“Thank you so, so much. You don’t know what this means to me.”
“It’s all out of love. You’ve gone through a lot over the last two weeks. I don’t agree with the way Lance handled things, so I wanted to make sure you were straight all the way around. The apartment is in your name, and the rent has been paid for an entire year.”
Hearing that made Aspen cry harder. She wasn’t sure what she’d done in life to deserve someone like Mahari, but Lord knew how thankful she was for him.
“How did you pull this off?”
“Your parents, Denver, and Lavender helped me. We started plotting the day we came back from the island. Lavender was prepared to redo her entire apartment for y’all, but we thought this would be more beneficial to you. Welcome home, Bunny.”
“I love you, Mahari.”
“And I love you too. I only want what’s best for you and the girls, and I’ll always go out my way to make it happen.”
“Go,May May! It’s your birthday!”
Mahaley’s voice filled the air, along with their parents. All Mahari could do was sit on the couch and shake his head as he waited for them to come into view. The biggest smile graced his face. Mahaley walked in with a huge bouquet of balloons. His father, Mason, carried a cake with lit candles while his mother, Jaxen, carried gift bags.
Setting everything in front of him, they sang happy birthday and waited for him to blow the candles out. Jaxen peppered kisses all over his face and wiped away her lipstick.
“Happy birthday, baby boy.”
“Thanks, Mama.” Mahari kissed her cheek and stood to embrace his father. “Y’all know y’all didn’t have to do this.”
“Oh, please,” Jaxen snapped with a wave of her hand.
Mahaley melted into Mahari’s arms and cosigned. “Exactly, Mama. He knows birthdays are a big deal in this family. Just because you’re a big music producer to the world doesn’t mean you’re not still May May to us.”
Mahari playfully shoved Mahaley away. Before he could spit back a witty comeback, his doorbell rang. He glanced at his family, and they all appeared just as confused as him. They were hot on his heels as he headed to the front door.
The aching in his cheeks from how hard he smiled didn’t bother him. Aspen stood at the door with balloons and grocery bags. It was evident she was out of breath, so Mahari took the bags from her and invited her inside.
Jaxen gasped and hugged Aspen. “Oh, Aspen! It’s so good to see you, sweetheart.”
“It’s good to see you too, Mrs. Jaxen. It’s been a while.”
“It has.” Jaxen’s palms went to Aspen’s belly. “How are my great nieces treating you?”
“Good, but I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my life. I’m glad I did a grocery pick-up order, but coming up the steps to this big ole house almost took me out.”
Mahari stated, “You should’ve called me to come get the bags.”
“I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. I figured I could come make you a birthday breakfast before I go into work for a few hours,” Aspen explained.
“You did it, didn’t you?”
When Aspen avoided his gaze, Mahari knew she had. She’d been talking about picking up extra hours at the hospital to save more money for when she went on maternity leave. Despite Mahari protesting and trying to convince her that he would take care of anything she needed, she chose to be independent. Therewasn’t anything wrong with it. Mahari respected her hustle, but he also didn’t want her overdoing it.
“Girl,” Mahaley chimed in. “You’re still working?”
“Yes.”
“And how many weeks are you?”
“I just hit thirty yesterday.”
“Sweetheart, you need to be on maternity leave,” Jaxen said. “If you were only carrying one baby, I could understand, but two? No, ma’am. You need to be resting those swollen ankles and nesting.”
From the way Aspen tugged at her lip, Mahari knew the conversation made Aspen a little uncomfortable, so he changed the subject.
