Ashley ✓

Thirty-Two | Parents

SOTC: She Knows by J. Cole (feat. Amber Coffman)

"Hm-hm!"

"Lord Jesus, what have you done now?" Upon Xavier's carrying noises, I spun around to face his high chair to discover that he had slapped Cheerios onto his cheek instead of his mouth— again.

Oh, and upon hearing my words, all he did was giggle in response.

"Laugh away, but I know you can do it— I've seen you do it five times!" I exclaimed, coming over to him and freeing the bits of cereal from his cheek with a napkin.

The next week, like I had after work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I was babysitting Mustafa's heathen at my foster house this time. Oh, and right at the start of my three day vacation. Not only had West called off school on Friday for district-wide parent-teacher conferences, but I didn't have work Friday, either.

The house's lights were turned off and a thunderstorm had turned the late afternoon sky dark, which left the only light being from the TV playing Pride & Prejudice.

I don't know how to explain it, but it was like the vibe of the space correlated with my weekend high— and it was awesome.

Thunder rumbled through the atmosphere outside over Mr. Darcy professing his love for Elizabeth in the gazebo, causing Xavier to silence.

"Yeah, that sky out there will shape you u—" I started.

Of course, it would be too convenient for me to finish my sentence, shown by how the baby just laughed again.

I made sure he watched me stick my tongue out, but I resorted to making a silly face at him just as fast before turning around to the TV. The scene directly afterward— the one where Elizabeth was visibly taking in Darcy's confession— danced before my eyes for a solid minute.

Creak!

I took my attention from the TV to the door leading to the garage when I found it opening. Only Xavier and I were inside the house, as Belle was still working, Sienna was shopping with a guy she was talking to, and Fedor was on his third date with Francesca. Had someone come home already?

"Oh," I said when the person who had entered the house walked in front of Mr. Darcy's face. As a consequence of being paused, Darcy sported one squinted eye and another wider than my methhead grandma (guess that's why she never let me eat her brownies) Anyway, that person turned out to be Mustafa.

"Oh, so you do know what a door is," I greeted him.

Mustafa arched an eyebrow. "The fuck you mean by that? Of course I know how to use a door— and a garage code."

"That's why you've notoriously used a window to get in here?" I deadpanned.

He snorted. "Damn. Okay."

"So um... how was basketball?"

"We're working on the same shit we were last week, but this new fucking warm up the coach's having us do is—" His sentence ceased upon his sudden gaze at the rectangular screen in front of us. "Damn, why you gotta do Mr. Darcy like that?"

"What? I just paused him."

"You paused him and now that motherfucker looks like he's greened out."

"Oh shut up!" I exclaimed, though I utilized my inside voice to ask, "So you've watched Pride and Prejudice?"

"In the fourth grade, yeah. My teacher threw it on the projector for one of those class reading parties. But I was still learning English at that point, so literally all the lines were lost on me," he explained.

"I see."

Mustafa peered behind me to Xavier, who remained in the high-chair. "How was he today?"

"Besides having shitty motor skills, he was fine."

Mustafa looked at me again, eyes wide. "Now you're being mean to my son? Damn." He leaned to the left to view Xavier. "You hear that, Xavier?"

I heard Xavier screamed out a giggle, and I turned around to watch his brown eyes glitter with life upon the action. I turned back to Mustafa to find his eyebrows arched almost quizzically.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing, he just..." He paused as a breath exited through his mouth. "Doesn't typically laugh like that."

I turned back to his son. "Really?"

"Yeah."

For a moment, only the sound of thunder became evident to the eardrums belonging to three people.

"So um... I need to ask you something."

I turned back to Mustafa as he popped the question. His fingers were running through his noir wisps of hair, his tongue poking out from under his cheek.

"Yeah?" I asked, coming around the island and bracing myself for the task of closing up the cereal bag. There was just something about the crinkle of a cereal bag that made me want to skydive to my death at 118 miles an hour. I'd love for that to be more if the terminal velocity at which an object could fall with air resistance was higher.

"Haneen just called me about it today, but um..." Mustafa peered down to the floor tiles until his eyes managed to meet mine as he proceeded with, "My family wants to see Xavier. They want to see him and I at the party my parents are hosting tommorow, which my extended fam is attending, too."

"Oh, that's... amazing." My hesitation originated from his lack of enthusiasm. "Anything wrong?"

"I need to ask you a favor."

"What's that?"

He sighed. "It's kind of a rule that everyone brings a friend over. That's just something my parents have all the kids do to see what type of influence we bring ourselves around. I always brought along one of my basketball teammates who could lie the best, but seeing as that option is... gone, I was going to ask Fedor but he got one of the last reservations to this concert, and... I didn't want to have him ditch it."

"So..." I drew out.

"Would you possibly come with me?" he asked. "Look if you ain't comfortable around parents, you can say no. They're strict, they're going to make assumptions—"

"And it's tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"Then sure," I said with a shrug. "I'll meet your parents."

"You would?"

"Yeah. I'm used to people making assumptions about me, and I've dealt with other people's... parents."

Okay, so I maybe lied just a little bit. The ones I used to hang around didn't have parents or family to meet. Usually, they were raised by nannies, the mommy and daddy were always on a flight to Bali for a 'business trip', and their siblings were always fucking someone (like seriously, are they trying to appear on Teen Mom?). That would always mean an empty house around the clock.

And us rich kids knew what to do with an empty house, specifically at 3 A.M.

"Okay, thank you," Mustafa got out in a breath. "Not gonna lie, I was worried there for a moment."

"What time does the party start?"

"About five-thirty," he replied. "And you good with Middle Eastern food?"

"I'm willing to try it out."

"Aight." He slowly nodded, his eyes shifting behind me for a second. "So it's settled then."

"Yeah. Looks like I'm meeting your parents tomorrow."