Page 49 of His Relentless Angel

“Mom probably called everyone as soon as I told her I had news I needed to share in person. Should have known.” Isaiah squeezes my thigh one last time. “Let’s go.”

Dressed in fitted camel trousers and a white button-down, Isaiah walks around the hood of his Lexus to open my door. He helps me out as if I’m about to pop instead of only six weeks along in my pregnancy…and I promptly vomit in the grass next to the sidewalk.

Why am I always doing the most humiliating things in front of him? Karma?

He holds my loose hair back until I’m done retching, then leans into the car to grab my tumbler of water. I swish the water and spit it out.

“You good?”

“Yeah. I’m ready…I think,” I say with a grimace, making sure I didn’t get anything on my lightweight brown knit top worn over a cream maxi dress or platform white sneakers. I figured now is not the time to introduce his parents to my man-killing dresses, as Isaiah calls them.

We turn as one but don’t even make it a step toward the porch because Isaiah’s mom, who I’ve been invited to call Ms. Nicole, has just stepped out of the front door. She stands under the tall arch above the patio with her arms crossed over her thin olive-green turtleneck. She drops her head back on her shoulders, her shoulder-length salt and pepper locs falling from around her face.

“Here we go again,” she mutters. I’m assuming she’s referring to Brianna and Carlos since he’s older than her, though I don’t know by how much.

Isaiah guides me up the driveway with his hand on my lower back and to the left toward his mom.

She sighs as she straightens, raising her arms and waving her hands in a come here gesture.

“Hey, Mom.” At around five feet tall, Isaiah has to bend nearly in half to hug her.

“It’s been too long since you’ve come to visit,” she says, rocking him side to side, her darker green skirt swishing back and forth around her shins. She pats and rubs his back for a good minute. When he pulls away, she motions to me the same way.

“Hi, Ms. Nicole.” I also have to bend to hug her, the platform sneakers making me closer to five-foot-ten.

When she pulls away, she squeezes my upper arms affectionately, her chestnut eyes that she gave to Isaiah roaming my face, then darting to my soon-to-be husband. Finally, she says, “Come on in. Lunch is almost ready.”

Stepping through the black front door, Isaiah and I toe off our shoes in the entryway and walk hand in hand past the formal living room on the right and into the kitchen with white uppers and emerald green lower cabinets spanning the length of the right wall. The massive gray granite island is loaded with food, and the sight of the grilled shrimp skewers makes my mouth water. I don’t typically care for seafood, but I guess the baby does.

“They’re here,” she announces, veering behind the island to pull something out of the oven when it beeps.

A low murmur starts up on our left in the living room, but Brianna’s black brows shooting up with surprise draws my attention. She pauses from chopping cucumbers for a salad with the knife held in mid-air, looking from Isaiah to me. “Well, that’s something I never thought I’d see,” she says with a growing smile, her dark hair pulled back in a low, sleek bun.

“Hi, Brianna,” I say with a bit of a squeak and a wave. I’ve spent the most time with her since she lives closest to us, so she’s seen firsthand how disturbingly obsessed I am with Isaiah—and also firsthand how often I’ve made Isaiah uncomfortable. “How’s Ava?”

“Growing like a weed,” she says of the baby I held when I was just fifteen. “She’s playing in the backyard, no doubt trying to boss her older cousins around.”

Carlos steps up behind her, placing a palm on her pregnant belly. He drops his clean-shaven chin on her shoulder and says something in Spanish that I wish I understood, making her giggle.

Ms. Nicole waves her dishtowel around the two and instructs Carlos to bring the children inside and wash their hands.

From the left, Isaiah’s older brother, Troy, and his wife, Khady, have stood from their seat on the tufted espresso-colored leather couch, along with Isaiah’s dad, Mr. Owens, whose first name I have not been invited to use.

Khady approaches me first, greeting me in Wolof, then in English. She pushes her long, copper-brown curls behind her shoulder, dressed in a wine-red sleeveless blouse tucked into wide-leg black pants. We’ve only met once since she and Troy live in D.C., yet Khady gives me a quick embrace before stepping back.

Dressed slightly more casually than his wife in dark jeans and a black polo shirt, Troy accepts Isaiah’s hug, though his greeting isn’t as enthusiastic as Isaiah’s.

Mr. Owens huffs before clapping Isaiah on the shoulder and pulling him into a hug with more warmth. He’s an inch or two taller than Isaiah with the same dark skin as his sons and Khady, dressed in pleated navy slacks and a gray and navy plaid button-down.

“Glad you made it safe, son. Now,” Mr. Owens says, nudging Isaiah to the side, “let me get a good look at you, Bailey.” His smile is genuine when he holds my right hand between his and pats the top of it. “Bri might be surprised, but I’m not.”

“Really? I am.” Troy tips his head to the side when Isaiah drapes his arm over my shoulders. “After everything her crazy a—”

Isaiah coughs loudly into his fist, and Khady whispers something to Troy too low for us to hear.

My cheeks are probably bright red, my heart squeezing in my chest. Though I don’t plaster on a fake smile to hide my hurt, I try not to let the flash of pain show because it’s true—I was crazy. Still am over Isaiah, and his whole family knows it as much as mine.

Troy crosses his arms, giving his brother a look of misgiving before turning his gaze on me. “Remind me again how old you are?”

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