Page 68 of D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding

Ray laughed. “So you’re also into music?”

“He is,” I inserted, immensely proud of my brother and always ready to spout off about his varied talents. “Darren’s a musician.”

“A musician? Really now?” Ray’s eyes flared with renewed interest. “Tell me more.”

“Well, foremost, I’m a percussionist. I also play the piano, guitar, and I sing a little.”

“Hmm.” That sly grin from before reappeared onto Ray’s face. “What about wind instruments? Do you...blow pipes?”

Slapping a hand over my mouth, I tried to muffle the scream that immediately bubbled out of me.

“Ray, what the fuck?!” Kris didn’t even try to hide it, exploding with laughter as she shouted at her brother.

Darren was such a good sport, laughing along and seemingly not even upset.

“Okay, that’s enough, Ray,” I said, holding up a hand. “Leave my brother alone.”

“Please, Ray,” added Kris. “The man was kind enough to curve you silently but you’re doing the most, acting like nobody ever paid you any atten—”

The song smoothly transitioned into the popular Xeno song “Drown Me” and I laughed as Kris stopped talking midsentence and jumped onto her feet.

“Aye! That’s my shit!”

Rocking a little in my seat, I nodded. This was wedding reception music. This got people on the dance floor and was liable to get someone pregnant at the end of the night. My giggle faded as I watched Kris rock her hips from side to side, her hands in the air as she rapped along to the lyrics. The carefree way she moved, unconcerned with whether or not anyone was watching her, pulled at me. I felt like that when I was around her—she made it impossible not to—incapable of worrying about anything but how grounded I felt when her fingers dug into my waist or her nose brushed the sensitive skin below my ear.

Darren nudged me, pulling me out of my thoughts. I turned to him, my brows lifted in question. He leaned toward me, a smile on his face as he lowered his voice.

“I like this look on you.”

“What look?” Confused, I smiled at his expression and waited for him to elaborate.

“This.” He gestured at my face. “This...madly-in-love thing you have going on. I worried, you know.”

Frowning, I ignored the very immediate thumping in my chest that cropped up when he said the l-word. “Worried for what?”

He shrugged. “Worried if I’d ever see you get to love someone out loud. To be loved out loud. Unapologetically.”

My heart wrenched and I felt tears prick my eyes.

“Bubba...” Out slipped the nickname I’d had for him since I was a toddler teetering around on unsteady legs as I peered into the bassinet at the new baby in the house.

He swung an arm over my shoulder and tugged me toward him. His lips brushed my temple before he released me.

“Nah, I’m just saying. I hated not saying anything, ya know? And I felt like shit every time me or Niesha went out on a date and you only went places with Cinta—as far as Mama knew. But seeing you now? The way you are with Kris; the way she treats you, the way you look at her. I love that.”

I released a shuddering breath, my heart panging. Although he was two years younger than me, Darren had always acted as if he was my big brother. We were just kids when he learned I was gay, and after that, he went out of his way to protect me. At the time I appreciated it, but looking back, it breaks my heart that he felt like he had to do that. We were babies. We should have been having the time of our lives back then, but instead we had the inherent knowledge that there were things in the world that would do us harm if they could see all of us.

Wiping away the tears his words had wrought from me, I laughed lightly as I shook my head. “Would you believe me if I told you that I wasn’t in love, but the sex was good?” It was only partially a joke. Darren hadn’t spent much time around us since that first Sunday dinner, and I was invested in his answer. Did he see the same things that Mama and Niesha seemed to see?

Tossing his head back, Darren let out a bark of laughter, clearly amused by my question. Instinctively, I looked over at Kris, my breath catching in my chest when I found her eyes on me. She was still dancing even though a different song was on now, but she started slowly moving toward us. With each step she took in my direction, I felt my breaths deepen and my internal temperature rise. My nostrils flared, and I felt a little light-headed. I was no stranger to attraction; had felt it hundreds of times over my life with more than a dozen of those times happening around the woman I now watched. This wasn’t that.

Not simply.

It wasn’t that cut and dry, but it also wasn’t wholly complicated either. It was a thing that I could at least admit that I was terrified of putting name to. It might’ve rhymed with glove and had one less letter. A thing that I’d believed I’d experienced a time or two in the past, only to realize in a heartbreaking fashion that it wasn’t what I’d thought it was. So now, it was a thing I planned to ignore until the next few weeks were up, because names gave things life, and what did I gain from naming this thing?

Darren swiped under one of his eyes and squeezed my shoulder. “Not a chance.”

Kris reached us, and I watched her, still arrested in her gaze, as she stopped in front of me, bent at the waist, and grasped my chin. My eyes fluttered closed then, because I knew that whatever I received from her in that moment was a gift that I wanted to first experience by touch. I didn’t want to see it coming. I wanted to be surprised. Kris didn’t hesitate, pressing her lips to my forehead and then the tip of my nose before brushing them against my lips in a soft caress that pulled a contented sigh from the back of my throat. It was all rather chaste, and sweet, and completely nonsexual.