Friends Forever Or Not

Chapter 2

Kaleigh Bale is also twenty-nine years old and is the owner of Kaleigh's Beauty Salons. She has fifty-eight salons across the United States. Her mother, Alycia, is a famous dancer and choreographer. Alycia owns a dance studio and works with a lot of well-known singers. Her father is Doctor Hayley Mancini, the top plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills.

She also has two younger sisters who are married to brothers who are pro basketball players. Faylynn is married to Malik Jackson. Faylynn is a talk show host at Rise and Shine America. They have two boys, Gideon, six, and Immanuel, who's three. Aashama followed their father's footsteps and is a plastic surgeon at this clinic. She has a four-year-old daughter named Danni with her husband Mekhi.

Kaleigh always said the day she met Tanesha and Americus was the best day of her life. Sure, she has two sisters, and they’re close, but somehow she could talk about anything with Americus and Tanesha and didn’t have to worry about her parents finding out. Kaleigh also knew her friends had her back regardless.

The day Jewel moved in with them, things changed. Her mother told her and her sisters that Jewel would only be living with them till the end of the school year and to treat her as a sister. Alycia pushed her into introducing Jewel to her friends. Americus and Tanesha didn’t care for Jewel. Tanesha was standoffish. That was her way of letting her and Kaleigh know when she disliked someone. But Tanesha can be outspoken and believes in hitting below the belt. Americus came straight out and said she didn’t like Jewel and couldn’t trust her. Don’t ever trust her around her boyfriend. Kaleigh begs her friend to be friends with her cousin.

Kaleigh met Dexter Bale a few months after Americus and Cristiano. They met at a dinner engagement that her father pushed her into attending. Dexter was there with his parents, Doctor Edmar and Doctor Jochebed. His father is a gastroenterologist and his pediatrician has practices of their own. That night, when Kaleigh met Dexter, she said, at first, he was a little funny-looking because he had a problem with his medium beard and mustache and put her attention back on Venca Bauman. It seems Venca has had a crush on Kaleigh all his life. That night he had planned to ask her to be his girlfriend. That didn’t happen when he saw Dexter approaching Kaleigh and hogging the rest of her evening.

Hayley and Alycia had heard over the years that Edmar and Jochebed were leeches. Alycia was sure that Dexter's parents had something to do with Dexter's attentiveness to their daughter at the event. Hayley was a man of few words when it came to his daughter's love life. On the way home from the event, he made it clear if Kaleigh marries Dexter there must be a prenup, or he'd divide her trust fund and everything else that would go to her after his and her mother's death between her two sisters. He also said he's not doing this to harm her or trying to control her life. This is his way of protecting her. Kaleigh knew her parents always did what they felt was best for her and her sisters, and they never questioned them. This time wasn't any different.

Americus and Tanesha were a little shocked when Kaleigh told them that, at first, she couldn’t get past Dexter’s beard, but after meeting and talking with him, she knew he was the one for her. Her friends were rooting for Venca but accepted her choice and supported her regardless of who they thought was perfect for her.

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Dexter is an only child and has been spoiled all his life. Probably because Jochebed had several miscarriages when she was in her mid-twenties and early thirties. The day she and Edmar discovered she was pregnant with Dexter, he insisted that she take time away from her practice until after she gave birth. It didn't take much to persuade her. Jochebed and Edmar taught him whatever he wanted to get. Still, to this day, he feels that whatever he wants, he should have it.

The night he saw Kaleigh, he was attracted to her. His attraction became stronger when his mother told him if he could marry Kaleigh it would help his career. Because everyone in the medical field respected Hayley, Kaleigh's father, that would go well in the long run. His goal is to become head of pediatrics. Dexter figures, with his father and Hayley backing him, that his goal is no longer a dream. It's already in his hands.

He proposed to Kaleigh two months after they started dating. Tanesha asked Kaleigh to take more time to think about it before giving Dexter her decision. Americus said she didn't want to be a hypocrite because of how quickly she and Cristiano got engaged. Kaleigh pushed her into saying her opinion but regretted it. Americus said Dexter had a wandering eye and to be careful of the company she keeps around him. Americus and Tanesha made Kaleigh promise them she wouldn't allow anyone to interfere with her dream of having a salon chain.

His parents told him all day that Kaleigh would be a fool to say no to his proposal. Jocebed told him no other man wanted Kaleigh because she was simple. Jochebed also tells Dexter to squash Kaleigh’s thought of opening a salon, because she should be at home taking care of the house and his needs. Because he’s special and needs a lot of attention.

Kaleigh and Dexter go to Cipriani Beverly Hills for dinner. He had been rushing her for days for an answer to his proposal. As soon as they sit down, he asks her if she has decided. Kaleigh already knew what her answer was. She did as her friends suggested, which was to think about it. Her answer hadn't changed, but she added the two things he wasn’t expecting. The first is that he wouldn't infer about her opening her salons. If he had a problem with her working, then there wasn't any sense of them being in a relationship any longer. He was skeptical but agreed with her. He thought about the big picture. But when she mentioned she wanted a prenup, he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Dexter wanted to excuse himself to go to the restroom to call his mother. The only reason he didn’t was he didn’t want Kaleigh to think he was a mama's boy. Dexter's family isn’t lacking in money. It's just Kaleigh's family has more and his mother told him she heard Kaleigh has a trust fund that will be released after she’s married.

When he arrived home that night, he was met at the door by his parents. Jocebed was furious about the prenup. Edmar was a little angry, but not for long. He felt the same as Dexter did. That's looking at the big picture.

He agreed to her conditions and the couple were married a year later. Kaleigh and Dexter have two daughters, seven-year-old Hellevi, and four-year-old Marisol, and a one-year-old son named Knight. Dexter was promoted to Head of Pediatrics last year. He's the youngest person to have that position. It wasn't as if he had earned it. It was because he and his father loved to name-drop Hayley's name. That was an issue with Hayley that he had spoken to both men about. But it didn't seem to help.