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“No, thiswasa mess,” he corrected. Reaching across the table and interlocking their fingers, he added, “It’s not anymore. All of that is done and over. We’ve grown up and changed, and none of that matters anymore. What matters is our future.”
“Knowing everything you went through because of me, I can’t help but wonder-” Her breath hitched. “Why do you want a future with me? If I were in your shoes, I’d hate me.”
“I could never hate you. Not in this life, not in the next.” A teasing smile dancing on his lips, Tazeem offered, “But if you really, really, really want to make things up to me…”
She sat up in her seat eagerly. “Mm hmm?”
“Then you should date me.” Despite the nervous butterflies in his belly, he kept his voice steady as he proposed, “You should let me love you.”
She watched him for some time before timidly asking, “Are you sure about this?”
“Very sure.” Again he proposed, “Let me be your man, Chelsea.”
It took a while but finally, she nodded. “Okay.”
Instant elation swept through him. But just to confirm that he hadn’t hallucinated her response, he asked, “Okay?”
“Okay,” she repeated. “Let’s date.”
His thrill driving him, he rose from his seat and circled the table. He cupped her face with both hands and sealed his lips to hers in a hard kiss. At first, she reacted by parting her lips and letting her tongue but his, but seconds in, she ended the kiss and swatted at his arms.
“Tazeem.” Embarrassment shone in her eyes, as she sheepishly looked around the busy restaurant. “We’re in a restaurant.”
“Nobody’s worried about what we’re doing,” he said even though he caught some patrons watching them through the corner of his eye. He planted a quick kiss to her lips before circling back to his seat. “I’ll make you so happy, Chess. You won’t regret this.”
“I know you won’t, and I’ll make sure you don’t regret it either.” She promised, “This time I’ll be different. I won’t make the same mistakes I made last time.”
Her oath had him itching to kiss again, but the fact that they were in a public space kept him leashed to his seat. However, he mentally made plans for them to seal their oaths in better ways once they got back home.
“What will we tell Jay?” Chess asked as they resumed their dinner. “What if he doesn’t like us being in a relationship?”
Tazeem grinned. “Something tells me that he’ll like it very much.”
25
T
AZEEM WAS RIGHT! JAY LOVED that his parents were in a relationship. When they’d broken the news to him, he was so thrilled that Chess had become a bit worried. The child was already planning a wedding.
“Admit it,” Tazeem said as he drove her to work a few days later. “It’s funny.”
“It’s not funny,” Chess denied. “No matter how much I tell him that we’re just dating, he’s decided that we’ll eventually get married and he needs to be prepared for it.”
“I mean, he’s not wrong.” His lips crooked in a half-smile. “Eventually, we’ll get married.”
“Oh, jeez!” She scolded. “Not you too.”
However, she was secretly thrilled that he was throwing marriage around so casually. If that wasn’t a sign that he was serious about their relationship, then she didn’t know what was.
Refocusing on their son, she continued, “Do you know how hard it is to get him to sleep when all he wants to talk about is the wedding menu? He’s got a whole list of things he and his friends want to eat. I didn’t even know that eight-year-olds could make power-points.”
“Not all eight-year-olds,” Tazeem countered with a proud grin. “Just ours. He’s smart.”
“Too smart.” Chess added, “The other day when I picked him up from school, his friend, Bobby, told me that he made them all play a game so he could choose who would be the flower girls and boys. Apparently, he’s your best-man and he saw something on YouTube that said that’s his job.”
“That’s nothing.” Tazeem chuckled. “Yesterday, when I went to watch their soccer practice, Frankie came right up to me and asked if I was marrying you so fast because you were pregnant. From what I heard, their friend, Jeanie, heard her parents talking about how they only got married because her mom was pregnant.”
“Oh my God.” Chess gasped. “These little kids and their sharp ears.”
