharrice Johnson, who runs the place. She has a long waiting list, but she’s agreed t
o take your baby in as a favor to me.”
“But how much is it?” Janessa asked sullenly, still wondering how this solved anything.
“Absolutely nothing!” Tempest exclaimed. “The day care center is fully funded, so your child could go for free.”
“Really?”
“Yes, that’s why the waiting list is so long. As far as you working in the evening, I have that figured out also.”
“How?”
“I’ll watch the baby at night!”
Janessa’s mouth flew open. “I can’t ask you to do that, Tempest. You’re about to get married.”
“Come on, Janessa. It will only be for what, four or five hours an evening? I can handle it,” Tempest insisted. “If it gets to be too much, then I’ll hire a sitter to come in and watch the baby at my place.”
Janessa couldn’t find the right words to express her gratitude.
“Bottom line is this,” Tempest added. “I haven’t seen you this excited about anything for a long time, and I am hell bent on making sure your dreams come true. So is Geren. He is behind this one hundred percent.”
“I can’t believe this,” Janessa said with a flustered glance. “You mean I can really go to college?”
“You can go. You are going, or I’m going to kick your ass. After you deliver the baby, of course.”
Janessa and Tempest jumped up, squealing and hugging each other over the table. The older woman behind the counter gave them the evil eye and cleared her throat. She kept her hands on her hips until they sat back down.
“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.
As much as Janessa despised Dvontè’s attitude, she still cared about him. “Has Geren talked to him at all?” she asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Tempest replied somberly.
“Tempest, I hate the fact that their friendship is strained because of me.”
Tempest grabbed Janessa’s hand again and noticed it was trembling. The lady behind the counter immediately shot daggers at them again, but Tempest looked at her and shot them back this time, refusing to let go of Janessa’s hand because of the hang-ups of others. “None of this is your fault, Janessa. Geren doesn’t blame you, and I definitely don’t.”
Janessa pouted. “But they’ve been friends for so long.”
“Not everyone is meant to be in our lives for a lifetime. Geren and Dvontè started growing apart years before you and I even entered the picture. Geren and I discussed this in detail, and personally, I’m surprised their friendship lasted as long as it did. They’re like night and day.”
“Well, so are we,” Janessa said, thinking about all the times Tempest had warned her not to do something only to have her do it and regret it later.
“Not hardly,” Tempest said vehemently. “When it comes right down to it, you and I are a lot alike. And where there are differences, you and I can agree to disagree. There is no room for that in the situation between Geren and Dvontè.”
Janessa pushed her plate away. Her appetite was gone. “I’m just going to do the best I can, with or without Dvontè’s help. I’m just grateful for you and Geren. I still can’t believe you’re willing to do so much for me.”
“Well, I am. Which brings me to my next question. What about Lamaze? Are you planning to take classes?”
Janessa diverted her eyes to the table in shame. “How can I? I don’t have a partner.”
Tempest tightened her grasp on Janessa’s hand. “You do now!”
CHAPTER 28
home sweet home
“ready?” Geren asked, helping Tempest out of the passenger side of his car. He glanced around at the pedestrians walking past, who were giving them curious looks. Tempest had been bombarding him with questions ever since he showed up at her place, insisting she put on a blindfold and get in the car with him.
“Ready as I’ll ever be!” Tempest replied excitedly, messing with the knot on the back of the blindfold with the fingers of her left hand. “The suspense is killing me!”
“Well, we can’t have that,” Geren teased. He took a deep breath, feeling extre
mely excited himself, and removed her blindfold in one swift movement.
Tempest’s mouth flew open, and for a few seconds, Geren thought she might faint. Then a huge grin overtook her face.
“Geren, what are we doing here?”
He knew she’d already put two and two together but decided to play along. “Why do you think we’re here, sweetheart?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Tempest cooed, blushing uncontrollably. She stared at the three-story brownstone on P Street in Georgetown as if it were the first time she’d ever seen it. Her heart fluttered, her mind rapidly flashing through the happy memories of her youth when her grandparents were still alive.
“No clue, huh?” Geren prodded, still participating in the game.
Tempest lifted her chin to stare at him, gnawing gently on her bottom lip and hesitant to come right out with her assumption. “I see the For Sale sign has been taken down.”
Geren chuckled. “So it seems.”
“That must mean someone purchased it.”
Geren crossed his arms in front of his chest, cupping his elbows and trying to repress the laughter that was building up inside of him. “Yes, someone did.”
Tempest couldn’t hold back a second longer. She lightly pushed Geren in the chest as they both broke out in giggles. “Are you serious?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist, planting a gentle kiss on her trembling lips. “As serious as it gets.”
“You bought this house for me?” Tempest asked, still stunned beyond disbelief.
“No, I bought this house for us.” Geren ran his fingers through her freshly washed hair, wondering how fate had stepped in and put them together. He never thought he would know a love so real. “Unless you expect us to maintain separate residences once we’re married?”
“Silly ass!” she cackled, burying her head in his muscular chest. “You know what I mean!”
After a moment of tenderness, Tempest withdrew from his embrace and moved slowly up the front walk, taking baby steps because it was such an overwhelming surprise. When Geren had picked her up, she figured he was taking her out to the country for a romantic picnic or something of that nature. Never in a million years would she have figured on this. “I’m speechless, Geren,” she whispered. “I can’t find any words to express how I feel.”