AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mama?”
“Yes, Theo?”
Ayesha continued to set barbecue glazed chicken in a Pyrex dish while her son called her from Gage and Tayler’s deck. Everyone else was on the beach, but if she was on the deck, Theo was on the deck. With the depth of the clingy stage Theo was currently going through, he would follow her into a house fire.
“Mama!”
She looked up. “Yes, baby?”
He extended a chewed-up piece of grilled pepper in her direction.“Puppa.”
“Is it a yummy pepper?”
“Co-Geish. Puppa.”
“Uncle Gage gave you that pepper? Did you say ‘thank you’ to Uncle Gage?”
Theo danced to music only he could hear, stomping his sandal-covered feet, and went back to munching on the pepper.
Tayler’s cooking was magic if Tayler could get her baby boy to eat a grilled pepper. While she didn’t have many issues with Theo’s palate, she would’ve never expected him to eat, never mind enjoy a vegetable not mixed in rice or stew. Josiah, on the other hand, had his father’s appetite. She’d yet to find something he didn’t like.
Sydney walked up the deck steps, her body toned yet curvy in all the right places and her brown skin shimmering in a white bikini. A matching white coverup fluttered around her ankles, her feet bare.
Ayesha, after catching herself staring, quickly looked away. Sure, she’d had two babies, but it wasn’t as if she’d looked likethatbefore them in the first place. Then again, she was in California. Before she left, maybe she’d take Tayler, with her fantastic legs and ass, with her to a cosmetic surgeon and point.
Curtis’ voice suddenly echoed in her head.
“Eesh, baby, don’t say that.” Curtis wrapped his arms around her, his hands so massive, they nearly covered her entire lower abdomen. “Five months ago, you gave birth to my baby boy, our son, our little Josiah, and you went from beautiful to a combination of cute, gorgeous, and sexy that just,” he groaned, “does something to me. I didn’t think I could want you more than I already do, but looking at you turns me on so much, I’m sure I’ll need your therapeutic services.”
She laughed. “You’ll need me to shrink your head?”
“It’s the only thing on my body you can shrink.” He pressed against her. “So don’t talk about yourself like that. And if you’re not ready for me to show you just how perfect I think you are, you better run.”
Sydney crouched in front of Theo. “Hi, puka. Oh my god, you’re so cute. I have to stop myself from just…squeezing you.”
Theo hit her with one of his “I know I’m cute” grins, and he received the response he was going for—Sydney’s squeal.
Ayesha slowly shook her head.
With how liberally he wielded that grin, she half believed her son would grow up to be the one who brought nineties R&B back, merely for the concert screams and shouts. And, of course, the squeals.
“Up, Theo?” Sydney opened her arms. “Can Auntie pick you up?”
Theo hopped in place. “Up, up, up.”
Sydney picked him up and set him on her hip, and Ayesha found herself staring again. How Sydney acted with the kids made it difficult for her to see children as the sole reason she and Joel split up. She didn’t act like someone who didn’t want to be a mother; she acted like a woman who was afraid to.
“Ayesha, you’re not done with this yet?” Sydney asked. “We miss you down on the beach. I’m trying to relax withallmy girls.”
“You don’t miss me,” Ayesha teased. “Where I go, Theo will follow, and you’re trying to steal my baby.”
Sydney nuzzled Theo’s cheek. “Maybe.”
“Take him.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” She finished the last piece of chicken and set aside the basting brush. “And yeah, I’m just about done. I’ll bring the rest of the food down. Where’s Joel? He promised to help me.”
