Page 182 of Lau Ahi
“Asha is good. I promise.”
Xerxes’ eyes narrowed and he leaned forward as though something had just dawned on him. “Is zis.. Is zis how y’all flirt? This… combativeness is how you two get along?”
I scratched at my cheek ‘cause I hadn’t thought of it that way. Asha gave as good as she got and never backed down. And despite how much shit she talked, she never directly told me to move around. So…
“Uh… maybe?”
Half the men in the room threw their hands up and a few looked ready to throw something at me. Even Smoke’s ass had the nerve to have his face frowned up like he’d been invested in making sure I was good and was now pissed at the revelation.
“Bruh! This is a gotdamn mating ritual we're trying to get in between. The wooing of a nutcase by an asshole.” Couba was shaking his head and only Bhaltair and Angel were laughing.
“You calling my wife a nutcase?”
Yacouba glanced around the room mouthing, “Is this nigga serious,” before he turned to face me. “Yes! My nigga, keep up. Can you prove to me that she’s not?”
“Nah. She could beat just about any sanity test that you put in front of her.”
Xerxes raised a finger grabbing my attention like he had something to interject. “Zat does not mean zat she’s sane, Ori!”
I shrugged because he wasn’t wrong. “Point taken. But again, she’s mine.”
“I’m not gone hold you. I’m not about to waste any more of my precious time worrying behind Ori and his shit. He seems happy right where he is. That’s good enough for me. I’m never one to interfere with a man and his wife. If this is what this niggais on, let this nigga have it. Because at the end of the day, if it was somebody going at me about mine I would probably be lashing out way worse than he is.”
“Thank you, Priest.”
“I don’t zink zat’s his seal of approval. Zat was more a ‘you gone do what you want to anyway so why am I getting involved’ sorta zing.”
I glanced around at all of them trying to discern what I’d said that was wrong. “Same thing.”
The room was filled with stunned silence and I was now the one trying to figure out why they weren’t understanding what was going on. Asha wasn’t the type of woman they were used to and I got that. But they weren’t the ones married to her, I was. I appreciated they wanted to look out but they wouldn’t know how to handle her the way I did. Shit, I was still learning my damn self but I was enjoying every single lesson she wanted to teach me.
“Yo, she’s rubbing off on you, bruh. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.” Midas spoke up but I knew he wanted to laugh. He wasn’t speaking up because his wife was best friends with mine. He knew how she was for the most part so he hadn’t bothered to be concerned. His girl, like mine, had to lay somebody down at a real young age so I’m sure they’d bonded over that shit at some point.
“It’s looking real… something-ish.”
“That about sums it up.”
I was ready for them to stop talking about this so I switched my attention to someone else in the room to draw him into the conversation. “Jada did her thing as usual, Smoke. I know she already collected her bread but my grandfather got an extra chunk for her because he loves how she incorporated everything.”
He dipped his head in appreciation at my compliment. “I’ll let her know.”
“I’m still waiting for the day them two get married.”
Smoke slow blinked as he looked at Angel like he’d just grown a second head. “Nigga, I just started talking in complete sentences but you think I’m finna get married sometime soon?”
We cracked up laughing and Yacouba was the loudest. “That’s true, too. I wanted to shoot this nigga the first time he strung together a paragraph. Had me thinking I’d smoked a laced blunt and I was ready to kill everybody.”
“Out of the family’s Jemma Marie is the last one standing. We’re just waiting on her to get married—”
“And you’ll be holding your breath for a good long while for that, sugah.”
Her deep New Orleans drawl carried from behind me and caused all of us to turn around. Jemma Marie appeared wearing a fuchsia dress that swept the floor regally. The color complemented the stormy gray of her eyes and she walked up on our conversation unapologetically. Her hair was done up in one of those updos and every man in the room stood when she entered out of respect. One by one those of us that grew up with her gave her hugs before she leaned against the arm of the chair I was sitting on since she refused to take my seat.
“Of course you’re lurking.”
She smiled down at me even though she barely had a height advantage since she wasn’t that tall. “I’m still good at popping up in places that I shouldn’t be. It’s probably how I got stuck in that situation I was in for so long.”
Her face clouded over and I could feel every man in the room getting upset about thatsituation. She’d been locked up right under our noses for years and we all felt a way about it. We were supposed to have power yet our sister had been trapped off the grid for over a decade and none of us had seen what was goingon. It stung our pride and more importantly we felt like we’d failed her.
