15. Lyrius
Of course, he was sleeping with his damn publicist, and of course, she’d popped up at my house the day after we’d slept together, talking loud enough for me to hear her from the hallway.
It was as if the universe wanted to make sure I understood my place in KO’s life.
A week ago, we were completely in each other’s pasts, and now we were co-parenting and proving every person who swore baby mamas and baby daddies couldn’t stay out of each other’s beds wrong, right?
That last part probably would have been funny if this weren’t my real life.
But last night had complicated everything.
Now here I was, standing in the middle of the Shoreline Aquarium, feeling stupid for allowing myself to get my damn heart broken by my son’s father.
“Mama, look at that fish!” I looked up to find Dakoda halfway across the aquarium, waving both arms in front of the shark tank.
“That’s not a fish, baby. That’s a stingray.”
“It got a tail.”
“Most things got tails, baby. That doesn’t make them a fish,” I replied.
“Well, he thinks he’s a fish.” Dakoda dramatically took off toward the shark tank, causing KO to laugh.
“I swear that boy got your mouth,” he said, and I kept my eyes on Dakoda, pretending not to hear him.
I hadn’t really spoken to him all day, and I wasn’t about to start now.
KO stared at me for a second, his jaw tight before nodding his head and looking away.
“Mama! Come on!”
“I’m coming,” I replied. His excitement had somehow doubled since we’d walked inside the aquarium. One minute, we were meeting and greeting some of the school staff, and the next minute, he was dragging KO and me from exhibit to exhibit with KO matching his excitement with every step.
“Mama! Come on! You’re going to miss the shark!”
“Dakoda, stop yelling. I’m coming.”
“Dakoda?” a soft voice called from behind me, and I turned to find a tall, older woman with box braids wearing a Shoreline Elementary polo approaching us. I’d seen and spoken to her a few times since enrolling Dakoda in school, and I was hoping she’d be his teacher this year.
“Hi. I’m Ms. Reynolds. We met at the kindergarten screening. I’ll be Dakoda’s teacher this year.”
“I’m Dakoda.” Dakoda immediately puffed his chest out.
“I figured that part out,” she replied, and he grinned. “And is this your mom and dad?”
“This my mama,” he announced proudly, pointing at me first. Then he pointed at KO. “And this is my daddy.”
Something warm settled in my chest at how naturally the words came out of his mouth, like he’d been waiting his whole life to introduce both of us at the same time.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Ms. Reynolds said, smiling at KO.
“You too.” KO shook her hand.
“I was wondering if we’d get to meet Dad before school started.”
“Yeah,” KO said. “I finally made it.”
The smile Dakoda gave him after that made my chest tight. Seeing Dakoda this happy to have his dad really did something to me. I loved watching KO fall into fatherhood so naturally.
“Can I go play with the other kids?”
“Stay where we can see you,” I told him.
“Okay!” He took off again, and Ms. Reynolds laughed.
“That is a cool kid,” she said. “Looking forward to getting to know him this year. Y’all have fun tonight. I’m going to keep tracking down my class.”
“Thank you,” KO and I replied at the same time as she walked away.
As soon as Dakoda’s teacher was gone, I immediately moved to put distance between KO and me.
There was a group of parents on the other side talking, so I headed in that direction, but clearly not getting the memo, KO fell in step beside me.
“You been ignoring me all day,” he said.
“I haven’t.”
“You have.”
“We’re at a school event, KO.” I kept my eyes trained on Dakoda playing across the room as I walked.
“And?”
“And I don’t wanna do this here.” I took another step, and KO moved right with me before cutting me off completely.
“Look at me,” he said, but I couldn’t.
“You know what your problem is?” He pointed at me. “You think I have self-control because I use it.”
“What do you want me to say, KO?” The question came out sharper than I intended.
“I want you to stop acting like last night didn’t happen.” His jaw flexed.
“That’s funny.” I laughed because his audacity was hilarious.
“What’s funny?”
“I thought that’s what you wanted,” I shot back. “You literally fucked me and told me we couldn’t do this, and then one of your little hoes showed up at the door.”
“Cherry is my publicist, Lyrius.”
“A publicist whose bed you’re in every week, right?
” And for the first time since he’d come back into my life, he didn’t have a response.
A group of kids ran past us toward one of the exhibits, and my eyes found Dakoda again.
He was laughing and playing with some kids over by the water table.
I smiled automatically. And then the smile disappeared.
“Look,” I said quietly. “I’m trying to protect what we got right now.”
KO followed my gaze to Dakoda. He was having the time of his life.
“I love having my son in my life.”
“I know,” I replied. “And he loves having you around.” That was the main reason I couldn’t get caught up, letting sex and false hope ruin this for Dakoda.
“Maybe we moved too fast, KO.” The words hurt, but they were the truth.
“Living together. Sharing space. Trying to play happy family when we have years of history sitting between us was a bad idea. Maybe we should have involved the courts.”
“Lyrius.” He tried to interrupt, but I kept going anyway.
“Everything I ever felt for you was real, KO, and I can’t just turn that off.” My throat tightened. “I can’t sit around pretending I’m okay with casual sex. I can’t ruin this for my son.”
“You think that’s all I got out of last night?”
I ignored the question. Because if I answered honestly, I’d cry. And I wasn’t crying in front of a damn shark tank and half of Shoreline Elementary.
“I think you should go home.”
“Go home?” KO stared at me.
“Yeah.” I nodded, breaking my own heart, because a part of me wanted anything but that, but wanting something and expecting reality were two different things.
“You asking me to leave?”
“Dakoda starts school Monday.” I forced myself to keep talking. “You’ll be back training. I’ll be working. We’ll barely see each other during the week anyway.”
“Nah.”
“We can figure out a schedule. I won’t keep you from him.”
“A schedule?”
“I can bring him to Azalea on weekends.”
“Lyrius.”
“We’ll figure something out.”
“You still doing that shit?” His eyes locked onto mine.
“Doing what?”
“Deciding for me.” The words landed hard because suddenly, we weren’t talking about schedules anymore.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“When shit gets complicated, you make plans. Like your solution to everything is deciding what’s best for Lyrius and tell everybody else involved afterward.
” I looked away because his words were hard to hear.
“You wanna know something?” I glanced back up.
“I don’t know what the fuck to do with you, Lyrius. ”
The confession came out rough, but it hit me somewhere deep because the version of KO I spent years grieving was a lot easier to deal with than the one standing in front of me now.
The one who laughed with my son and bought matching outfits.
The one who looked at me like he still saw something worth wanting.
“I don’t know what to do with being mad at you.” My breath caught. “I don’t know what to do with the shit you did. And I damn sure don’t know what to do with the fact that none of that stops me from wanting you.”
“Exactly,” I whispered, “which is why we need a schedule.”
For a second, he looked like he wanted to argue. Then Dakoda’s voice cut across the aquarium.
“Mama! Daddy! Come look!”
KO closed his eyes briefly before looking toward our son, and I took the opportunity to step back and create space. Because right now, space was exactly what we needed.
“This conversation not over, Lyrius,” KO said, and I just nodded my head and kept walking away because, as far as I was concerned, it was—at least until I figured out how to look at him without remembering everything I’d lost and everything I still wished we could have.