The Dutiful Wife [COMPLETED]

8.

A week later...

Tuesday | 8:09 p.m.
November 29, 2016

Antoinette Mackey

"Well well well, look at you two all tucked away in the corner..." My uncle Elridge approached our table with a glass of white wine in his hand. Shiloh sat with one arm thrown around my shoulder and a glass of wine in his free hand as he stared up at my uncle. "Shiloh, you look decent tonight, son. It's nice to see you out of those street clothes for once."

"Uncle Elridge..." I said through clenched teeth. It was my parents' 34th wedding anniversary tonight, and Shiloh and I played the perfect married couple that they thought we were.

"Nah. Nah, it's cool, babe." Shiloh chuckled before taking a swig of wine.

Lord, I prayed he didn't curse my uncle out. Every time they saw one another at a family gathering, they played the dozens insulting one another. My uncle Elridge considered me his favorite niece, so he was a bit protective of me. He'd always told me that he saw me marrying a decent, clean-cut man and not someone from the hood who didn't know how to carry himself as a respectable man and not a street thug. He tolerated Shiloh, but it was no secret that he didn't care much for him. My mother and father, on the other hand, loved everything about him. We'd been best friends since we were kids, so he was always over our house with at least one of my parents home, of course.

"You've been shopping in Pops closet again, I see.." Shiloh smirked. My uncle was a tacky dresser, and Shiloh never failed to let him know it. He always said that he dressed like Pops from "The Wayans Bros" but that Pops had better taste than my uncle. Whenever Shiloh mentioned it, that always seemed to shut uncle Elridge up. His nose twitched as he stared Shiloh down, whose smirk turned into a full-blown smile before he tossed the rest of his wine back.

"Anyway..." Uncle Elridge cleared his throat, looking at me. "I just wanted to say you decorated this place beautifully for Rita and Richard. Just look at them." He said as we looked over at them. All eyes were on them as they danced in the middle of the room to Mel Waiter's "Got My Whiskey".