5. Lyrius #2
“Okay.” I backed away. My eyes were still trained on the two of them. KO was looking down at Dakoda like he wasn’t sure what came next.
“He’s not a baby,” I said. “You can just”—I grabbed one of the pillows off the couch and set it down—“prop his head up. Put the blanket over him. He’ll stay sleep.”
KO watched me for half a second, then did exactly what I’d suggested. He slid the pillow under Dakoda’s head and slowly eased from under him. Once he was standing, he pulled the blanket over him, and then he just stood there, watching him sleep.
“He’s a cool kid,” KO said after a minute. “Very smart.”
“Yeah,” I said softly.
“He talks too damn much.”
“Yeah.” A small smile pulled at my mouth before I could stop it. “He does.”
KO huffed under his breath. “Get that talkin’ shit from you.”
I glanced at him. “I do not talk too much.”
“Lyrius.”
“What?” I fought a smile. “I don’t.”
“Aight.” He scoffed under his breath and shook his head. I couldn’t hold back the laugh that slipped out. For a second, we both stood there laughing, and it felt normal.
“He’s only like that with people he’s comfortable with,” I added, nodding toward Dakoda. “If he don’t know you like that, he’s real quiet. Just be sitting there . . . watching everything.”
“Yeah,” he said low. “I peeped that.” KO’s eyes dropped back to him, something unreadable moving behind them. I leaned back against the wall a little.
“It’s funny, though . . . When he was little, his teachers used to be worried about his speech.
They were saying he wasn’t talking enough.
Had me stressed for a minute,” I said, shaking my head softly.
“Now?” I glanced down at Dakoda. “He doesn’t shut up.
He’ll talk you clean under the table if you let him. ”
The room fell silent, and when I looked over, KO wasn’t smiling anymore. His jaw had locked tight, and his eyes were burning into me.
“When he was little,” he said underneath his breath, and my stomach dropped.
I knew where this was going, and I was suddenly regretting my last statement.
“Yeah,” he said, voice low. “That’s the part right there that I can’t get past. You got five years of memories, and I ain’t got shit. You made me my parents.”
“KO.” My voice was barely above a whisper. I could barely speak through the guilt.
“I don’t know what his first laugh sounded like.
Don’t know what he’s afraid of. Nothing.
The one thing I swore I’d never be—a nigga with a kid out here he don’t know.
” The room went quiet, and I just let him vent.
Let him get it all out because he deserved to.
“If you on some bullshit,”—his voice dropped—“and you let me get close to that kid . . .”—his fist balled—“you won’t get a chance to run this time. I promise you that.”
“I’m not lying.”
“We getting a DNA test.”
“That’s fine.”
“Soon as we out this storm.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “I have nothing to hide.”
“And if he mine . . .” His voice went lower. “I ain’t missing shit else. You understand?”
I nodded. “I won’t try to keep him from you—”
“Again.” He corrected. “You already did that once.” The coldness in his voice made me feel so small. There was nothing I could say to that. Nothing that would undo it, and I would not pretend there was.
“I can’t change that,” I said quietly. “But I’m not doing that again.”
KO laughed, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “Nah,” he muttered. His head shook back and forth. “Nah . . . You don’t get to do this.”
“KO—”
“All these damn years,” he cut in. His voice was low, but the anger in it was loud. “I would have been there. I’m no deadbeat-ass nigga.”
“I know.”
“You made it like this,” he snapped, and I jumped.
“KO, I—”
“You know what really fucked me up, though?” I swallowed hard. “You left.”
His words came out calm, almost too calm.
“I woke up with tubes in me. Holes in my chest. And you . . .” He laughed again. “You were gone.”
“I thought you’d hate me.”
“I did.” The honesty knocked the air out of me, but it wasn’t a surprise. “But that’s beside the point.” He stepped closer slowly. “You watched a nigga bleed out while telling me that shit between us was real. Then you disappeared like I wasn’t enough to stay for.”
“It was real,” I said immediately. “Every second of it was real.”
“Whole time, you was just playing a role.”
“I didn’t know they were gonna move on you that night.”
“But you knew who they were.” I went quiet because he was right.
KO shook his head slowly, like that answer confirmed everything he knew.
“The Organization didn’t do accidents, Lyrius.
” His voice lowered. “They don’t change their minds once they’ve locked in on a target.
And you still walked me right into that shit. ”
“I tried to stop it.”
“Nah, you did nothing, and then you disappeared.”
“I stayed at the hospital,” I rushed out. “I followed the ambulance. I stayed until they said you were stable.”
“You could have stayed and accepted your damn consequences!” he barked.
“I picked survival.”
“And I was worth leaving behind for it.”
That one hurt because somewhere deep down, I knew that was how it looked.
“KO . . .”
“You know what’s crazy?” He stepped closer again.
“I spent years thinking the setup was the part that fucked me up most.” My breathing slowed.
“But it wasn’t even that. It was waking up and realizing you left too.
My whole life, motherfuckers been deciding they ain’t wanna stay around,” he muttered.
“Then your ass came in, acting like I finally had somebody solid . . .”
Pain climbed into my throat so fast I could barely breathe through it. I knew about KO’s trauma. We’d spent many days bonding over our abandonment issues. I knew his parents had abandoned him at birth. I knew how it had affected him. I never wanted to be associated with that pain.
“KO . . .” My eyes burned instantly. “I thought me leaving was protecting you.”
“You made another choice for me.” His voice sharpened slightly. “That’s all you been doing since you walked into my life.”
I dropped my head. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about the version of events that kept me in Azalea County by his side. I stepped closer to him on autopilot. It was like my body needed to be closer.
“Dakota.” I closed the space between us. My fingers brushed his arm, and he went still like my touch had turned him into stone.
“Don’t,” he said. His eyes snapped back to mine. “Don’t play yourself.”
I dropped my hand fast, like I’d just touched fire.
For a second, neither of us said anything.
We just stood there, breathing the same air.
There was so much I wanted to say. I took another step toward him.
My breasts bumped up against his chest as Dakoda shifted in his sleep behind us.
Both of our heads turned, and KO looked past me for half a second, then back at me.
“The only reason you still standing right here talkin’ to me,” he said low, “is ’cause of him. Don’t get that twisted.”
He stepped back, creating space like he needed it to breathe, but I moved with him.
The candlelight shook between us, and I could hear every breath I took.
I could hear his too, and for a second, everything in me remembered us before everything.
I remembered the way an argument used to turn into his dick in the back of my throat, and then all was well.
I dropped my eyes, and then my hand brushed the waistband of his shorts.
My hand dipped inside his shorts before I even realized what I was doing.
“Nah.” His hand gripped mine.
“I wasn’t—” Heat climbed up my neck, and I pulled my hand back.
“I know what you were doing, and I ain’t goin’.”
My lips parted. Did I know what I was doing? For a second, neither of us moved. Just stared at each other. Then Dakoda sighed in his sleep, and the spell broke. KO stepped away first. Good. If he hadn’t, I wasn’t sure I would have. He grabbed the flashlight again and angled it toward the floor.
“Get some rest,” he said as he made his way to the other side of the room. The dismissal stung more than it should have, but I deserved it. I made my way back over to the couch and sat back down beside Dakoda.
I joined him in the blanket because, obviously, I needed a time out. My eyes stayed on KO. I had built a whole life around his absence . . . and now that he was right in front of me, I didn’t know where I fit in it.
“Stop lookin’ at me like that,” he muttered, not even turning around as he crossed the room. His shoulders stayed tight. “Ain’t nothing over here for you.”
He stepped up to the heavy punching bag and hit it.
He hit it so hard he made the chain rattle.
I should’ve looked away. Should’ve turned over, pulled the blanket up, closed my eyes.
But I couldn’t look away. All I could do was watch him hit that bag until my eyes finally gave out and I drifted off to sleep.