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Chess’s phone rang while they were on the highway.
“Hi, Derrick,” she greeted happily. “What’s up?”
Immediate irritation shot through Tazeem. Sure, she’d said that she and Derrick weren’t involved, but Derrick was still a man. Seeing a man – any man that wasn’t him – get such a happy welcome from Chess was incredibly annoying.
“Oh no!” Chess winced when Derrick told her why he was calling. “A barbecue with you guys sounds like loads of fun, but we have other plans. Actually, we’re already out of the house.”
There was a pause as Derrick spoke
“Us?” Chess glanced at Tazeem. “We’re hanging out with Tazeem.”
Derrick had a lot of questions about that.
Chess said, “Why don’t we talk when we meet up? I might drop by if we finish up early here.”
Right then and there, Tazeem decided to drag out their family day for as long as possible. Chess and Jay would be lucky to ditch him before midnight.
Apparently, Jay was capable of talking in complete sentences because as soon as Chess ended the call, he was on her neck. “Mama, is Frankie’s family having a barbecue?”
“Yeah.” Chess nodded. “Auntie Kendall’s little brother is getting engaged so Uncle Derrick decided to have a small celebration.”
“Awesome.” Jay eagerly sat up in his seat. “Can we go?”
Chess’s response was firm. “No.”
And that was the end of that.
But Tazeem still felt hurt. He’d been trying so hard to get the little boy’s attention with no success but the moment ‘Uncle’ Derrick popped up, the little boy came alive. Tazeem consoled himself with the fact that this was their first day together. Given time, he would most definitely displace ‘Uncle’ Derrick.
Ten minutes later, they were at the amusement park.
As it turned out, they weren’t the only people who’d had the bright idea to while away their Saturday on rides. The place was packed to the gills. Families, couples, groups, and individuals walked around, laughing, chatting, and generally enjoying themselves while staff hidden under cartoon costumes floated around in their midst.
The first thing Tazeem did was buy them ice-cream. Chess wanted chocolate flavored ice-cream. Jay only shrugged when Tazeem asked what flavor he wanted, so Tazeem made the executive decision to get him chocolate too.
When Tazeem held out the ice-cream to his son, Jay made a face. “Ew!”
“Boy, please!” Chess tapped him lightly on the back of his head. “You know you like chocolate ice-cream.”
“Ow!” Jay glared at his mom.
Tazeem protested, “Don’t hit him.”
“I didn’t hit him.” Chess snorted in disbelief. “It was a light tap.”
“Anunnecessarytap,” Tazeem insisted even while noting how their son was nodding along in approval. “If he doesn’t like chocolate, then I’ll get him something else.”
For a second, Chess looked like she wanted to protest. But she shrugged. “It’s your money. Waste it if you want.”
Tazeem got Jay strawberry. Jay didn’t like it. He got him vanilla. Jay still didn’t want it. Mint? It was another hard pass. Finally, when Tazeem floated the idea that maybe Jay just didn’t want ice-cream and that they should just go on the rides, Jay decided that maybe chocolate wasn’t so bad.
The silent, raised-eyebrow look Chess gave Tazeem screamed, ‘Foolishness! Just foolishness.’
Tazeem ignored the look. So what if Jay had played him? Tazeem could handle any minor pranks the boy threw his way as long as it led to them getting closer.
However, as the day progressed, Tazeem learned that Jay’s pranks might be ‘minor’ but they were also very tiring.
“Would you like to try the tunnels?” Tazeem asked when they were choosing what rides to take.
