Lennox POV
"Girllll! You better not ever leave Beckham he's the best thing that's ever happened to us." Gia walked into the beauty bar that Beckham had rented out for us, looking around in awe.
"I can't make any promises." I answered honestly shaking my head at her which only caused her to cut her eyes at me in response. She was being serious.
Beckham has been especially sweet and attentive since receiving the news that I'm pregnant. That fact compounded with today being a relatively special occasion as it's the day our Vanity Fair cover hits the stands, he's going all out.
He's planned out an entire day for Gia, Ayah (who Brandt begged me to bring along and I obliged him because I'm a nice person) and myself. It's supposed to consist of some pampering, some shopping, some food and then this evening we return to the De Loughrey Manor for the launch party that's being thrown in our honor.
"Ayah, you're officially my back up best friend. In case Len somehow fucks this up."
My mouth fell open at her words, and she says I'm the crazy one. Right. "Okay bitch can you act like you have some class?"
I took a seat in one of the plush white leather chairs, as the nail techs entered from the back room. Wheeling out carts with all of the necessary material for our appointment.
"I will say this about the De Loughrey men, subtlety is a foreign concept to them. Everything they do is in excess." Ayah mused taking a seat next to me. "Sometimes it's endearing and other times it's just overwhelming."
"Exactly." I nodded my head in agreement. My eyes fell to the flute of champagne in her hand, desperately wishing that I too could drink some. This going to be a long nine months. "Can I please have an iced matcha latte?"
"You're not drinking?!" Gia looked at me like I have two heads.
"I'm still picking up Jayce this afternoon." I tucked my hair behind my ear. She knows my rule, I don't drink around Jayce.
While I don't want to keep my pregnancy from my best friend. I also don't want the news to end up plastered all over TMZ. So no one is going to know about it until they have to know about. Or when I become too fat to hide it any longer, which ever comes first.
"You should've brought her. I miss her." She pouted and I only snickered in response.
"Jay cannot sit still to save her life. If you miss her so much, please, feel free to come and get her. Anytime you want to."
"I actually need Brandt to keep watching her." Ayah laughed, "She burns up all his energy so he's actually functioning like an adult when I get him back."
Honestly, I don't know how Ayah does it. I love Brandt to death but he's a handful and a half. I don't understand how the two of them are managing to sustain a romantic relationship. I don't posses the amount of patience it would require to put up with him 24/7. Beckham isn't much better. At least he seems to be slowly improving.
"Not the two of you complaining about your billionaire boyfriends." Gia rolled her eyes, "They can't be all bad."
"No one said they're all bad. But billionaires or not they're still men—"
"And they're the inferior gender." Gia butted in causing the three of us to burst into laughter. She's not wrong and that only makes it funnier.
"I was gonna say; despite that they definitely have their desirable attributes." Ayah and I shared a knowing look.
"Shittt." She drawled now perking up in her seat, her spastic movements prompted the young lady working on her toes to shoot her a dirty look though I don't think Gia even noticed. "They're putting it down like that?"
"Beckham is Number Two in my Top Three." Number One being a very prolific athlete who's name can never be uttered in public. Number Three is Malakai, no shocker there.
"Who's Number One?"
I hardened my expression, signaling her to let it go. Gia is unaware of my time spent as an escort and I plan on keeping it that way. "Ayah, what about you?"
I asked because I'm genuinely curious. Brandt talks a lot of shit about how skillful he is in the bedroom. The way he jokes about everything it's actually hard to tell if he's bullshitting or not.
A dark red blush swept across her face telling me everything I needed to know. "Well I'll be damned." I sat back in my chair surprised. Good for you, best friend. Good for you.
"Y'all are nasty." Gia laughed causing me to whip my head around with a quickness.
"Oh my god! Don't even start. I'll tell Ayah over here why I don't spend the night at your apartment anymore." She knows damn well that her and Barrack are up to their fair share of nasty shit. I'd say more than their fair share actually... It takes a lot to run me off, I'm not faint of heart.
She suddenly got real quiet.
"Mmhmm.."
"Anyways... Let's talk about tonight. Are there going to be paparazzi, a red carpet.. Oh! Gift bags, are there going to be gift bags?" Gia changed the subject.
"It's at his parents house. It's a launch party Gia not a movie premiere, it's basically just bougie cocktail hour."
There will be rich people in attendance but it's not going to be some sort of spectacle. Beckham and his family possess a certain level of notoriety but they're not celebrities. Just like even though Elon Musk is known, he's not a celebrity. While the lifestyle of the De Loughrey family is similar to that of a celebrity, they are not the same. I personally find great relief in that fact. I would not be able to function living under a microscope.
"Damn and here I was hoping the pictures would end up on The Shade Room or something."
I don't even know how to respond to that... I stared at her with a blank expression.
"Damn.." Beckham mumbled, leaned up against the bathroom doorway watching me apply my lipstick in the mirror.
I watched his reflection as he tucked his bottom lip between his teeth, his seductive eyes slowly raking over my body. I awkwardly cleared my throat in an attempt to suppress my growing arousal.
"Did you buy this today?" He hummed, now coming closer wrapping his muscular arms around my waist from behind.
I leaned back against his chest, catching a whiff of his cologne as I did so. Oh my god, he smells so good. "No, you bought this dress for me." I corrected, screwing the top back on my tube of liquid lipstick.
"Mm.. I have good taste." He nodded his head before nuzzling his nose into the crook of my neck, letting one of his hands fall down to my ass.
I tried to stifle a moan as Beckham palmed my ass through the expensive fabric of my dress, "What are you doing De Loughrey?"
"Thinking..."
"About?" I glanced down at him through my eyelashes.
"I've never fucked your in front of a mirror before." His words nearly caused me to choke. "I'd wonder how your pretty face would look watching yourself come."
My knees buckled causing him to let out a small chuckle. "We are at your parents house..." I whispered.
"That didn't stop you before."
I sent up a silent prayer asking the Lord to send help. He's trying to get me caught up.
"MiMi!! Where are you? I wanna change my hair, I don't like it." I quickly squirmed out of Beck's arms, smoothing out the fabric of my designer garment before going to find Jayce-Lynn.
"Len?" I glanced over my shoulder, when Beckham called after me. "We're not done. I got something for your ass later."
"Don't threaten me with a good time." I sent a coy smile his way, walking off.
It didn't take me long to find Jayce-Lynn who was in another bathroom, down the hall. She the continents of the backpack I brought over with her dumped out all over the tiled floor. It was mostly compromised of various hair products and bows, but I had also packed her pajamas and a change of clothes in there.
"Jay, you have clean clothes on the floor." I sighed picked up the discarded articles of clothing, folding them up once again and placing them back into her bag. "How do you want your hair mamas?"
"Umm.." She tapped her chin as she thought about it. She's too cute.
While she pondered the question, I continued to the clean up the mess of objects that were sprawled out on the floor. I set the hair products on the counter, rinsing off her combs and brushes under warm water.
"Maybe pigtails? But just in the front. I want it down in the back." She whipped her hair from side to side.
Jayce-Lynn is blessed with a long and full head of hair. This child enjoys it to the fullest. She almost never lets me pull it up, but on the days that she has sports or PE, I insist. It gets tangled far too easily for her to wear it down on those days.
"Okay." I picked her up, placing her on the marble counter top and got to work on her hair. Luckily with Jay having a looser texture it doesn't take a lot of time to do her hair. I finished up with her hair pretty quickly, which was good but because the party should be starting soon.
"There you are!" Xiomara exclaimed, strutting up to Jayce and i as we exited the bathroom. "The party is starting, hermosa. Ven acqui, come quickly." She waved us over then just as quickly turned around on her heels.
I'm assuming we're supposed to follow her, I did just that. Xiomara led us to the foyer, which is less of any entryway and more of a small ballroom. We refer to this place as a manor, for a reason.
"Okay everyone, now that our guests of honor are here. We can get this party started!" Xiomara announced from the landing on the top of the stairs.
She clapped her hands twice and suddenly the room fell under a cloak of darkness only to be lit by blue and purple LED lights similar to the ones in night-clubs only seconds later.
Now what the hell is this? I raised an eyebrow glancing around the room. I'm not going to lie, I'm impressed.
Monitors also descended from what appeared to be the ceiling, but that doesn't quite make sense... Monitors descended from above, upon them a slide show of pictures from my cover shoot with Beckham playing on a loop. When Xiomara said she knows how to throw a good party, she meant that.
"MiMi" Jayce-Lynn whines tugging on the end of dress nervously, prompting me to pick her up.
"You're okay mamas," I soothe rubbing her back. "The lights are like the ones at the skating rink."
I carried her over to where Brandt and Ayah were, hoping that seeing people she knows would make her feel a little better.
"What's wrong with my Princess?" Brandt frowned seeing that Jayce-Lynn was not her usual smiley, over-animated self.
"She's feeling a little anxious but she'll be okay."
"Is she afraid of the dark?" Ayah questioned, looking concerned.
I shook my head. Ironically, Jayce is not afraid of the dark. However, a dark room that's filled with strangers. That's another story. Understandably, that's enough to make some adults feel afraid or trigger their anxiety.
I didn't have the chance to really explain before the sound of someone tapping on a microphone. I looked up to see Beckham which caused me to tilt my head to the side in confusion.
"Ahem, I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight to support Lennox and I. Len, can you come up here for a second please?"
"Umm.." I furrowed my eyebrows together in confusion. I glanced at Brandt hoping he'd know something but he only shrugged. He held out his arms for Jayce so I handed him to her tentatively making my way towards the front of the room where Beckham was.
Who has a professional-grade sound system installed in their house? Rich people never cease to amaze me.
He wrapped his arm around my waist when I stood next to him. "Six months ago, I met the most beautiful, most intelligent, most amazing woman and I'm so glad that now everyone else will know how amazing she is too. Thank you Vanity Fair for interviewing Len and I. Thanks babe for putting up with my shit." Beckham smiled kissing my forehead, prompting some laughter from the crowd of people in front of us.
"Anyways, I said all that to say. I wanted to give you this. To let you know how much I appreciate you." He pulled a long leather case out of his pocket, handing it to me. "Go ahead, open it."
Honestly I kind of wish the floor would swallow me right now. I'm not fond of public displays of affection. I sent a nervous smile Beckham's way, opening up the case. Inside of it was an electronic cardiology-grade stethoscope. Cardiology-grade stethoscopes are the best ones because they allow you to hear things inside of the heart and lungs that other scopes won't pick up. They're basically the highest quality stethoscope on the market, but they're very expensive over $1,000.
"I'm so proud of you babe."
I looked up at him through my eyelashes. I honestly don't even know what to say. The smile on my face widened significantly. Maybe you're not so bad after all, De Loughrey.
"Thank you" I mouthed the words to him, grabbing his chin and placing a quick kiss on his lips.
Damn he's good. He's totally getting laid tonight.
This was a cute little chapter. We love that for them.
There will be enough drama soon enough, but it's good to take a break from time to time. So Beckham and Lennox's cover has officially hit the stands, meaning they've officially been branded as the world's newest power couple. Let's see how that turns out for them...
~Lee