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"Uncle Malik?"
There were many things that would take some getting used to. For one, there was the fact that someone other than his mother had referred to Eli as Malik.
And another had been that he was seemingly an uncle to two twin girls that had no problem barging into the den where he and Frances remained sleeping that morning.
"Uncle Malik? Uuuuncleee..."
But enough of their paired shoving had finally pried his eyes open. And with a hazy gaze, he looked to their matching Bluey pajamas and even more matching curly hair that was deeply black and tamed into loose ponytails.
One of the twin girls had been named Angelica. She was a tiny thing, who looked very much like her mother through the eyes and smile, as well as their matching, beautifully dark complexion. But what Eli - or Malik had been able to distinguish from the two, had been Angelica's consistency to speak to him in her Puerto Rican dialect, which had originated from her father.
"Tío Malik, ¿volverás a hacer esas tostadas francesas?"
And with an annoyed groan, he grumbled out to them both. "Look, I don't speak that. A'ight?"
Then, it was Eliza, the second half of the matching set who twiddled her fingers before bouncing gleefully amid her translation. "French toasts. French toasts!"
He then turned over, resting on his back whilst looking up to the ceiling fan above him until both girls began mumbling in unison some sort of melody with the lyrics only being 'French Toasts... French toasts... French toasts'.
It wasn't until after the other half of the bed shifted, and from beside him, the messy hair and pale complexion of Frances emerged to greet the young singers. "If you give us five minutes, then Uncle Malik will go make French toast with chocolate chips," She offered. "How's that sound?"
And with joy, the twins ran off to singing their melody a little louder down the hall. Frances giggled at that some, only to glance downward at Malik before she kissed at his shoulder. "Can I be honest with you?"
"Wassup?" He grumbled out tiredly.
"Twins creep me out."
Then, he chuckled, and she laughed with him before they reconvened their lips together. All the temptation to lie in that bed all day lingered between them. And if they didn't have to get back on their flight that night, then Malik and Frances would've probably acted on that possibility.
But instead, Frances sat up against the headboard, fixing the mess that was her oak-hued bed-hair. Pulling her phone from the nightstand, she examined all the emails and texts she received from work. None of it made her anticipate leaving this house anytime soon and returning to whatever her life was before the last few days.
But soon, she felt the way Malik's lips brushed across the softness that was her thighs. And simmered with warmth and relaxation, she smiled and laid back down. "You're still coming back with me?" She asked him, and he nodded.
"Yeah, I'll head back. Me and Alex will figure out this whole bakery thing with the money and we'll see where to go from there."
"Oh?" She quirked a brow to him along with a teasing smirk. "That's all you're looking forward to when you go back there?" Despite her playful tone, there was more than enough to understand where she was coming from.
With a chuckle, he placed another tender kiss onto Frances's lips, only for her to kiss him back just as gently before feeling his fingers caress their way through her hair. "How much of this do you want to be real?" He asked cautiously.
Then, Frances whispered back. "I don't want to be alone in that city anymore. And when I've been around you, I don't feel that way. And I know, it's weird. And it feels fast..."
But Malik avoided the incoming negativity in her words as he caressed her cheek. "I don't care about all that. I know what I want."
"And what about your ex?"
"I'm not gonna do you like that. I'm yours, a'ight?"
She gave a slow, solemn nod at first. Then as a smile betrayed her face, Frances reached for his lips once again. "I'll hold you to that."
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It was here in this diner, did Greta find some semblance of familiarity from all the terrors her insecurities and frustration fed her the night before.
Sitting in this booth with Kelly, Lulu, and Dana, she offered to buy them all breakfast if it meant spending just a couple of hours under the veil of distraction until she had to face Julien again.
But as half of her mind fed itself with the utter lack of enthusiasm of seeing her fiancé later on that day, another bother had lurked within.
All she could keep her mind on from last night was the fact that Eli had gone back to Georgia and she didn't know until then. As nice as it was to have her friends here, it was him that she really wished she could talk to. She missed his understanding, his way of feeling compassionate towards her.
She had hoped that he'll be back soon. She wanted her Georgia Boy again. She wanted the better side of her open relationship to start kicking in. She wanted to not look at Kelly and Lulu from the other side of the table and feel envious that her love was so damn tangled up.
But once Dana spoke amid her chewing of the bacon in her mouth, all attention on guys that weren't even here had momentarily washed away.
"So how's the publication going anyways? Isn't the market getting pretty sloppy now?"
And Greta shrugged with nonchalance. "Well, we didn't get that Bachelor tell-all that Alonzo teased us with. And sales for Leslie's books are starting to slow down."
Then, Kelly added. "Now we gotta grovel for investors. We haven't done that since Greta's aunt gave us Echelon six years ago."
"I can talk to Holly." Dana chimed back in. "Knowing her, she probably has, like, a whole squad of rich people ready to put their money into something by now."
And Greta sighed, remembering that she was supposed to have seen Holly the night before with Julien. Now, along with not looking forward to facing Julien anytime soon, there was the bothersome notion that she might have to make nice with Holly if it meant possibly giving her company a chance at survival.
And just like that, Julien came back into focus, and like a chain reaction, so did her ex. "Have you guys heard from Eli recently?" She asked the couple. And whilst Lulu occupied herself with the eggs on her plate to ease out of the stress that was answering that question, it was Kelly who eased herself in with a reluctant sigh.
"I'm sure if something was up, he'd call," She said. Though, even Kelly found conflict in her own response.. "I mean, maybe it's a good thing that he's down there still. Could mean that he's spending time with this whole new family of his."
"You don't sound so excited for him."
And Kelly shrugged. "I want to be happy, I do. But I don't really know how I should react."
And it was with a mouthful of food, did Lulu finally speak out. "What's fthat even wike? Unoh? Your dad having a whole new fwamily... And you can't even confront him about it because he's like... Well, dead."
But the pregnant blonde then looked at the other three with sympathy in her gaze. For as soon as she said those things, she quickly and regrettably recalled that Kelly lived her life without her mother, and Greta's birth father died when she was a child.
In her acknowledgment, Lulu frowned. "Oh... Sorry, goddess." However, Kelly eased her worries by placing a sausage link from her plate onto her wife's. Greta, however, glanced down, lost in her own thoughts.
"What happened with your parents?" Dana asked Kelly.
And the frizzy-haired woman shrugged. "Mom left just a little while after my brother was born. Kinda took my dad by surprise. I could feel that he never really wanted children, and now he was stuck with raising two all by himself. But Eli and his mom lived next to us, they did most of the raising honestly."
"He told us about that," Muttered Greta. "Guess you guys are that close, huh?"
"Tight as shit. He was there for me when nobody else ever was back in the day. I guess that's why I barely trust him all the way back down there on his own. Those people don't know him like I do."
"Did you trust him with me?"
With Greta's question came a frown drenched upon Kelly's face. It was as though such a simple question carried so much more weight to require a simple answer. "I guess I just didn't trust either of you. I was worried you'll destroy each other. You're alike in more ways than you wanna admit. Even if I have my feelings about you and Julien, I figured that would be just a little more stable than with the two of you."
"You think I'm not stable?"
"Not just you, babe."
With that, she shrugged and accepted Kelly's words with hesitance. "I suppose."
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