Flashback:

"Tia? Tia, it's me."

"Come in."

"The door is locked."

I slowly got up to unlock my door but plopped right back onto my bed to continue the moping I was doing.

"You okay?"

"No, I'm not." Earlier that the previous day, I had a huge fight with my parents about seeing Tyson and I ended up calling my cousin to come pick me up late last night.

"You need to eat something."

"I'm not hungry, Jackie."

"Tia, you need to eat something." She knelt down beside the bed to give me a small smile and put her hand on my shoulder. "Someone actually wants to take you out to eat."

I felt someone behind me crawl behind me onto the bed and give me a kiss on my forehead.

"You need to eat, Tia. I won't let you starve."

"I'll leave you two lovebirds alone."

I heard the door close once Jackie left but I still didn't budge an inch whatsoever. I felt Tyson's arm wrap around my waist as he laid behind me and enjoyed the silence right alongside me.

"You don't have to talk if you don't want to but you do need to eat something," Tyson said after a few minutes. "We can just chill here for a bit."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

"More than anything in the world."

"Okay, so…" I turned my body to face him. "Why the hell would you take my parent's side when they said we shouldn't be together?"

"Tia, I don't want you disrespecting your parents. This is the second time that you've gotten into an argument over me. They like me but I think they don't want us to rush into anything…"

"I've already lost my virginity to you so there's not a darn thing they can do about it."

"Yeah, I know. How about we go to the arcade and get some pizza? You know for old times sake. Your cousins can tag along...but if you're not up for it, then I understand."

"No, it's fine. I want pizza anyways but I prefer to stay here and order pizza."

"No problem."


"I was stuck in that damn tree for an hour waiting for you guys to come get me!" Jules said.

"That was hilarious," Jackie said. "I found it very funny that you were stuck for who knows how long and Uncle J had to come get you down by using his ladder."

"That was some bullshit!"

"But it was funny though." Jackie reached for a slice of pizza from the box that we were all sitting round in the middle of the living room. She took a bite of her food and looked at me. "And we spent another hour trying to find these two lovebirds!"

"We were taking care of some business," Tyson said.

"Giving each other kisses. Where were you anyway?"

"We hid behind your uncle's shed and we just shared a kiss," I said.

"That must've been a long kiss!" Jules said.

"It was and it was a lovely long kiss," Tyson said.

"You guys should get married and have kids...if you want to," Jackie said. "And if you guys decided to get married, we're going to stay on your ass Tyson Smith."

"Fine with me. I love your cousin a lot."

"Awww, we love you too!" Jules and Jackie said.


Present:

We all sat in a circle like we used to when we were younger except this time we were adults eating pizza in the middle of a living room floor. I stopped Timmy from accidentally walking by the pizza and picked him up to take him to his bowl to remind him that he had his own food to eat. He meowed at me and started to eat his food in content.

"You're a feisty thing," Jules said to Tyra. He held her in the air and gave her kisses which she enjoyed because she loved getting attention. "I'm glad you have your mother's eyebrows and not your fathers. Love you Tyson but your eyebrows blend into your skin."

Tyson let out a soft chuckle and took a long sip of his soda from the can.

"Yeah, I'm aware," he said.

I sat back down next to Tyson and laid my head on his shoulder.

"You guys need to be nice to my husband," I joked.

"Daddy pretty," T.J. said.

He had crawled into Tyson's lap, stood on his legs, and wrapped his arms around his papa's neck.

"Thank you, love," Tyson said. "See, at least my boy thinks I'm pretty."

"Aww," Jackie said. "You're not a bad looking guy but your eyebrows aren't on your face sometimes. It's like your eyebrows run away from your face and decided to reside in your curly hair."

"That's where they're at indeed," Tyson said.

"When are you going to wrestle?" Jules asked.

"I have a show next week."

"Where?" Jules's interest peaked with that answer.

"Arizona."

"We're going with you."

"Huh?"

"You heard me, Tyson Smith. Please?"

"Fine. If I don't, you guys are going to jump me as soon as I fall asleep."

"We won't," Jackie said. "We just want to see you wrestle in person again. That's all."

"I have no choice but to say yes because you'll try to beat my ass if I say no," Tyson said. "But I love the fact that you guys are here. I'm serious: I really am."

"Aww, we love you too!" Jules said. "Tomorrow, you don't mind taking us around the town for a bit?"

"Not at all. But tomorrow my DDR machine finally arrives. It's gonna be great."

"Oh, I'm challenging you to a game before we leave out."


Tyson and Jules had the time of their lives on the DDR machine as soon as it was hooked up in the garage. Me and Jackie had stood in the door of the garage watching both of them have a ball trying to knock each other off the platform while also trying to maintain their high score during the gameplay. After a few minutes of laughing uncontrollably at them, we went back into the kitchen to get some snacks and also check on the kids who were watching cartoons.

"I swear they haven't changed a bit," Jackie said.

"Nope, they haven't."

"I'm really happy that you and Tyson are doing fine. I know you guys have had your differences but at least you two can patch things up and keep on pushing. If you guys had listened to the others tell you to leave each other for good, you guys wouldn't have had a good life together."

"Aww, thank you. There have been times where I wanted to choke Tyson but that's a part of being married. He is a part owner of a gym and I'm like okay? I want him to be successful but I feel like he thinks he's Superman or something but he's very persistent in doing whatever makes him happy."

"Doesn't he also wrestle for another company?"

"Yes. He's a workaholic."

"At least he is a hard worker. I'm glad that you guys are happy."

"Thank you. Now get up and go get me a water bottle from the fridge."

Jackie got up from the table but instead of getting a water bottle for me, she instead tickled me and caused me to fall to the ground out of the kitchen chair.


Jules and Jackie took the kids with them inside of a souvenir shop as me and Tyson went to a local vinyl store to check out some records that captured our interest. There was a sale on Johnny Cash records so I almost tore through them when I was trying to find one of his best work to take home with me.

"I want this one: Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash!" I said.

"Will do. You want anything else?" Tyson asked me.

"Nope, this is fine. I want this record as I've been wanting to hear it for a long time!"

"Alrighty."

Tyson paid for my record and then held it for me as we walked out of the store and back to the car. Once we were inside, Tyson received a phone call but he didn't talk for long but he did sound happy.

"Hello?" he said. "Is everything set to go? Okay, good. Talk to you later."

"Who was that?" I asked.

"An offer for me to appear on another wrestling show. I think everything will go well."

"Why are you taking on so many responsibilities?"

"Why can't you be happy for me?"

"Never said I wasn't but I think you need to slow down with trying to do so many things at once. Please just listen."

"Tia, don't start with me, alright? I know where this is going so I'm just going to stop you right now. I don't want to fight with you today and please just let me do what I need to do in my career. Please and thank you."

"Fine," I said.

Whatever happens will just happen.