christian's perspective.
"Let me get those." I quickly jog to the trunk of the car and grab both Harlem and I's suitcases.
"I can't believe we're here." Harlem says, smiling ear to ear, taking in her surroundings. We decided to do our honeymoon in Hawaii, somewhere not too far from home but still very beautiful. Plus, Harlem has this wild idea of living here so she wanted to come and see if she'd really like it. Sadly, we're only staying for 4 days. We do have 3 kids to get back home to.
"I know right." I follow behind her with our luggage. We check in, get our room keys and go up to our suite.
The suite is beautiful. There's a tub in our bedroom, a wall full of windows that overlook the island, a king sized bed, just all the works. Both Harlem and I are in awe as we walk in.
I drop our suitcases down next to the bed and lay down in the bed, exhausted. It was a long flight and a long ride from the airport, but I'm happy we're here. Harlem comes and lays beside me, cuddling up to me. "We not taking no naps." She says, rubbing on me. "Lets go get some relax in the pool and get some dinner and drinks tonight. We can start all the fun stuff tomorrow."
"Okay. You go put on your bathing suit and ima rest my eyes for 5 minutes." I say.
"No you not!" She climbs on top of me and starts kissing me all over my face. "Get. up." She says, in between kisses.
My phone rings, interrupting our moment. I check the caller ID and it's a business call. "Can I?" I ask Harlem, making sure she's okay with me doing business while on our honeymoon.
"Go ahead. I'll call and check on the kids." She responds, getting off of me. I go into the bathroom to take the call while she calls the kids.
"Hello?" I answer.
"Hey, Chris. I was just calling to let you know I found this new storefront out in Miami I think you'd be interested in. It gets lots of foot traffic, and it's on South Beach so it's not just locals coming in. Rent is a little high but I'm sure you'll be able to pay it with the amount of money you'll bring in. What you think?" My business a manger says.
"I gotta talk to my wife about it. I'm not sure she would want to move out to Miami, or for me to be going back and forth so much. How long you think I got to think about it?"
"Get back to me in a week. I'll talk the landlord into giving us some time to think it over."
"Great. Thanks, man." I respond. "I'll call you in a few days."
"Gotcha. See ya, Chris."
"Bye." I say before hanging up.
This opportunity is huge for me. When we moved out to LA, I sold my old storefront and bought a new one out here. But if I had a storefront in LA and one in Miami, I could bring in double the money and be living on both sides of the US. But, we just got married, our kids are still little, and I wouldn't want to be away from my wife and kids so much. Especially knowing Harlem runs her own business as well, I wouldn't want to make her be a single mom for half the year when I'm out there. That's too much stress on her. And no, I'm not hiring a nanny. We both agreed we didn't want that.
I walk out of the bathroom and join Harlem in the bedroom. She's still on the phone with the kids, laughing and smiling. I decide I'm not going to bring up the Miami storefront until we're back home so we can enjoy our honeymoon and deal with business stuff back home.
"What y'all talkin bout?" I ask Harlem as I sit down next to her.
"Hey daddy!" Harmony excitedly shouts into the phone. "Look auntie it's daddy!" She shows Tiana the phone.
"Hey Princess." I respond to Harmony. "What you doing baby girl?"
"About to go to bed."
"Did you take a bath and brush your teeth?" I ask her. She nods. "What did you have for dinner?"
"Chicken with noodles and some white stuff and broccoli." She explains.
"Chicken alfredo, baby." Harlem explains to her. "That's chicken alfredo. Was it good?"
"Yeah. Auntie cooked it but Caleb didn't want to eat and Jerry not here so me and auntie ate it all." Jerry is my oldest son, Jeremiah. He's staying with his mom while we're on our honeymoon but he lives with us full time. His mom gets him whenever she wants to, honestly, but she knew I could give him a better life than she could so we agreed to let him live with us.
"Yeah, Jeremiah will be back in a couple days. Where's Caleb?"
"Sleep. But daddy I gotta go to sleep now so I'm gonna call you back tomorrow when I get up ok?"
I chuckle. My baby is so smart, I swear. "Okay Princess. Good night. I love you!"
"I love you too daddy good night! I love you mommy!"
"Love you too sweetie!" Harlem responds before Harmony ends the call. "What was your call about?" She asks as she gets up to start looking through her suitcase for her bathing suit.
"Nothing, really. My business manager wanted to go over some stuff and congratulate us." I lie. I never lie to Harlem, but I really don't want to talk about Miami right now.
We both change into our swimming attire and take pictures for social media, of course, then make our way down to the pool. We go to the bar in the pool, get a few drinks and enjoy ourselves.
After the pool, we go to dinner, and enjoy ourselves there too. We run up a hefty bill in the restaurant, all while eating, laughing, talking and just enjoying each other. We never get to spend time together alone, being so busy with the kids and business, I'm grateful to be able to do this. We honestly need a vacation with just us two every year, but I know we would feel too bad leaving the kids home.
After dinner, Harlem and I go back up to our room and go right to bed. We're clearly getting old.
