Engagement Party From Hell

KANNON:Asking Brielle to marry me felt like the next step in our relationship.And of course, her family wanted to throw this grand engagement party to celebrate.I had a lot of uneasy feelings about the shit, but I knew how important keeping a tight image was for her and her parents. Even when their shit was spread wide open for all the world to see, The Champagne’s pretended to be the perfect little family.Despite my doubts, I loved Brielle. After five years of being together, what was not to love? She could be too uptight and too wholesome sometimes, but I learned to deal with it for the sake of our relationship.She was beautiful. Sexy. Smart. Rich. And safe.But none of that shit seemed to hold as much weight after I asked her to marry me. I started thinking about the rest of my life and the spark I was giving up to be with her. And even though I did want to be with her, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for a commitment like marriage.“Your drunk ass held it down tonight, babe,” sh

DRAYA:When I heard Kannon had asked Brielle to marry him, I had to make my grand return to see what the hype was about.The invite didn’t come from my sister herself. Instead, our fake ass mother called me and said I should come show some support.But why?The Champagne family never did anything for me but rub shit in my face, show Brielle more love than they ever showed me, hide our daddy’s nasty ass secrets. Oh, and support the fact that Brielle stole my man and pawned it off as being an accident.And not one man. But two.“Is that Draya?” My aunt Judy was already two sheets to the wind long before brunch even started. “That is Draya! Well, I’ll be damned!”She came into the brunch hall slurring her words and tripping over her own two drunk ass feet to give me a hug. I don’t know why. Because she knew ever since I was a little girl, I couldn’t stand her ass.All she did was drink and run to my dad with her hand out.Knowing the things he did to me as a child, I swear I think she wa

KANNON:Draya was finer than a motherfucker.I hadn’t seen her in person since we broke up officially, and that was a little after we graduated law school — something Brielle didn’t know.Brielle had actually introduced us because she thought we would make a good fit.I thought so too at first. But Draya got toxic and too clingy, and me confiding in Brielle led to us sparking an unexpected flame that just wouldn’t die out.I couldn’t believe it when she quit her dad’s firm and moved to London to start fresh.I know why she did it, and I hated it for a while. But the more time I spent with Brielle, the more I forgot about Dray’.Truth be told, the only reason I kept things going with Brielle was because she reminded me of Draya.If I had the time and energy to deal with Draya breaking all my shit and trying to cause problems between me and my clients, I would’ve gone back to her and let Brielle go...maybe.But as the years passed and Brielle’s softness grew on me, it got harder to walk

Monty:“Aunt Judy, what’s going on with ya?”“Ooh, you know ... Just calling to check on my nephew-in-law. What’s going on with you?”It was good to hear from Aunt Judy, even though her call came as a surprise.I figured Brielle told her to ask me about coming to her engagement party because she knew how much I loved Aunt Judy and couldn’t say to ‘no’ to her. But that wasn’t it. Aunt Judy was just being Aunt Judy.“I’m doing alright. The industry keeping me busy,” I said.“Too busy to come to your girls’ engagement party this weekend?”“You think you slick,” I chuckled. “Is that what this phone call is about?”“Nah…Nah. I got something else I wanna talk to you about too. But that was number one.”The seriousness in her tone put me on high alert.I knew Aunt Judy was a heavy drinker and made a lot of things sound more serious than they were sometimes, but there was something in her voice that grabbed my attention.“Everything good?” I asked. “Or ya’ll over there fighting already?”“You

KANNONI thought about the way I left Brielle before my jog and wanted to apologize when I got back.But when I saw Monty coming out of her room and her trailing behind him with a smile on her face, that shit boiled my blood because I knew how much he meant to her.The last time I saw him, we were at each other’s throats because, once again, Percy had my hands tied behind my back.The artist Monty had to sue for his royalties was somebody Percy hooked him up with, and when business went bad, that artist ran to Percy for leverage.I couldn’t tell Monty that because my hands were tied. So, all that time he was mad at me thinking I went behind his back. When really, it was his beloved wanna-be-step father.“Brielle,” I called out to her before they got too far up the hall.She stopped when she heard my voice, but she didn’t turn around right away.Monty turned around first, and he must’ve said something I couldn’t hear from where I stood, because Brielle tapped his wrist like she was kee