Chapter 10
The little girl had his exact face. It was weird as hell and freaking him the fuck out on the inside, but on the outside, he tried to remain calm.
He needed a blunt, but because he respected Devyn and her place of business, he refrained from lighting one up.
Not to mention, his mama would beat his ass if she knew he smoked in front of a child.
A child or his child?
His leg bounced as he waited for Devyn to speak.
Even in distress, she looked beautiful as hell.
He came here to cuss her pretty ass out and fuck her back into submission, but that went out the window as soon as he saw the little girl .
. . His eyes drifted back toward the toddler, and his heart gave a little squeeze.
“I don’t know what to say,” Devyn whispered. His eyes snapped back to her. She no longer looked at him but averted her gaze to her desk.
“I thought you just said you could explain,” he replied calmly.
“I-I can. I mean . . .” She took in a deep breath. Haze noted that she looked like she was on the brink of tears, but he couldn’t care about that right now. He felt like the walls shrunk in on him, and he didn’t want to explode from all the pressure. “Haze, this is my daughter, Hazel.”
Hazel? He scoffed. “Please don’t tell me you named that baby after me.”
His voice cracked. He saw sympathy swim in her eyes, but he didn’t want that. He wanted answers.
“She’s yours, Henry.” Her soft voice and the use of his government name made this shit real for him.
Pain slammed straight into his chest, and he stood up abruptly. “Fuck you mean she’s mine, Devyn? What do that even mean, yo? How is she mine and I’m just now meeting her? She’s old enough to curse, G. Make this shit make sense to me.”
“The night we met . . . I got pregnant. I-I kept the baby, b-but I didn’t tell you about her. I was afraid . . . because of the kind of life you live.”
Her eyes stayed connected with the desk, which pissed Haze off. He didn’t want to disrespect her or scare Hazel, so he kept his voice even, though he wanted to knock all this shit over.
“Look at me,” he demanded. Her eyes snapped to his.
Haze didn’t want to admit it, but he felt her pain just as much as he felt his own.
It was clear to him that Devyn had struggled significantly because of her choices.
The fact that he was able to sit here and rationalize her pain when she had just shot him straight through the heart was wild.
“You kept my daughter from me because you were afraid because I’m in a motorcycle club?
That’s it? Because back then, that was all you fuckin’ knew about me.
Shit, that’s still all you know about me. So, tell me. Am I getting that right?”
She hung her head. “Yes, but the shootout—”
“Look at me,” he said harsher than he meant to. “You kept me from my child because of some other niggas shooting at me? You act like I was the one that caused that conflict—”
“It doesn’t matter who caused it. What matters is that my child . . . our child could have been caught in the crossfire. What happened the other day?” she asked so quickly he felt like he caught whiplash.
He tucked his lips into his mouth to keep from snapping. After a deep breath, he said, “Some bullshit that ain’t cause no harm to nobody.”
Devyn shook her head. “Your lifestyle isn’t appropriate for a kid.”
Haze’s jaw clenched tightly. He turned toward the door, and right before he walked out, he said, “You ain’t even give me a chance to turn shit around.”
He felt like he couldn’t breathe inside the dealership.
Getting out of there as fast as possible was his only goal.
He noticed that people darted out of his way as he walked by them.
Any other time, he would grin at them, as if he wasn’t up in there less than a week ago terrorizing them.
Today, though, he couldn’t bring himself to care about none of that bullshit.
As soon as he made it to his black-on-black bike, he mounted it, put his helmet on, and turned the engine over. He pulled off the dealership parking lot with one destination in mind.
His thoughts raced as he weaved through traffic. He couldn’t grab on to a single one. This right here was why he thrived in chaos. His mind was always in a state of constant chaos.
That’s that ADHD, his mama would tell him.
He was diagnosed as a young boy. None of the medications worked on him.
No matter what they did for him, it couldn’t be maintained for him.
It was why when he was sixteen, his parents let him have his first blunt.
As a baby, the only thing that calmed him was weed smoke.
As a teenager, it turned out that the only thing that could keep him calm was a fat ass blunt.
He needed the shit like he needed air. Part of him wished he’d stopped to take a pull before hopping on his bike, but it didn’t matter.
He pulled up to his mama’s house and hopped off his bike. Once he was on the wraparound porch, he pounded on the door and lit a blunt that was tucked in the front of his jacket pocket.
Minutes later, the door was snatched open, and his mom stood there, ready to fuss. “Boy, why you knockin’ on my door like the damn police—oh.” Her eyes fell to the blunt hanging from his mouth as she watched him pace back and forth erratically. “You okay, baby?”
His mama knew that if Haze was on her porch smoking like he didn’t have any home training or sense that something must have been extremely wrong.
“Who’s at the door, Auntie?” Deja asked.
She poked her head outside and then grinned.
“Oh, shit. What’s up, Haze?” She walked onto the porch, and Kyomi followed behind her.
When Deja reached out to take the blunt from his mouth, he barked at her.
Like, he dead ass barked. Deja jumped, and her brows furrowed. “Did you just . . . bark at me?”
“Mama, it happened. He finally lost his mind, hasn’t he?” Kyomi asked with wide eyes as she looked at her brother.
Though she was in her late twenties, Kyomi had such a pure heart. She was a damn empath and the first person in the world who Haze ever felt like he had to protect.
“Chile, I don’t know. Haze, baby, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“I got a child,” he blurted out. The three women stared at him like he had a thong on and danced around a pole.
Silence engulfed them, which only pissed Haze off more.
He’d come here to get some advice and comfort.
That shit wasn’t happening fast enough for him.
“Y’all gonna say somethin’ or just stare at me? ”
“Maybe we didn’t hear you correctly, baby. Can you say that again?” his mother urged.
Haze gritted his teeth. “I. Have. A. Child.”
“How? Like you lost your marbles and kidnapped one?” Deja asked. She peered around him as if a child would suddenly appear.
“No, idiot. I have a fuckin’ daughter,” Haze snapped.
“Watch your tone, Henry,” his mother scolded. Haze took another pull of his blunt. “Why don’t you finish smoking and come inside? We were just about to have lunch.”
Haze nodded and took another pull. His mom went inside, but Kyomi and Deja stayed outside with him.
Kyomi walked up to him and grabbed his arm to stop him from pacing.
She guided him to the swing that could fit two people comfortably and sat down.
He followed suit, but his leg bounced uncontrollably as soon as he sat down.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Rather only tell the story once,” he said, knowing his mother would want all the details as well.
Kyomi nodded and put her head on his shoulder while he finished his blunt.
Deja stood with her arms crossed as she gazed out at the yard.
The house was a cute one-story home that his mother had bought after their father died.
It was the perfect home for her now that she lived alone, and Haze was glad she didn’t stay in the family home they grew up in.
It was far too big for a single woman, and he loved that he could put it to good use for his club.
Finally, he finished his blunt and stood. He wasn’t calm by far, but he was ready to talk.
They walked into the home, and Haze followed his sister and cousin into the kitchen, where his mom plated sandwiches, pasta salad, chips, and fruit.
“Bird food.” Haze grunted as he took in the spread. It looked good, but he knew he would need to eat again in an hour.
“It’s a girls’ lunch that you’re impeding on, I might add.” Deja grumbled as she took a seat at the center island.
Haze ignored her, and so did everyone else.
Once everyone filled their plates, his mother looked at him with sad eyes and said, “What’s this about you having a daughter?”
Haze’s jaw clenched. He couldn’t believe he had a damn daughter. Then, his mouth quirked up into a smile when he visualized her face. “She looks just like me, yo.”
“Wait, so she’s a real kid? Like, for real for real?” Deja asked with her face scrunched up.
Kyomi elbowed her cousin while his mother cut her eyes at Deja. “Girl, hush.”
“What? I’m just tryna make sure—”
“I said hush,” Haze’s mom said, and Deja clamped her mouth shut. Everyone turned their attention back to Haze. “Continue, baby.”
Haze let out a deep breath, the food on his plate completely forgotten.
“There’s this girl. Y’all met her the other night.
Devyn.” He looked at Kyomi and Deja. “I met her a few years back, and I don’t know.
I immediately fucked wit’ shorty. I don’t know how to explain it.
I knew I wanted her. I knew I would change to have her.
” He shook his head to focus his thoughts.
“Anyway, some things happened, and before I could get her name and number, she disappeared. I ain’t hear from her or see her again until about a week ago.
I knew it was my second chance, but her ass tried to run from me again.
“I wasn’t about to let that shit happen again, so I pulled up on her today at her job. Last thing I expected was to find a little girl with my whole face.” He snorted. “Baby girl even named after me. Check it, her name is Hazel.”
“Aw, that’s actually so cute.” Kyomi gushed with tears gathered in her eyes.
Haze nodded because though he was initially mad about it, the name was cute as hell.
“I asked Devyn to explain, and she said she got pregnant that night a few years back and never told me because of the lifestyle I live.” He scoffed. That shit sounded so ridiculous to him.
He looked around the kitchen to see everyone’s reactions.
His brows furrowed when he noticed everyone avoiding his eyes.
His mother stood across from him and suddenly seemed super interested in her plate.
Kyomi sat next to him and decided at that moment to dish more food onto her plate.
Deja looked down at the counter as she stuffed the last of her sandwich into her mouth. “What? Y’all ain’t got nothin’ to say?”
Gently, his mother leaned across the center island and grabbed his hand. “Let me ask you this. What led her to believe your lifestyle wasn’t safe?”
“Them fuck ass Blue Boyz shot up our block party a few years back. That’s the night I met her.”
Kyomi’s eyes grew wide. “She was there?”
“Yeah.” Haze nodded, not understanding the looks on their faces. Deja simply shook her head. “Man, what?”
“Baby, look. She was dead ass wrong for not giving you a chance to prove her wrong,” his mother said.
“Thank you!” Haze exclaimed, excited that he finally got some validation.
“But—”
“Ain’t no buts.” He cut his mother off.
She cut her eyes at him and continued. “But she isn’t really wrong to be afraid of your lifestyle, honey.”
“Truly. I still have nightmares about that day.” Kyomi shuddered next to him. He understood why she still had nightmares. It was because she had never been exposed to anything like that.
Neither has Devyn.
“Shit.” Haze hung his head.
His mother squeezed his hand. “Think about it, Haze. Your father never exposed y’all to any of the shit he was into.
It wasn’t until you were older that you and Gideon were brought into the fold, but us women remained oblivious, and still do to this day.
Devyn is a woman. If she sensed danger, she probably didn’t want that nonsense in her life.
When she found out she was pregnant, those feelings most likely tripled.
She’s wrong for the decision she made, but you’d do good to understand her side of it too. ”
Haze let his mother’s words sink in. He knew what she said was true, but he still felt so angry.
“I don’t know, Ma.” He rubbed his temples.
What hurt the most was the fact that he had such a deep connection to Devyn. He couldn’t help but feel like that had been tampered with now. She’d lied to him. She deceived him. She took precious time away from him and his daughter. How could they come back from that?
“Take some time to process, but don’t waste much more time getting to know your daughter. I want to meet her. I can’t believe I’m a grandma.”
Haze looked at his mom and saw tears trickling down her cheeks. He looked at Kyomi, who was also crying. When his eyes connected with Deja, he grinned. She wasn’t crying and most likely had the same thought as him. He was surrounded by crybabies.
They burst into laughter. Kyomi and his mom looked at them with confused expressions, which only made them laugh harder.
This right here was what he needed.
He would take a few days, like his mother suggested, but he would definitely revisit that conversation with Devyn and establish a relationship with his daughter.