Bare Pleasures

“Fine,” she said. “We’ll let this conversation go for now. Just know that I love you.” Margot swallowed loudly. “And I only want the best for you.”

“I know.” Noelle hooked her bottom lip between her teeth. That was what made it so hard for her to be truly angry at her sister. She did it all out of love and fear that they would both slide to where their parents had been. No matter what Noelle said or did, she couldn’t convince Margot they were okay. She blew out a breath and reached for her fork.

“It’s okay, Mags. Just eat your food before it gets cold.”

Margot gave her a smile that was only a painful stretch of teeth. But it was better than nothing. Noelle drank some of her fruit juice and tried to settle the knots in her stomach. It didn’t quite work, but it was a start.

Chapter 5 (#u22e5362e-024d-58be-b6c3-df6f9f372381)

“I don’t know how you actually grew up in this family and never learned how to cook.” Alice Diallo turned around at the massive kitchen island and passed Lex the platter of fried dumplings she’d made that afternoon.

The entire house buzzed with the presence of thirteen Diallo children, their parents, partners and a few close friends. Dinner was due to start in less than fifteen minutes. Everyone was there and accounted for, the large house humming with music and conversation, laughter from the big verandah, the living room and the dining room. Lex had been drafted to help set the table since he didn’t cook.

“I’m a decent-enough cook,” he told his sister as he left the kitchen, “I just don’t want to cook for your greedy asses. You might get used to it and ask me to do it on the regular.” His sister made a rude noise.

Lex placed the covered platter in the middle of the table along with all the other prepared dishes. Unlike official, quarterly family dinners when their mother either cooked or had the meal catered, this time each of the Diallo children brought a dish to share. Lex brought sorrel from his backyard, a potent mixture he planted, harvested and made himself that had plenty of white rum and was not fit for the children’s consumption. There was already wine, but Lex put the sorrel—stored in Red Label bottles—in champagne buckets on both sides of the table.

“It’s almost time to eat!” he called out. He’d barely finished yelling when his siblings started flooding into the room.

But he noticed that his parents weren’t among them. “Hey, where are Mama and Daddy?”

“You know better than to ask that question,” Kingsley said, sitting next to their youngest sibling, Elia.

Wolfe, the second oldest, gave Lex a laughing look. “Probably in their room. I doubt you want to go find them. They’ll come down when they’re ready.”

But Alice poked him in the side with a naughty grin. “Go get them. Tell them Elia better be the last one. We don’t need another kid running around here.”

“Hey! I’m not a kid.” Elia piped up. “I’ll be eighteen in, like, three weeks.”

“Oh wow...so mature.”

The room exploded in laughter before Lex could see who’d spoken. Most of the seats were already taken. It didn’t seem right for his parents not to be there.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Don’t say we didn’t warn you!” Wolfe called out as Lex walked away.

But he knew they weren’t in their room. He’d seen them in the den earlier after giving them their unofficial anniversary present: a digital picture frame with all the kids’ photos preloaded. Upstairs, as he walked closer to the den, he heard their voices, low and intimate. He paused. Maybe Wolfe was right. But the den’s door wasn’t closed. Even in their own house, they wouldn’t fool around with the door wide open for anyone to walk in and see.

“This is really something,” his father was saying.

“Sometimes I can’t believe it’s the same boy.” His mother’s voice was muffled and soft.

When Lex got close enough, he saw them standing near his father’s desk looking at the pictures scrolling by in the digital frame. His mother was resting her head against her husband’s chest.

It was a running joke among the Diallo children that their parents were always screwing like rabbits, that it was a lucky thing they’d only ended up with thirteen kids instead of thirty. Lex started to turn around and leave them to their privacy, but they shifted apart and his mother called out.

“Alexander?”

He turned back toward the den, his fingers resting lightly on the wall. “Yes, it’s me,” he said. “Dinner’s ready.”

His mother came toward him, just as his father met his eyes with a smile before looking back at his wife. “I told you we were going to be late if you kept up your sentimental tripe.”

Lex grinned. Of the two, his father was the more sentimental and likely to break down in tears. But only in the presence of family.

His mother, graceful and elegant even in jeans and a screen-printed shirt that Elia had given her for their unofficial anniversary, slid her fingers between his.

“Thank you for the gift, Alexander. It’s wonderful.” She smelled of coffee and bitter chocolate still, remnants of earlier that evening when she and his father had been exiled to a nearby coffee shop so the kids could take care of dinner.

“You’re welcome, Mama.”

His father came up behind her, looming tall and distinguished in the new gray-flecked goatee he’d been trying out for the last few weeks. “Although we don’t say it nearly enough, we’re very proud of you.” He shared a look with his wife and Lex wondered where this was coming from. Then he remembered the photos he’d uploaded in the frame, especially the ones of him as a teenager smirking at the camera, looking like he was on the hunt for trouble. “The success you made for yourself,” his father continued. “The peace you found once you came back to us whole and settled all those years ago.” He was talking about Jamaica, the end of Lex’s rebellious phase. And Lex couldn’t help but think about Margot and the role she had in that.

“You came back to us better than we ever dreamed,” his mother said. “We’re so happy you made it.” Unspoken was the reality that he could very easily have burned himself out and ended up hurt or worse.

His father rested a hand on his shoulder, a light and loving weight. “Very happy.”

Lex squeezed his father’s hand and swallowed the lump of emotion in his throat. “I...just came to call you for dinner.” He cleared his throat, cursing the tremor in his voice. “Don’t let the food get cold.” Then he turned and left them before they could see the wetness in his eyes.

He’d come a long way since he was eighteen and breaking his parents’ hearts with just about every decision he made. It had taken a conversation or eight with Madame M—with Margot—to make him realize what he was turning his back on. Family. The people who loved him unconditionally even when they were tired of his mess and trying to help him clean it all up.

Downstairs, Lex turned into the first room he came to: his mother’s office. With the smell of his mother’s fragrance around him—his mother who’d never cried but clung to him like he was a precious thing she had almost lost—Lex fumbled for his phone. He brought up Margot’s number and, after a moment’s hesitation, sent her a text.

I’ll do it.

* * *

Soft conversation rippled through the tea shop where Lex stood. He lurked near the intimidating wall of loose-leaf tea selections, trying to decide what he was in the mood for. The display of teas was impressively large. He wanted to bury his nose in every single metal container and inhale their particular scent until he could decide what it was that he actually wanted. It also helped him to stall and wait for what he was really at the tea shop for.

It wasn’t long before his patience was rewarded and Margot walked in. She pushed open the door, talking with a woman who came in just behind her, a woman whose face Lex couldn’t immediately see. There was something familiar about her body though, lushly made with high yet heavy breasts covered in a gray V-necked T-shirt and a cascade of tiny gold chains, hips that curved sweetly under blue jeans and made something low in his belly jerk to attention. Maybe she was an actress from a movie or television show he’d seen once. Then he saw her face.

Lex’s hand brushed one of the tins of loose-leaf tea, and the tea tumbled off the shelf, spilling golden chamomile flowers all over the tile floor. He winced when every eye in the place, including Margot’s, swung to him. He was certain he saw her amused gaze before she turned back to the woman with her, her sister. The same woman he’d seen at the gallery. The universe was either seriously messing with him or giving him a gift straight from heaven.

He tore his eyes away from the woman and dropped to one knee to gather the spilled chamomile the same moment someone came from behind the counter with a small broom and dustbin. Lex apologized for the mess while the man waved him away with a smile, saying something about accidents happening all the time. But although Lex was trying his best to deal with the tea and man and the sudden gallop of his pulse, his attention was still firmly focused on Margot’s sister.

Only two weeks had passed since he saw her, but his body jerked tight and grew warm like it was only yesterday that it had hardened for her. As his body reacted to her presence, Lex felt like he was on display, the priapic man unable to control his reaction to a seductive woman walking into a place where he’d expected duty, only to be faced with desire. He shook his head at his own dramatics and backed away from the tea display and the guy with the broom before he could do any more damage.

After ordering a smoothie, he stood to the side and watched the two women while trying not to be obvious about it. The only features the two women shared were their above-average height and nut-brown skin. Otherwise, they were night and day. Margot was so beautiful and strikingly slender that, if Lex hadn’t known her, he’d have thought she’d just stepped off the plane from a fashion show in Milan. Her smiles were wide and inviting, but there was no warmth in them. Her sister, though, was...all heat and invitation, even though she wasn’t smiling. Objectively, her face was pretty enough, but there was nothing in it to inspire a league of Instagram followers. Square-ish jaw. Long-lashed eyes. A full and slightly downturned mouth. He very deliberately did not look any lower than her chin.

The sisters stood at the back of the line without paying him the slightest bit of attention. Which he was grateful for. Soon enough, they stepped past him, Margot’s sister saying in a soft voice what teas she liked. Margot only said a few words until they were at the front of the line, where she ordered tea service for two and two curry-chicken sandwiches. Once their order was placed, they sat an empty table to wait. That was Lex’s cue.

He dialed a number and, a few feet away, Margot made a sound of surprise and reached for her own phone. Once she answered, he hung up, but she kept the phone to her ear and said something into it Lex couldn’t hear. When she put the phone down, the look on her face was all apology.

“I’m really sorry about this, Noelle, but I have to go.”

“What? Now? We already ordered.”

Because of her soft voice, Lex had positioned himself to hear her conversation, but then he had to step back from the counter when someone else came up to place their order. Margot apologized again—a little too profusely, it seemed to Lex—and then kissed her sister’s cheeks even as Noelle was still sputtering about not wanting to drink a whole pot of tea and eat two sandwiches by herself.