Work Text:
“Aight, give your mama a kiss goodnight so we can head up them stairs.”
Two sets of feet hurry across the living room on their father’s orders. They climb up on the couch, and all that can be heard are the wet smooches they leave on either side of their mother’s face.
“Elias…”
A slick smile spread across Stack’s face as he watches their daughters leave sloppy kisses on his wife’s face. Her voice sounded it over it, but Stack recalled the night he let them go to bed without kissing her goodnight. The pout she wore and her back to him in their bed for the rest of that week had him making sure he never made that mistake again.
“Goodnight, Mama!”
“Love you, Mama!”
Their daughters, Audrey and Grace, then make their way up the stairs with Stack not far behind them.
The 7 and 5 year olds walk hand in hand to their room at the end of the hallway and into Audrey’s bed. They leave a pocket of space for Stack to squeeze into like they do every night, and he did so each time with no fuss.
“Okay, what story we readin’ tonight?”
Grace pretends to think for a moment, her finger tapping her chin before she looks over at Audrey.
Stack’s eyes go from Grace to his oldest daughter, raising an eyebrow when he sees the sly smile on her face as she meets her sister’s eyes.
“No readin’ tonight, Daddy.”
Stack furrows his brow.
“What you mean no readin’?”
“We want you to tell us a story,” Grace says.
Stack hums. “What kinda story?” he asks hesitantly.
“Tell us how you met Mama,” Audrey says excitedly.
“I told y’all how I met her already. I was at a restaurant with my friends, she was there with her friends,” he says, and Audrey lets out a dramatic sigh.
“But Daddy, that ain’t nothin’! Titi Annie told us the wholeeee story of how she met Uncle E. She told us what he said and everything, and how he asked her on their first date.”
Stack looks up at the ceiling, a short sigh escaping him.
“How I met your mama ain’t as simple as how Uncle E met Annie.”
“Why not?” Grace asks.
“Yeah, ‘Lias. Why Not?”
Elias’ eyes snap towards the door, and his shoulders fall. He hadn’t quite thought of a way to wiggle out of telling the girls anything more than what he’d already said, but with Amber Moore standing in the doorway with her arms crossed under her chest, he knew there was no chance he was getting out of it.
“Well, you know-,” he stumbles over his words. “Me and Smoke different.”
“No, y’all the same,” Grace protests. Her face is scrunched up in confusion, and Elias has to stop himself from chuckling when he looks at her. The looks she wore was the same one Elijah gave him when he said something that didn’t make sense.
“No, Gracey. They look the same. They don’t act the same,” Audrey says.
“Uncle E is more serious than Daddy. Daddy tells jokes and laughs at himself, Uncle E don’t play like that.”
Amber laughs at that, and the look of betrayal Stack gives her makes her laugh louder.
“She ate you up with that, baby.”
“Daddy, come on and tell us before we really gotta go to sleep,” Audrey interjects before he can respond.
Elias looks between all three of them, each of them looking at him with an expectant look in their identical eyes.
“Alright,” he says. “I’ll tell you, but you gotta promise you won’t tell nobody.”
Both girls lift their pinkies immediately, and he links his with theirs. He leans towards Audrey first, and they kiss their hands, then he does the same with Grace.
He closes his eyes, trying to keep the memory of his pride taking a hit at bay as he thought back to 9 years ago.
//////
It was a beautiful Saturday in Atlanta, and that was all Stack needed to step outside with his homeboys. He’d been there for three years, and to say he loved it there was an understatement.
He had met some solid dudes he not called friends, his business was successful, and best of all there were plenty of women.
Plenty.
He hadn’t hesitated to get to know plenty of them either. He was never one to settle down, and he made sure the women knew that, too. At first, he’d link with them and almost never entertained them again, but as time passed, he chilled out and found a few women he’d call when he wanted.
That was where his head was at when he went to this day party with his friends. He was never one to not entertain beautiful women when he was out and about, especially if there was liquor involved, but he fully intended to hit up one of the girls in his phone when he left the place.
All that changed when Amber and her friends walked up to the bar.
He hadn’t seen her face at first, only seeing the shape of her body from behind as she moved to sit down on one of the bar stools. He’d only glanced their way at first, to keep himself aware of the people in the room with them.
That one glance turned into another, then it was him full on staring when she sat down.
His eyes raked down her body, pausing where her waist cinched and flared out at her hips.
“Nigga, you ain’t heard shit I said!”
Stack’s head snaps back toward his friend, Jahlil.
“You right,” he says, his head turning back toward the bar.
“What got yo ass so distracted that you ain’t talkin’ about this game coming up?”
Jahlil follows his gaze, and it doesn’t take more than a second for him to see what caught his attention.
“Here he go,” he says, nudging Kareem, another friend of theirs.
“Don’t start, nigga. It ain’t my fault you don’t get no play.”
“Whatever, nigga. You gon’ keep staring at her ass or go speak?”
Stack smacks his teeth and cuts his eyes at his friend.
“Nigga you know I’m doin’ both,” he replies as he stands up.
He doesn’t need to reassure himself as he makes his way across the restaurant to the bar.
He’d always been full of himself, and having his way with whoever he wanted didn’t help. It wasn’t even a thought in his mind that a woman could ever turn him down.
That was until she turned around.
He was only a few steps away when she turned to stand up from her seat. His step faltered, not much but enough for her to notice.
Elias almost forgot what he was doing as he looked at her. He’d never seen a woman as beautiful as she was. Her skin was glowing, perfectly moisturized, and her afro shined in the sunlight coming through the open space.
Amber raised an eyebrow as she watched him continue making his way toward her, his stride slightly altered.
She adjusted her dress slightly as she turned back toward the bar, and the fragrance she wore was enough to stop Elias in his tracks.
Vanilla, with hints of amber infiltrated his senses. His mind felt like it was lit on fire as it he looked at the woman from behind, again, and he knew he couldn’t leave without her number.
“Ohhhh, so you saw mama lookin’ real pretty and decided you had to take her on a date?” Grace chimes in.
Elias glances at Amber, and she’s holding back a laugh.
“I wanted to get to know her better for sure,” he says, his hand coming up to scratch his beard.
“Good job,” Amber says from the foot of the bed, laughing at the way he put things.
“Keep going!” Audrey says.
///
Just as Stack finally made it to the bar, he smoothly slid in next to her just as the bartender took her order.
“You can put hers on my tab,” he tells the young man who was the same bartender that served him and his friends when they came in, and he just nods in response.
Amber glances over at him, but doesn’t say anything.
“Wassup,” he says, leaning his elbow on the counter and looking over at her.
“Hey,” she says, glancing at him again.
“That dress look real good on you.”
“I know, that’s why I wore it.”
Stack chuckles at that, but he doesn’t ignore the way her voice makes his chest tighten.
“You welcome,” he says, leaning slightly closer to her.
“You smell good, too. What’s your name?”
He was letting his face do some serious heavy lifting, and he knew she knew it, too. He normally had better lines, not even needing to think when it came to talking to women, but he couldn’t think straight while standing in front of her.
She squints softly at him, fighting the urge to tell him to stop bothering her.
“Amber,” she tells him after a moment.
“See? We getting to know each other already,” he says, and that gets a chuckle out of her.
“Is that what this is?” she questions, cocking her head to the side.
“It’s whatever you want it to be, mama.”
Just then the bartender slides her drink across the bar to her. She grabs it and takes a sip, then looks at him.
She smiles sweetly, and he almost thinks his smile was enough to charm her. His smile widens as he holds her gaze, but it falls when she stands up.
“Thank you for the drink,” she says as she turns to walk off with her friends.
///////
“Wait, so she left before you could even ask her on a date?” Audrey asks, her mouth wide open.
“Yeah,” Stack answers, rubbing the back of his head.
“Mama!” she exclaims, making Amber laugh.
“What? He got to ask me out another time, that’s how we got here,” she says, shrugging softly.
Grace lets out a giggle as she looks between her parents.
“Daddy, that’s bad. You probably would’ve had better luck if you did like Uncle E and not said anything.”
Stack cocks his head back in offense, which makes both girls fall out laughing.
“See, this why I ain’t wanna tell y’all how we met,” he says, smacking his teeth.
“That ain’t even the worst part,” Amber starts. “He tried again when he saw me at the gym, then again at the grocery store.”
“But it worked at the grocery store, though,” he chimes in, making Amber roll her eyes.
“It did,” she says softly. “But it took you seein’ me three times for you to get it together.”
Stack just shrugs, a look of satisfaction settling on his face.
“All that matters is it worked. You know you wanted me the whole time.”
“Okay, Lias,” she says, rolling her eyes softly, her smile never leaving her face.
“Okay, Mama’s getting that look she gets when she wants a kiss,” Audrey says, frowning slightly.
Stack laughs softly, and nudges Grace to get up. The two of them climb out of Audrey’s bed and Grace goes over to her own. Stack kisses them both goodnight, with Amber following behind him. He stands by the door, watching as Amber whispers something to both of them that makes them giggle.
A soft smile finds his lips as he thinks on where he is now. He never would’ve imagined leaving that restaurant with only one woman on his mind, but looking at her with their daughters had him willing to try and fail to ask her out all over again if it meant that it’d lead to this moment.