14. Luciana Creed #3
Maddox turned off the truck and looked back at the kids. “A’ight, listen. It’s gonna be a few people in there. Your uncles, their wives and all their kids, but don’t be nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” Michael announced immediately.
MJ rolled his eyes. “He wasn’t talking to you.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know nothing.”
“I know more than you.”
Nylah laughed, and Maddox’s eyes softened the second the sound left her mouth. I saw it happen. I saw the way his whole face changed, like her laughter reached a place inside him nobody else could touch.
That was the part that kept catching me off guard.
The softness.
Maddox had always been a good father. I knew that better than anybody.
I’d watched him love our boys through every stage of their lives.
I’d watched him stay up with fevers, show up for school programs, sit through cartoons he didn’t care about, and turn into a completely different man whenever one of his sons needed him.
Still, seeing him with Nylah felt different.
Not better or worse… Just different.
Maybe it was the newness of it. Maybe it was the years he’d lost hanging over every interaction. Maybe it was the way she looked at him, like she was still trying to convince herself he was real and not something that could disappear again.
Whatever it was, it hurt to watch.
Maddox opened his door first, then helped Nylah down from the backseat before Michael could drag her out himself. The second her sneakers touched the driveway, the front door opened and Mama Creed appeared like she’d been standing there waiting the whole time.
Knowing her, she probably had.
“Oh, Lord,” she breathed, one hand going straight to her chest.
The whole driveway seemed to quiet for a second.
Nylah looked up at Maddox, and he gave her a small nod. That was all the encouragement she needed to take a few steps forward.
Mama Creed met her halfway.
She didn’t say anything at first and just looked at her. Her eyes moved over Nylah’s face like she was trying to memorize every feature before the moment slipped away. Then her face crumbled into the softest smile I’d ever seen.
“Come here, baby.”
Nylah walked straight into her arms.
Mama Creed hugged her like she’d been waiting nine years to do it. Her eyes closed, her hand moved to the back of Nylah’s head, and for a moment, nobody around us said a word.
My throat tightened.
I had prepared myself for awkwardness. I had prepared myself for emotion. I had even prepared myself for discomfort. What I hadn’t prepared for was how natural it looked. How right it looked. Like Nylah had always belonged here and everybody else had just been waiting for her to arrive.
Mama Creed pulled back just enough to cup Nylah’s face. “You are beautiful, you hear me?”
Nylah smiled shyly. “Thank you.”
“No, baby.” Mama Creed’s voice shook a little. “Thank you...”
I looked away before anybody could see my face.
Maddox cleared his throat, but when I glanced at him, his eyes were glassy. He wasn’t crying. Maddox Creed would probably rather swallow glass than cry in front of this many people, but emotion sat all over his face. Pride. Relief. Pain. Happiness.
All of it.
Mama Creed wiped beneath her eyes and stepped back, immediately pulling herself together the way mothers always did when there were people to feed.
“Come on in this house. Everybody been waiting on you.”
Nylah looked slightly overwhelmed, but Michael grabbed her hand before she could think too hard about it. “Come on. Follow me.”
MJ shook his head. “You making it worse.”
“I’m helping.”
“You not.”
Their arguing carried them through the front door, and Nylah went with them, laughing softly as if she couldn’t believe this was really happening.
I followed behind Maddox, my steps slower than everybody else’s.
The second we walked inside, the entire living room shifted.
Rozay stood first. Solae was beside him, smiling like she’d already decided she loved Nylah before meeting her.
Kyro leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, pretending he wasn’t just as interested as everybody else.
Romy sat near the couch, and her face softened the second Nylah stepped into the room.
There were too many people. Too much love. Too much history I had helped keep from this little girl.
Maddox rested his hand gently against Nylah’s shoulder. “Everybody, this is Nylah.”
For a second, nobody moved.
Then Rozay grinned. “Damn. Another Creed.”
Nylah laughed, and just like that, the room seemed to exhale.
Solae came over next, bending slightly so she was eye level with Nylah. “I’m Solae. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Nylah looked surprised. “You have?”
“Of course.” Solae smiled. “Your daddy doesn’t shut up.”
Maddox gave her a look. “Aye...”
“What? It’s true.”
Rozay laughed. “Very true.”
The room loosened after that. People started moving, speaking, reaching for her, welcoming her in little ways that somehow felt bigger than speeches.
Solae hugged her. Romy complimented her hair and looks.
Rozay told her she already looked like trouble.
Kyro finally pushed off the wall and asked if she liked Atlanta so far, which was probably the most Kyro introduction possible.
Nylah handled all of it better than I expected.
She was shy at first, but not scared. Every time she seemed unsure, Maddox touched her shoulder or smiled at her, and she found her footing again. The whole family made space for her without making it feel like a performance.
That was what hurt the most.
Nobody had to force it.
Nobody had to pretend.
They loved her because she was Maddox’s.
That was enough.
I stood in the corner of the room, feeling like the outcast, watching as Mama Creed pulled Nylah toward a wall of family pictures.
She pointed out old photos of Maddox, Rozay, and Kyro when they were kids.
Nylah laughed at something Mama Creed said, and Maddox stepped closer like he didn’t want to miss a second of it.
My chest ached so badly I had to press a hand against my stomach.
Don’t get shit twisted, this wasn’t jealousy.
I wasn’t angry that they loved her. I wasn’t mad that Maddox smiled every time she called him Dad. I wasn’t upset that Mama Creed kept touching her face like she still couldn’t believe she was real.
They were doing exactly what they should’ve been doing.
That was the problem.
Every bit of love in that room was deserved. Nylah deserved it. Maddox deserved it. Mama Creed deserved it. The boys deserved it too.
Nobody was wrong.
Nobody was being cruel.
Nobody was trying to hurt me.
They were simply loving a little girl who had finally found her way home, and somehow that made it harder to breathe.
Michael came running past me with Nylah right behind him, both of them laughing while MJ yelled for them to slow down, like he was grown.
A few adults called out at the same time, but none of the kids listened.
Within seconds, they disappeared down the hallway, and the sound of their laughter filled every corner of the house.
Maddox watched them go with a smile on his face that I hadn’t seen in months.
That was the moment something inside me shifted.
Quietly and painfully.
I realized I couldn’t do this forever.
I could survive today. I could smile through dinner. I could help set plates, make small talk, and pretend I wasn’t falling apart every time Nylah laughed with my sons.
What I couldn’t do was spend the rest of my life watching Maddox become the father he should’ve always been to another woman’s child and not feel the weight of my own choices crushing me every time.
She wasn’t just another woman’s child.
She was his daughter, and that truth didn’t make it easier.
It made it worse.
I looked across the room at Maddox as Mama Creed said something that made him laugh. Nylah appeared again a second later, grabbing his hand to pull him toward whatever the kids were doing, and he went without hesitation.
My husband looked happy.
Truly happy.
For the first time, that happiness didn’t feel like something I could reach.
It felt like something I was standing outside of, watching through glass.
A painful truth settled deep inside me before I had the chance to fight it.
Love wasn’t enough to fix everything.
Sometimes love stayed, but the damage stayed too.
Sometimes the life you built became the same life you no longer knew how to live in.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to look away before the tears came.
Not here.
Not now.
Not in the middle of a room full of people finally getting back something I’d helped take.
“You hiding in the kitchen now?” The voice caught me off guard.
I turned to find Romy standing a few feet away with a glass of sweet tea in one hand and a small smile on her face. She wasn’t looking at me with pity or curiosity. If anything, she looked… concerned.
“I needed a minute,” I admitted.
“I figured.”
She walked over to the island and leaned against it, taking a sip from her glass before following my gaze toward the living room.
The kids were still laughing.
Mama Creed had somehow convinced Nylah to sit beside her on the couch while she flipped through old family photo albums. Every few seconds she’d point at a picture and tell another story that had everybody laughing.
Even Kyro had wandered over.
He wasn’t saying much, but that wasn’t unusual. He listened more than he talked, and every now and then Nylah would glance his way when somebody teased him, almost like she was trying to figure him out.
MJ and Michael stayed glued to her side.
Neither one of them seemed interested in doing anything unless their sister was doing it too.
Romy smiled to herself.
“They make it look easy…”
I let out a low laugh when she said that.
Then I said, “They do.”
“They’re kids.”
“I know… They don’t carry all the baggage we do.”
My eyes stayed fixed on the living room as Maddox stooped beside Nylah to explain something in one of the old pictures. She laughed, pointed at another one, and he laughed with her before ruffling her hair.
The moment lasted all of three seconds.
Three seconds…