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I raised my eyebrows and laughed as I settled against his side. We both knew that he was stubborn as hell. He wrapped his arm around me, and I rested my head on his chest.
For a while, we laid there talking about what we thought our son would look like. Malik swore the baby was going to come out looking just like him. I reached for the lamp on my nightstand and switched it off.
“You ready to go to sleep?” he asked.
“In a minute.”
I pulled the covers over us and rested against him again. The hospital bag was packed, the car seat was waiting downstairs, and we had people ready to help whenever we needed them.
Chapter 17
Maliah
“MJ, I swear to God, if you move that tree one more time, I’m leaving.”
I fussed at my brother as he stood in the middle of the living room with his hands on his hips. He was looking at the Christmas tree like it had personally offended him.
“It’s crooked.”
“It’s not crooked,” Maylee told him from the floor. “You’re standing crooked.”
“I’m looking right at it.”
“And I’m looking at you,” she quickly countered.
I laughed as I carried another box of ornaments into the living room. We had been decorating for almost two hours, and so far, MJ had moved the tree three times, Maylee had broken an ornament, and Mama had been told to sit down at least six times.
She was sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, which was the only thing that was keeping her in one spot right now.
“Put that box over here, baby,” she said.
I did as I was told and set it on the coffee table. Daddy was sitting in his wheelchair on the other side of the room, watching the argument over the tree. His walker was folded and resting near the wall. He’d been using it more over the last few weeks, but only for short distances when somebody was there with him. Most of the time, he still used his wheelchair, especially when he knew that whatever task he was doing would take a while.
He already told us that he didn’t need everybody hovering over him. Then he had asked MJ to bring him a bottle of water from the kitchen because he didn’t feel like going in there. It was contradictory, but I wasn’t about to point that out.
“Leave the tree where it is,” Daddy told MJ. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
MJ turned toward him.
“Pops, look at the top.”
Daddy looked up.
“What about it?”
“It’s leaning.”
“That’s ’cause you keep fucking with it.”
Tahari laughed from the floor, where he was trying to untangle a strand of lights.
“Thank you,” I said. “Can we please put some ornaments on this thing?”
MJ stepped back and studied the tree one more time.
“Aight. But when y’all see it leaning in the pictures, don’t say nothing to me.”
“Trust me,” Maylee said. “Nobody’s going to ask you.”
