Even Berkfield had to chuckle. "That does make me feel better by comparison, trust me."
Carlos looked around, mentally doing roll call and missing Jose and Juanita. Quiet worry filled him. The one person who might not be cool with all of this would be Jose. Truthfully, Juanita might not, ei�ther. Come to think of it, she might have more of a problem than Jose with everything. But that was squashed, he thought. Then again, as he glanced at the women who were grouped by a table of gifts...
"Where's Jose?" Carlos asked as casually as possible.
"Burnt to a cider," Mike said, laughing, "but you didn't hear that from me."
Carlos chuckled. "Then it's all good." He couldn't ask about Juanita and remain politically correct, so he held his peace.
"Oh, yeah," Mike said in a deep baritone designed to make them all laugh. "It'sall good,oh, baby."
"See, Mike," Shabazz said, laughing harder, pointing at him. "You ain't right. You ain't supposed to be using your special powers to get in our boy's business like that."
"Dude is a-okay,hombre," Rider said, walking away from the group. "I'm just a nose, what do I know? But I didn't need freaking supersonic hearing. Shit!"
"I guess brotherman is aw'ight, then," Carlos said, laughing hard, following Rider into the family room to hug Marlene good.
"Jose is rightas rain, man. Dude is chill," Shabazz said, slinging an arm over Carlos's shoulder. "Hey, Mar, guess what the wind blew in."
"C'mere, boy, and give me a for-real hug," Marlene said, grabbing Carlos to her chest so quickly that she almost knocked the wind out of him.
The women had Damali hemmed in by a sofa with her arm out�stretched from her body, several hands on her forearm, turning her di�amond in the sunlight like her arm just happened to be attached to the rest of her.
"Girl, how was the honeymoon?" Inez said, bubbling with excite�ment. "The rock is off da meter, and I know I saw it fast before, but, girl... how many carats is that blue-white sucker set in platinum? I know, afterall that, the honeymoon was da bomb.How was it?"
Damali winked at Carlos. "Good. Real good."
Inez giggled and squeezed her hard, and Damali silently winced.
"It's too bad you kids couldn't have stayed away longer, but..."
Marjorie trailed off and sighed. "But at least you got away for a little bit, right?"
"I would hardly call being two or three miles down the road 'away' " Marlene laughed, cupping Damali's cheek as she passed her. "But not here works, I'm sure."
"I cooked, y'all, 'cause I knew you was coming home today." Inez raced to the kitchen behind Marlene.
"I just think it's so romantic," Krissy said, practically swooning as Jasmine and Heather joined in her sigh.
"Okay, tell ya what," Damali said, "I'm gonna go drop this luggage in our room and-"
"Our room,did you hear that?" Krissy said, closing her eyes.
"Why don't you let the girl go lay down for an hour, 'cause I know she's tired," Inez shouted from the kitchen.
Damali shook her head as everyone in the room fell out laughing. Leave it to Inez to just flat blast her in front of the team. Marlene was laughing so hard that she had to turn her back and wipe her eyes. But the fact that Juanita and Jose were nowhere to be found made her ner�vous. Either it was a good sign that those two were in deep cohabita�tion and not to be disturbed, or it meant that they were somewhere nursing very old wounds. Still too taxed to summon a scan, Damali just made small talk and enjoyed being home.
"Let them get settled, guys. Lawdy-B!" Marlene fussed, trying to force authority into her voice, and then just broke down against the sink, laughing.
Krissy squeezed Damali into another too-tight hug, and this time Damali felt the tender spot beneath her shoulder blades give way, al�most making her gasp as a damaged wing shifted.
"You're making me have to pee," Damali said with a tense smile, struggling out of Krissy's well-intentioned hold. "Oh, chile. I'll be back in a flash."
"See, Carlos," Inez teased. "You done sent her back here with a weak bladder-ya need to give her a break for twenty-four hours," Inez hollered, gaining more laughs as Damali slipped out of Krissy's love-fest embrace.
Almost numb from pain, Damali ran down the hall, leaving her bags, just needing not to be touched for a moment. Her whole body hurt, and yet pride kept her on her feet, smiling in front of the family. It was one of her best performances ever. But once in the still bath�room on the other side of the huge hacienda, she almost cried from the body aches that consumed her.
As carefully as she could, Damali opened the back of her silver col�lar to see if the redness and swelling from Carlos's bite had gone down. She placed the jewelry that was embedded with her seven col�lected stones on the sink with care and studied her throat. It was fiery red but sealed over, thank Heaven. However, the inside of the collar looked like an old Band-Aid, crusted with dried blood and wound ooze. Damali shook her head with disgust and glanced down at the necklace. The huge diamond Aset had given her covered her throat chakra, the same one that had screamed bloody murder, not passion, the night before. Even the pearl had splatter on it from the backside of the open settings. Carlos was right; this didn't make sense.