Page 15 of Leave It to Us
“No, I wasn’t surprised by how much she liked you. I was, however, totally taken off guard by how dedicated she was to giving us the perfect wedding. She picked everything from the flowers to the menu—and even the nightie I wore on our honeymoon.”
“Word?” Isaac asked with raised brows. “Grandma Betty picked that sexy-ass piece of silk that I couldn’t wait to rip off you the moment you stepped out of that bathroom?”
That memory brought forth even more salacious thoughts of her husband, and suddenly Lana felt like forgoing brunch in lieu of heading back to their condo for an afternoon of lovemaking. Something that would please her both physically and emotionally, and possibly lead to what she’d been pining for longer than she liked to think about—a baby.
She nodded. “Yup. She said Yvonne was taking her good ole sweet time finding a man to take her focus off her career, and Tami was still exploring, so she had to pour all her money and fanciful wedding ideas on me.”
“And you didn’t mind one bit,” Isaac said.
“I sure didn’t,” Lana admitted. “I loved every minute of her taking all those details out of my hands. Plus, I knew it would be fantastic. Grandma Betty did not half step in anything she did.” She sighed. “But Mama hated how involved I allowed her to be. Now, Freda liked you too—you’ve got a special touch with the women in my family. But she didn’t think we needed all that for a wedding.” In fact, her mother had been a bit resistant about a marriage happening at all, but that was just Freda. Ever since the divorce, there’d been no talk of dating or falling in love again for her. Lana had always thought that was a shame.
“Ms.Freda’s got her strong opinions, that’s for sure.”
“Now,that”—Lana raised her brow—“is an understatement.”
Their meal came, and they ate in companiable silence until Isaac’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pants pocket. She didn’t watch him as he read the text, just continued eating the last of her plantains, but the moment he slipped the phone back into his pocket and pushed his mostly eaten plate of salmon and summer-vegetable succotash away, she knew something was wrong.
Without a second thought, she said, “Was that about the money you owe?”
His gaze shot up to meet hers. “What?”
She set her fork down on the edge of the plate and relaxed back into her chair. For a second, she stared at him; then she reached for her napkin to wipe her mouth. “The gambling debt,” she said, dropping her hands and the napkin into her lap. “I know about the thirty-seven thousand you owe this time.”
Now he sat back in his chair, lips going up at the ends as he sighed. “You spying on me now? Going through my phone? Is that what we do now?”
She raised a hand to stop him before his questions led them into an argument she didn’t want to have in public. “Your phone was on the island in the kitchen when you were in the bathroom. I was sitting at the island when the text came in, and I glanced at the screen to see if it was a call or message I needed to alert you of right away.”
“But you didn’t think you needed to alert me of the fact that you’d been reading my messages?”
“I was actually waiting for my husband to tell me he’d been gambling again,” she shot back.
A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he looked away. She wondered what he was thinking, what he planned to say next, and more importantly, how this conversation was going to end. For days, she’d wanted to broach the topic with him, to once and for all get this addiction he seemed to have cultivated out in the open and figure out what their next steps were going to be, but she’d been so bombarded with the will, the house, her work, and now travel plans that she’d let it sit in a corner of her mind while she ruminated, the same way she’d done each time this situation had arisen over the last few years.
“Don’t say ‘again’ like that,” he said finally, his tone low and solemn. He didn’t look at her, either—almost like he couldn’t turn his gaze back to meet hers for some reason.
“But that’s what it is,” she replied. “You gamble and you lose. Then you owe money. Again.” Her words sounded cold—harsh, maybe. But they were facts.
“The debt will get paid.”
“By me?” she asked. “Again?” She wanted to continue, to tell him to ask for an extension so that she could get this house sold and give him the money to pay it off, but the way he looked when he turned back to her kept her quiet.
“I never asked you to do that.” There was a sadness in his eyes, an unexpected hint of pain in his voice.
She sighed. “Like I never asked you to work sixty hours a week to afford us this lifestyle while I pursued my dreams. But you do it because you love me, right?”
Now he dragged his hands down his face. “I’ll fix it, baby,” he said quietly. “I’ll fix it.”
But who’s going to fix us?
The question hung between them like an elephant in midair.
Lana didn’t have the courage to ask it, didn’t even want to imagine how the rest of the conversation would go if she did. Her heart was already pounding at the thought, emotion swirling through her chest like a newly formed storm.
Isaac reached across the table, gazing at her with imploring eyes as he waited for her to accept his hand. She did, and welcomed the warmth that spread throughout her palm when his fingers enclosed around hers.
“I’m going to fix this, and then ...” He paused. “I’m just going to fix it.”
When she opened her mouth to speak, he shook his head again. “No. Don’t say anything else, because I know. And like I said, I’ll fix it.”
