8. KO
By the time I hit the stairs, my head was all over the damn place.
I ain’t have no business kissing Lyrius.
Shit! I shook my head as I took the steps two at a time, following Jaylen’s voice and the banging.
Lyrius had just sat there and told me all that shit about her childhood—about running away, about the setups, about how I was one of them—and somehow, I still ended up kissing her like none of that shit mattered.
Like I hadn’t already learned the hard way what fucking with her cost me.
I was irritated with myself for being unable to control myself.
Yeah, Lyrius was fine, but this wasn’t just some random woman.
This was Lyrius . . . the same woman who had made me feel something real, got me shot, and then disappeared on me.
The same woman who had just dropped a whole child in my lap.
A child who looked enough like me to have my chest tight every time I looked at him.
“KO!” Jaylen’s voice echoed again. “Nigga, if you don’t get your big forehead ass down here and open this damn window—”
I hit the third floor where his voice was coming from and stepped right into a pool of water.
“Shit!” I shouted as the cold water covered my sneakers as soon as I stepped down into it.
I glanced around. There was water all over the floor.
It wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous yet, but it was enough.
Enough to tell me the first and second floors were probably fucked.
Enough to make me get why I heard my brother from a window on the third floor instead of a damn door.
“KO!”
“I’m coming, nigga!” I finally yelled back, following the sound of his voice through the hallway, stepping through the water until I got to the busted window near the end.
The glass was already gone, and one of the boards I’d nailed up was barely hanging on.
I shook my head at Jaylen standing in the window frame before making my way over to him.
I didn’t even finish pulling the remaining boards off the window before Jaylen started stepping through like it was a regular Tuesday morning.
I looked at him, then out the window at the boat that was pulled up on the side of the building.
“What? You look like you see a ghost.” Jaylen grinned.
“You came in a boat?” I shook my head in disbelief. This nigga was really on a boat.
“How the fuck else was I supposed to get yo’ hardheaded ass?” he asked, shoving the rest of the board out of the way and stepping through. “Swim?”
I looked out past him. There was floodwater covering the street, carrying trash, tree limbs, and random shit that had no business floating. A few other boats were moving in the distance, but the devastation was real. Damn, a hurricane really came through this bitch.
“You aight?” Jaylen slapped my chest.
“Yeah.”
“You sure? ’Cause I’ve been yelling for five damn minutes.”
“I heard you.”
“And still took your time.” He looked me over. “What the fuck you had going on up there?”
Before I could answer, I heard movement on the stairs behind me. I glanced back and saw Lyrius coming down a few steps with Dakoda, hand in hand. Both of them were looking toward us. Jaylen followed my eyes and frowned, then his head snapped back to me.
“You in here with a bitch?” he said, loud as hell. “Nigga, I’m out here playing Coast Guard rescue, and you laid up?”
“Man, shut up,” I muttered, shoving him back.
“Wait.” His eyes narrowed when he looked past me again, and I already knew what was coming. “That’s Lyrius?”
“Hey, Jaylen.” She raised her free hand and waved.
“The fuck?” He looked between the two of us. “What she doing here?”
“I’ll catch you up later,” I said. “Right now, I just need you to get us out.”
He kept looking at me like he wanted to ask a hundred more questions, but he just nodded. “Aight,” he said finally. “I gotta hit the bathroom first. Been out here too damn long.”
“You serious?”
“Yes, nigga, I’m serious. I just rescued your ass in floodwater. I gotta piss.”
He stepped past me into the hall muttering to himself, and that was when he finally got a good look at Dakoda.
He stopped, looked at the kid, then looked at me, and looked back at Lyrius.
The confusion on his face was instant and loud enough all by itself.
There was no need to be secretive. I told this nigga all my business anyway.
“Jaylen, you know Lyrius. Lyrius, you know Jaylen. That’s Dakoda.”
Jaylen didn’t say anything, so I said the part that really mattered. “That’s my son.”
His whole face changed, and he looked back at the little boy like he was trying to make sense of what the hell I’d just said. Dakoda blinked at him, sleepy and curious, his face tucked halfway into Lyrius’s thigh.
“Bathroom,” he said. “Then yo’ ass explaining this shit.” Jaylen pointed at me as he took off down the hall.
“That went . . . well,” Lyrius said, turning around.
“For Jaylen? Yeah.” We headed back upstairs while he handled his business.
By the time we got back to the sixth floor, Lyrius had set Dakoda down and was grabbing her bag.
I started collecting the little shit and blowing out the candles we’d laid out the night before while she made sure she had everything together.
“You got everything?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded.
Dakoda looked up at me. “We leaving?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Uncle Jaylen came to get us out.”
“I got an uncle?” He grinned, and Lyrius let out a little laugh under her breath. That sound did something annoying to my chest. I ignored it.
“Yeah, and a grandpa,” I replied just as Jaylen came up the stairs, adjusting his hoodie.
“Aight. Now, somebody explain to me why I walked into a damn family gathering that I ain’t know shit about.”
I ain’t say shit, because honestly, I didn’t even know where to start.
“You my uncle?” Dakoda asked, making Jaylen look down at him, then back at me as he rubbed his hand over his face. “Damn. This for real?”
“Apparently.” I kept stuffing shit into a bag.
“You got a boat?” Dakoda stepped closer, and Jaylen crouched down a little.
“Yeah, little man. I got a boat,” Jaylen replied. “How old are you?”
“Five.” Dakoda nodded like everything was settled. “Mama, I have an uncle with a boat.” That got a laugh out of Lyrius before she could stop it. I shook my head, and even Jaylen laughed.
“A rented boat.” I corrected, and Jaylen waved me off. “Y’all ready to go?”
“How we getting out? There’s water all the way to the third floor,” she asked, smile disappearing as she looked toward the stairs.
“Boat, obviously,” Jaylen replied before me.
“Shouldn’t we just stay put until the water goes down?”
“You can stay put. Yo’ ass can Uber through floodwater for all I care.” He gave her a look. “I came here for my brother.”
I felt Lyrius shift next to me before she spoke. “Wasn’t nobody asking you to come for me,” she said, rolling her neck. “I’m good either way.”
“Yeah, aight.” Jaylen let out a short laugh, shaking his head like that was cute.
“Jaylen,” I warned, my tone low. He threw his hands up like he wasn’t doing anything, but I could already see it in his face.
He didn’t like her, never really did, and after what happened, that shit was set in stone.
Jaylen wasn’t the type to play fake with anybody.
If he didn’t rock with you, you were going to feel it every time he opened his mouth.
And Lyrius? She had been on that list since the day she disappeared and left me bleeding out, looking stupid.
Shit, if Jaylen knew everything that had really gone down?
Lyrius probably wouldn’t have been standing here right now.
“Man, both of y’all, chill,” I muttered, stepping in before it went left. “She’s coming with us.” I looked at Jaylen, then back at Lyrius. “And you’re not staying here with my son. We got bigger shit to worry about.”
Jaylen stared at me for a second, then quickly nodded his head like he understood what it was without me having to say too much more.
“There’s dry land over on the west side,” he said, pointing toward the stairwell. “Water ain’t make it that far. My truck is parked over there.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s move.” I grabbed Lyrius’s backpack, and Lyrius grabbed Dakoda’s hand as we made our way back downstairs. Jaylen went first, talking the whole damn time.
“As soon as we get out, you’re telling me everything,” he said over his shoulder.
“Nah.”
“The hell you mean, nah?”
“I mean not right now.”
“The fuck else we got to do?”
“Get to dry land.”
We hit the third floor again, and Jaylen stopped me with a hand on the chest while Lyrius was still behind us with Dakoda.
“Real quick,” he said, dropping his voice. “What’s going on?”
I sighed. His ass wasn’t going to drop it unless I told him something. I looked over my shoulder to make sure Lyrius wasn’t close enough to hear me.
“She showed up yesterday in the storm, seeking shelter. She says the kid is mine.”
“What?” Jaylen blinked, looking past me at Dakoda.
“I need you to pull some strings and get me a rapid DNA test today.”
“Wait. Nigga, what?” He looked at me like I’d skipped about ten steps.
“I need a rapid DNA test today.”
He dragged a hand over his face. “You really think the kid yours? How long has it been since you’ve seen Lyrius?”
“Shit adding up,” I said quietly. “Look at him.” I looked back at Dakoda. At his face. His eyes. The shape of his mouth. The timeline. Everything.
Jaylen stopped walking long enough to really look. Then he let out a low breath. “Damn.”
“Can you get the test or not?”
“Yeah. I know somebody.” He pulled his phone out.
“Bet.” That was all I needed to hear. We made our way down the hallway to the busted-out window, and the water was cold enough to piss me off all over again.
Jaylen climbed through the window and got into the boat first. Then Lyrius handed Dakoda over.
Jaylen took him with one arm and set him down carefully in the middle.