Oxytocin (Medicinal Love Book One) FIRST DRAFT ONLY

Chapter 30

November 24, 2011

A week later Aija's home was alive with the aromas of Thanksgiving; turkey, stuffing, and cranberries along with the sweet smell of sweet potato pie. As always Aija had her previous work friends over for what would have been a normal seasonal dinner party, but seeing as Aija's family lived in North Carolina, Hikaru made the suggestion to have Thanksgiving here instead. So, Aija was very pleasantly surprised when everybody made it. She situated her red cardigan over her tan tank before looking over the dining room table. When the side dishes were where they needed to be, she smiled over at her guests with slight embarrassment.

"Feel free to sit wherever you wish. I don't have the biggest table so we won't be having traditional Thanksgiving sit down. Sorry."

Everybody let her know that all was well and started to come up to grab plates. Jane, who had brought along her young granddaughter, Mallorie came up and gave Aija a big hug. "I've missed you, Aija! Your parties are always the best but you have outdone yourself this time around."

Aija returned the warm snuggle, beaming wide. "Why, thank you, ma'am! You know I love entertaining you lovely folks!"

The two women burst into laughter then turned hearing Andrew call out,  "Make way for the bird!" He carried the twenty-pound turkey and set into its rightful place on the table, smiling and nodding proudly at the sounds of admiration for it.

"That turkey looks delicious, Drew." Mara gave a glance and a smile up at the doctor. He winked back down at her. Andrew then held up his hands to get everybody's attention. "So! Let's just start out by me saying thank you to Aija and Hikaru for making this possible. We wouldn't have missed it for anything, gorgeous." He nodded towards Aija who gave a slight blush.

Hikaru hugged Aija to him with pride, his eyes looking around the room. "Is everybody here? If so we can start to eat."

As if on cue, the front door opened and a loud drawn-out voice exclaimed, "Hell yeah! I'm here! The party can start now!"  Head craned to see the new arrival and Nakiah walked in with a huge smile. Aija started to smile back before she also heard, "Ooh, damn! We got here just in time!" Reggie walked in behind Nakiah , his eyes instantly zooming in on Aija as he held the door open for Tianna who entered.

Aija's smile dropped as she only uttered one word: "Shit."

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Pacing in the kitchen, Aija took a huge gulp of her wine. This was already starting to be a shit storm of a night and as she looked in the dining room she took in Andrew standing next to the table with Tianna. Her eyes opened in shock as Tianna grabbed a spoonful of potatoes that looked like it could feed three instead of just her. Andrew was quite surprised as well, but then masked it with a smile. "Wow, that's quite a helping of potatoes you got there." He was trying to be his general charming self, but Tianna just glanced up at him and scowled.

"You sure are nosy. I like to eat, okay?"

Taking a hint of her spiteful tone, Andrew lost his smile, but not his cool. "That's all right, but make sure we can eat too."

"Whatever. I'm not worried about you all. I came here to eat."

Andrew let out a chuckle. "Clearly."

Not wanting to see more of that situation, Aija turned around to grab some more wine. Her hand paused as Nakiah made her way into the kitchen, laughing out, "Girl, you got enough in there for me too?" Aija put down her wine glass before turning and piercing Nakiah with a dead serious look. She took note of the skin-tight black mini dress and high platforms.