The house smelled delicious as the aroma of Thanksgiving foods filled the air. Riley and Ray had been all up the whole night before slaving in the kitchen and they still weren't done. They had invited a few people over to spend this holiday with them at Riley's house and hoped that the day would go smoothly as planned.
"Can we eat now?" Julius whined. He had spent the whole day standing in the kitchen with his mother and grandmother sneaking pieces of food and taste testing for them. "I haven't ate since breakfast yesterday!"
"Why didn't you eat this morning with everyone else?" Ray asked as she passed him a slice of pumpkin pie while Riley rolled her eyes to herself.
"Mr. Kane brought nasty food. I didn't want to eat that."
"You can't eat until everyone gets here."
"Everybody is here though!"
"Your ugly ass daddy ain't." Ray mumbled back. "Mom!" Riley shouted. "Sorry, you know I still can't stand his ass."
Riley shook her head and waved Julius out of the kitchen. "He might repeat that back to Cassius."
"And? I'm not scared of him. I keep mace on me."
Rochelle strolled into the kitchen and went to grab a cupcake that Riley, Jasmine, and Carolyn had made earlier that day. She wasn't apart of the cooking festivities, Riley didn't want to be mean but Ray said she wasn't taking any chances. If a knife accidentally cut Ro, Thanksgiving dinner would be ruined. She smiled at them as she left with her cupcake.
"Did you ever finish that slide show I was talking about?" Ray asked her youngest child as she took out some plates to set the table with.
Riley nodded. The slide show she'd made with memories filled of pictures and short videos had taken her a whole week to finish. She had to do a lot of digging for most of it and she couldn't wait to share her work later on that day with all of them. Riley tried her best to incorporate a memory of every single person there not including Kane and her mom's church friends.
The two were nearly finished with dinner when they decided to integrate with everyone else in the living room. Carolyn looked up from her phone to ask Riley a question. "Is Asia still coming?" She wondered.
Riley looked at her own phone seeing that Cassius still hadn't answered her text from that morning. "She should be." If she knew he would take this long, she would've gotten her kids the day before.
Carolyn was a few years older than Asia but not by much. They were both in middle school, with Carolyn about to start high school next year. The two of them weren't as close as they had been when they were young though. Carmelo was also way older than the twins and Christopher, he was graduating in a year. Riley hoped Theonna would have another child since hers were already grown and the family needed more babies but Theonna and Darius's relationship was holding on to a thin string for dear life.
Jasmine played with Kane on the floor, laughing loudly over the football game showing on the television while Chris and Julius talked animatedly in the corner about something on Julius's iPod. Riley tried to call Cassius but it went straight to voicemail and now she was getting worried.
"Darius, can you call King?" She asked him. "Yeah. Sure." He answered and pulled out his phone.
Riley went back to their text messages and was about to send him another one when she got a call that wasn't from Cassius. She sighed as she saw Malakai's name show up. Excusing herself, she went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her to answer his call.
"Merry Thanksgiving baby girl!" He exclaimed through the phone.
Giggling, Riley covered her face with her hand. "It's Happy not Merry, Kai."
