Thursday, February 20
"Mommy, can I come in here with you?" Niko asked, peeking inside Sabrina's bedroom.
"Of course, you can, baby." She made space for him in her bed that was half covered in pillows. "Are you okay?"
"Umm humm." He replied as he climbed up on the high bed.
His mother looked over at her clock to see it was a quarter til 8, so Niko had half an hour until his bedtime.
"Is this like Uncle Tin's basketball game?" He asked pointing at the tv.
"No. This one's real." Sabrina chuckled. She wasn't sure if he meant one of her brothers college games, or the video games Niko watched his uncle play. "We can watch something else." She picked up her remote.
"I wanna watch this."
"Okay."
The two lay in bed quietly watching Amir and his team face off against the Houston Rockets. Niko had fallen asleep before halftime and Sabrina slowly drifted off right after him to be awakened a few hours later by a text vibration.
Wish you was here wit me.
She rubbed her eyes and read the message. She smiled while texting back,
Is that right?
Reminds me of home.
So it's freezing there too. Lol
Yeah lol
I love the snow.
🤔
Can't relate.
FaceTime?
Sabrina sat up and grabbed her AirPods off her nightstand then tried her best to fix her messy hair before pressing call.
"Did my text wake you?"
"No, I was just dozing. How was the game?" She asked since she fell asleep and missed the final score.
"We won. 112-97"
"Good shit." She whispered, "Niko's in bed with me so I gotta save my celebration dance for another time." She smiled.
"How is he?"
"He's good." She told him.
This was their first FaceTime call since Sabrina came home. Amir was glad she finally responded back to him, but he wouldn't bring it up. He was just happy to hear her voice and see her face.
"What yaw get into today?"
"He had school, while I went over some paperwork for this house that closes tomorrow," they both smiled because she was talking about his home. "Then we went to the movies and had dinner at this this Thai restaurant. He'll be back with his dad tomorrow, so I tried to finish our week with a bang,"
"Sounds like yaw had a busy day,"
"Yeah. I saw you were having a pretty good game."
He grinned, "You watched?"
"Some of it," she admitted, "we passed out somewhere after the second half."
"So you was sleep?" He said, as she rolled her eyes playfully at him catching her. "Good thing you did," he turned the camera so she could see the ice tapped around his upper thigh, "Buddy tore me up out there."
"Geez, are you alright?"
"Yeah, needed a little treatment. Those free throws gave us the room we needed to pull away." He explained.
"Way to take one for the team, huh?" She chuckled, followed by a yawn.
He smiled watching her fight to stay awake, "Get some sleep."
"I'm okay." She whispered, losing her fight.
He shook his head and sat the phone down on the hotel nightstand, so he could take off his ice pack and stretch his minor injury. When he returned to the phone, Sabrina was fast asleep. He took a FaceTime photo of her sleeping face before ending the call.
The following afternoon, Sabrina was seated in her SUV in front of Amir's new home, on FaceTime with Niko. He was getting in the car with his daddy, and telling his mother about his day.
"Okay, papa, mommy's gonna call you later, I gotta go give somebody the keys to their new house. I love you, sunshine."
"I love you mommy." he said, handing the phone to his father.
"Where you at today?" Nicholas asked as he strapped Niko into his seat.
"Brentwood," She answered as she gathered the gift bag from the back seat. She always bought her clients a bottle of champagne to celebrate closing, but this time she got a few extra things along with some balloons in Amir's team colors.
Her biggest gift was laying down in her trunk. She had picked it up the day before. She knew it would truly be appreciated. This one was personal.
"Congratulations." He smiled and she returned the gesture. He'd been trying to make small talk all week. They hadn't talked about the birthday party, but Sabrina decided to let go of her ill feelings for the sake of Niko.
"Thank you. I'll call Niko back a little later. I gotta carry this stuff inside." She said, making sure she had what she needed.
Just as she was about to climb out her truck, Kirk arrived parking behind her. He jogged over, seeing her struggling, "Lemme help you with that, shawty."
Sabrina stuffed her cell phone in her purse, unaware that Nick hadn't hung up. "Thank you. Is Amir on his way?"
Kirk chuckled, "You'd know before me. I know for sure to go to you for my next house. This place is crazy."
"You literally just bought your house last year," she laughed carrying the balloons to the door.
"Damn, has it been a year? How you know?" He looked at her suspiciously, sitting the basket down.
"Because I know the broker that sold it. I remembered that place as soon as I pulled up."
"Oh, you do this shit for real."
She fished her phone out and saw her FaceTime call still going, "Hello," She said looking into the camera. "Sorry, did I call you back?" She asked as she unlocked the door to the house to let Kirk and herself inside.
Nicholas responded, nonchalantly, "I thought we hung up. Niko was holding it for me. We'll talk to you later." He lied before hanging up.
She went to her text messages seeing Amir's text from 10 minutes ago, saying he just left the signing table and was almost there, followed by the FaceTime photo of her sleeping the night before. She laughed to herself.
Now I gotta catch him slipping like he got me.
"He said he's close." She told Kirk, as she arranged the balloons in the entrance. She picked up the basket and walked it over to the large island in the kitchen.
Kirk was busy ogling over the house, "This is the house y'all came to a few weeks ago?"
"Yep. This is it." She said proudly.
"I ain't even gon lie," he chuckled before continuing, "I'm hating. The next house you come across like this. Tell me."
"I got you, Kirk." She chuckled, "Now do me one last favor, go get that large package out my trunk and please, be gentle with it."
Amir arrived a few minutes after Kirk came back inside. They popped the bottle of champagne and poured themselves a glass from the gift set Sabrina had brought.
"I have something for you." She told him, after taking a sip.
"And what's that Miss Lewis?" Amir smirked.
"A little house warming gift." She pulled the large brown package from where it was propped against the island, "We'll call it your first piece of furniture for this place."
Amir picked it up and placed it on the island, before he tore the paper off of it. "Yooooo," he shouted, in surprise. "Baby you did this for me?"
She smiled, nodding. She let the baby thing slide because she knew he was just excited.
In front of Amir was a large canvas photo of him and his mother on draft night. In the photo, Amir stood next to his mother, him in a black suite and royal blue necktie, his mother in a royal blue dress. He said it was one of his favorite photos of them when they were at his mother's house. Sabrina understood it was an important moment in his life. She had to scour the internet for the owner of the photo, and purchase printing rights for the print company.
"Preciate you, Sabrina, on God I do." He put the canvas down and walked over, picking her up and hugging her. "This is... wow." He said.