Alyssa sat in her makeup room, adding finishing touches on her makeup. She puckered her lips as she took one last look in the mirror, satisfied with her makeup for the day. She slowly got herself up from her vanity, already hearing a ton of voices filling their hallways. It took her a bit longer to get up this morning, but her good ol' fiance was up and ready to help everyone else do some last minute preparations. She honestly hasn't done a single thing for this baby shower, but everyone insisted that they'd take care of everything. So here she was in her dress, carefully waddling down the stairs to see everyone.
Steph's family. Alyssa's family. The team. Sheri. George. Other friends. A ton of people filled the room, and she was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people coming up to her, showering her (and her belly) with love.
"Hey beautiful, how are you feeling?" Mama Sonya asked, rubbing her arm with Sydel right next to her.
"Like I could pop any minute now." Alyssa says chuckling and rubbing her belly.
"Have you eaten yet?" Sydel asked.
"No, I haven't. Where's Steph?"
"Oh he's just over there with his brother and the rest of the boys. Come on sweetie, lets go eat." Mama Sonya said as she brought Alyssa to the table full of food. Alyssa's own mother was making sure the food was still hot and organizing whatever else she felt the need to organize on that table.
"Mom, what're you doing?"
"Sweetie, I'm just making the food is warm. We've got plenty for everyone to eat. And probably take home." She said, spooning some food onto a plate for Alyssa. "Sonya, you need to make sure you take some home for Dell and everyone else."
"You know we will. He's not gonna say it out loud, but he will definitely ask for some of that filipino food you brought over. It's amazing. He loves it." She says as the two mothers now engage in their own conversation, while Mama hands over the still somewhat empty plate to Alyssa.
"Shoot. I want everything on this table."
"Go on ahead, Lyss. Make those twins chubby. I like that." Sydel says, laughing. "Are you two set on names yet?"
"Nope. But your brother has a good list going."
"My brother?" She said, raising her eyebrow. "Him? Wardell?" She points at Steph, who is now looking over at their direction.
"Yes, girl. He has a whole list of names that he came up with. They're pretty cute."
"Wow. I'm impressed with the big head. I wonder where he got that spark from."
"Yeah it's weird, he came up with a ton of cuter names than I did." Alyssa said laughing, her plate damn near breaking with the food she was piling onto it. "But I'll go ahead and give him credit for it."
"What're my favorite women doing?" Steph says, putting his arms over both Sydel and Alyssa.
"Feeding your fiancé and your children." Sydel says as she eyes the red cup in his hand, already smelling the alcohol coming off his breath. "Boy, get out of my face with that. Boutta get drunk smelling your breath." She slightly pushes him.
"Square up then Syd."
"You know I'd whoop that ass so don't try me."
"One on one. Bet right now." Steph says trying to get tough with his sister.
"If you don't leave your sister alone, Stephen."
"Got me in trouble.." He smacks his lips and mugs his sister before turning his attention back to Alyssa. Sydel chuckles to the side as she waits for her to finish getting food. "If I don't then, what?" He asks in her ear, planting a kiss on her cheek as his hands sit on her sides.
"Well first of all, if you knock this food over, it will for damn sure be over for you." He laughs and nods.
"Alright alright. Go sit and eat your food. Don't want you to be hangry." He says, pinching her butt on the low before walking away.
As the party continues, Alyssa finds herself enjoying the company of their families. She surrounded herself with the females, who were getting more and more comfortable with each other every time they were put in a house together. She loved it. She loved seeing her family mix so well with his and she couldn't ask for more.
Family approval was everything.
As for Steph, he loved the feeling as well. His boys were good, his family was good. This whole family was good. Every time he locked eyes with Alyssa across the room, he feels the butterflies swarming his stomach. He's never been so in love with a girl, and it was a bit scary to him. But he liked it. He longed for it, especially remembering his struggles with his past.
Sooner or later, it was time for baby shower games. With everyone more relaxed and into the party, maybe even a bit drunk, Sheri figured it was time for everyone to have a little bit of fun.
As everyone made their way to the backyard, the first game was to guess the baby food while blindfolded. The people participating included: George, Alyssa's aunt, Sydel, HB, McAdoo and Andre. With more games coming up, there was a chance for most (if not all) guests to participate.
Alyssa sat in the front as the rest of the guests surrounded her. Sheri carried the first round of baby food jars to feed to each participant. Everyone died watching the reactions. From beef, to banana, vegetable turkey, carrots, chicken and gravy..etc., etc. It wasn't too great and the participants were loud about it.
"Ayo come on, man! Why you always feeding me the nasty stuff?" Andre says, wincing at the taste of Gerber's Sweet Potatoes. "Why you cant feed me no fruity things, Sheri?" He says, barely managing do swallow the little spoonful he was fed.
"Because that wouldn't be fun! Can you guess what flavor?"
"Shit. It was shit flavored." He says, the laughter roaring from the guests in front of them.
"Sweet Potato ain't shit."
"Well in that container it is!" Sheri shakes her head and moves onto HB to feed him one last time before they move onto the next game. "Open wide!" She playfully says.
"Not ready for this." He mumbles as Sheri tries to shove the spoon in his mouth. He gives the spoonful a good whirl in his mouth before nodding and pouting his bottom lip. "That tastes like Strawberry Banana."
"Yes! It is!"
"From sweet potato to strawberry banana, unbelievable." Andre says throwing his hands up in defeat. The participants take their blindfolds off, with HB being the one to guess correctly the most. The next game consisted of bottle chugging - where the participants would chug a beverage from a baby bottle. In this case, with most people being over 21, the beverage was beer. Most males present wanted to partake in the activity solely because of the beer, so that's basically what happened.
Alyssa's uncles were the quickest ones to finish the beer, baby bottle and all, with Steph and Klay being right behind them, surprisingly. After, Sheri conducted more games like bobbing for nipples (tops of baby bottles), the Price is Right on baby products and pinning the sperm on the egg.
It caused an eventful, but cheerful afternoon for the guests. Alyssa and Steph both haven't seen everybody laugh this much in awhile, or enjoy being around company this much in general.
The last game they played consisted of guests cutting pieces of yarn to a length that they would think corresponds to the circumference of Alyssa's belly.
"What are you doing, man? I don't think that's long enough." Dray says, looking at Klay cut his piece of yarn.
"Shutup and cut your own piece. I'm pretty sure I'm close." Klay says confidently, holding up his piece of yarn.
"You think you're close with that?" Festus says holding up his yarn in comparison to Klay's. "You must be playin'."
"Nah see, this is how you do it." Livingston said, intricately folding his yarn to show the rest of the team how he measured his piece. "You gotta fold it like this. And then you gotta remember there's two in there, so you double it."
"I'm sorry, what?" Klay scratched his head, confused. "Why are you making it so complicated?"
"Do your math." Livingston fired back.
"I did. And the sum is, you still ain't shit, Shaun." Dray said, making Livingston smack his lips. They all gathered to try and excitedly test out their pieces of yarn, only to come up short.
Except Shaun Livingston, of course. He came the closest.
"Damn, can't even measure my own girl's belly." Steph said throwing his piece of string into the trash.
"How the hell did he even do that? He made no sense." Klay said, still confused as to how Livingston's method worked.
"No you know what? I'ma show ya'll how you really figure that out." Steph says running over to Alyssa and wrapping his arms around his belly. "I win, most definitely." Making a couple of the guests laugh/awe at the sight.
To simmer down the rest of the late afternoon, Sheri had everyone write a simple note - whether it being advice, words of wisdom or wishes for the family - and stick it into a box for Alyssa, Steph and the twins to read later on in the long run. Alyssa found herself dead tired as the evening was drawing near, the guests packing up some food and getting ready to leave. She wasn't looking forward to cleaning, but she also didn't wanna let Steph and them have to clean most of it since they planned the whole day out for her.
She started to throw away as much trash as she could, her back aching from the bending she was doing here and there.
"Come on now, baby. I'll take care of it." Steph says, trying to take the trash bag away from her as he holds a full one in his other hand.
"It's okay babe, let me help." She said, attempting to reach for some trash.
"No, you've been on your feet all day. I know you're tired. It's fine baby girl, go get yourself relaxed." She looked up at him, knowing she couldn't fight with those hazel-green eyes and that look he had on his face.
"Okay, fine." She says as she turns to walk away. But, before she could, Steph puts down the trash bag and lightly pulls her back from the waist.
"You think you were just gonna walk away like that without giving me a kiss?" He smirks as he looks down at her. She bites her bottom lip and shakes her head.
"No."
"Yeah, that's right." He nods, making her laugh. Her hands rest on the sides of his neck as she brings him closer for a deep kiss. When she pulls away, he lightly caresses her chin with his thumb and smiles. "I'll be up there in a minute, alright? Let me finish cleaning with everyone and then I'll take care of you."
Before walking upstairs, she noticed a pretty full trash bag waiting to be taken out at the front door. With her hands lowkey itching to do something, she decides she'll at least help take the bag out to the trash.
"Damn." Alyssa mumbles to herself as she struggles to carry the bag to the trash at the front of the house. She finally gains the strength to throw it in and leave it on the sidewalk for the workers to take tomorrow morning.
"Wow, so this is your house. It's amazing." She turns to see that familiar face she remembered so well. But not in a good way.
"W-what're you doing here Christian?"
"I got a couple of friends in the neighborhood and they mentioned that Stephen lived in the community. Might as well take look since I'm here right?" Her ex chuckled nervously, his hands in his pocket. "Oh, I mean, I just wanted to see the house, that's all. No harm or anything." He tries to persuade her. She had no response to him, or why he was even here in the first place. At this point, she wishes she could run into the house.
But one, she got an 8th month belly to work with.
Two, she wasn't sure if that'd make him react or anything along those lines.
"You uh, you look great." He says, still staring at her and making her feel a bit more uncomfortable.
"Babe, what did I tell you about that trash?" Stephen says coming from behind her, noticing the stranger and Alyssa in an awkward conversation. "Uh, hey?"
"Hey man, big fan." Christian says, nodding.
"Thanks." Steph's grip around his fiance's waist tightens as he pushes her towards the house. "Well uh, have a good night. Come on, let's get inside." He ushers Alyssa to make her way into the house.
"Thanks, you too." Steph takes one more look at the unfamiliar individual as he walks to the gate, locks it and locks his doors.
"Who was that?" Steph continues to look out the window, noticing the man stand there for a bit longer until he finally makes his way away from their property. Alyssa simply shrugs.
"I'm gonna go upstairs now." She smiles, hoping Steph shakes everything off. She knows Steph is onto her, but she didn't wanna deal with it. Not at this moment.
"Mmm, okay babe." He watches her make her way up the stairs before taking one last look outside to make sure things were clear.
"What's wrong?" Klay says, following his look outside the window.
"Mmm, nothing. It's nothing."