16
“Are you ready to go? You have everything?” Rashad asked. “Because once we’re on the road, I’m not turning around.”
“Would you hush,” Layla said with a laugh. “I’m very ready.”
Excited about the weekend getaway, Layla had done research on Lion Mountain Vineyards and learned the business was not very old. A couple bought the land and started growing grapes fifteen years ago. In that short time, they’d become well known by wine lovers throughout the southeast and beyond, numerous lists naming them among the best wineries on the east coast.
Rashad took her suitcase and placed it in the back of the SUV he had rented for the one-hour trip north. He opened the door for her, and as she was about to slide in, he grabbed her butt and pulled her in for a brief kiss. She smiled up at him, her heart tightening with excitement. Optimism was the word of the day, because though she still believed her relationship with Rashad to be tenuous, this weekend together demonstrated they’d come a long way. They ate dinner together twice during the week, and one night he stayed over at her place and they binge-watched the latest Jack Ryan series on Prime Video. That was a bad idea, because it had Rashad scrambling to get to work the next morning because he’d overslept.
She slid into the passenger seat, and Rashad went around to the driver side. They pulled away from the curb and started the short journey with soft music pouring from the speakers.
They cruised along, seeing very little traffic, chatting and discussing the plans for the weekend. Rashad had scheduled them for dinner upon arrival, tomorrow they would take a tour of the property on foot and by horseback, and later in the afternoon return for a wine tasting and then dinner. Sunday they’d indulge in the property’s famous brunch before taking the drive back to Atlanta in the early afternoon.
Layla’s phone rang, and she looked down to see her mother was calling on FaceTime. She answered. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, honey, what are you up to?”
JoAnn Fleming was in her newly remodeled kitchen, her hair pulled neatly back from her face, a gold necklace her husband had given her twenty-odd years ago hanging around her neck.
“I’m on my way to Lion Mountain Vineyards with Rashad.”
Because she talked to her parents regularly, they already knew that she and Rashad had rekindled their relationship. They’d told her to be careful, but her parents had liked him and wouldn’t be openly rude.
“Oh, that’s right, that was today. Hello, Rashad.”
“Hello, Mrs. Fleming.”
“How are you doing?”
“Excellent,” Rashad replied.
“That’s good to hear. Layla, I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to check in with you. Your father’s here, and he was not a good patient this week. He missed two of his therapy sessions.”
“I’m not surprised since he complained that he didn’t want to go three times a week.”
“But that’s what the doctor ordered,” JoAnn said.
Her father yelled from somewhere in the background. “I’m right here. Stop talking about me like I’m deaf.”
“I swear, one of these days, I’m going to walk right out of this house and never come back.” JoAnn rolled her eyes.
“You ain’t going nowhere.” Herschel took the phone and looked directly at Layla. “Where is she going after forty-two years? Huh? Ask her that. She’s stuck with me. Too late now.”
Her mother took back the phone. “You see what I have to put up with? Forty-two years of this.” She shook her head.
“Mom, be nice, he’s suffering.”
“Thank you, baby,” her father said.
“Don’t encourage him,” JoAnn said sternly, side-eyeing her husband.
“I’m a grown man, and I can do as I please, JoAnn. I been running this house all these years, haven’t I?”
Rashad chuckled softly, shaking his head because he knew her father was going to pay for that remark.
“You have lost your mind if you think you run this house,” JoAnn said.
“It clearly states, in the book of Herschel, chapter five and verse six, ‘The man is the head of the household and shall be obeyed in all things.’”
