5. Sawyer #3
“You sound like me, sis,” Brit added. “I was talking to this guy I met online for a few weeks. He seemed nice and normal, real cool, so we met up a couple of times and went on a few dates. It got to the point where I wasn’t really feeling him, so I decided to try to let him down easily before straight-up ghosting him.
So, last week, he asked me what I was doing.
I told him I couldn’t go out because my grandma had died.
Do y’all know this fool texted me back saying, ‘my consolidation.’ I said, huh?
Do you mean condolences? His ass said, nah, what’s that?
I told him to go to hell and blocked him. ”
Kaneesha and I burst out laughing so hard that my cheeks started to burn. “Poor thing was a fry short of a happy meal,” I joked, barely able to catch my breath from the side-splitting laughter.
Just as our laughing fit started to die down, the timer on the oven dinged, signaling that dinner was officially ready.
“Y’all ready to eat?” Brit inquired, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Been ready,” Neesh added.
“Let’s do this.”
Forty minutes later, Brit’s dining room table was a chaotic mess of empty plates and half-finished glasses of wine. Brit was rubbing the food baby in her stomach while Neesh was halfway through her fourth glass of wine.
“Y’all saved room for the pie, right?” I inquired before getting up to bring it from the kitchen.
“Hell yeah. I grew a whole second stomach just to make sure I had room for this pie,” Brit announced with a smile.
I cut and served them both a hefty slice of pie to satisfy their sweet tooths.
Brit sank her teeth into her first bite and moaned while closing her eyes. “I think I just had a spiritual awakening. Did Jesus return? I feel like He did. Just now. In my mouth.”
Kaneesha nodded. “Listen . . . I’m not saying I’d go half on a baby with this pie . . . but I’d consider co-parenting with this bitch.”
I stood back and exhaled before letting my cardigan fall open. My belly was unmistakably pregnant; no food baby included. “Well, speaking of going half on a baby . . .”
Neesh took one look at me and her eyes bulged. “Hold up. Is that a baby bump or a food bump because I don’t recall seeing you eat that damn much!”
Brit dropped her fork against the side of her plate. “Bitch. Are you . . . pregnant? Like, currently, right now in this moment with child?”
I nodded. “Looks like I brought dessert and some tea too.”
Kaneesha shot to her feet. “You’ve been hiding a whole fucking human? That’s Queen Yoncé level secrecy right there, bitch! Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Nobody knows. Not even Soleil,” I confirmed.
Neesh was still stuck on stupid as she fanned herself with a napkin. “I have a million questions. I need a minute. And maybe another glass or two of wine.”
“Pour me one too, sis,” Brit stated. “Who is the baby father?When did this happen? How far along are you?”
“It’s complicated. Fourth of July weekend. And almost twenty-one weeks,” I answered briefly.
Brit’s brows creased. “Complicated like a Rubik’s Cube or complicated like he’s married with two other kids already?”
I sighed. “Complicated like he’s a felon on the run . . .”
Kaneesha choked on her drink while Brit fell out of her seat.“Explain. Now. Spill that fucking tea, bitch,” Neesh demanded.
“Right the fuck now because I know you fuckin’ lying,” Brit added from the floor.
Instead of taking my seat back in the dining room, I made my way into the living room and sat down on the couch to get comfortable.
It was about to be story time. I grabbed one of the burnt orange and mustard yellow throw pillows scattered across her gray sectional as part of her fall décor and held it to my chest. The faux flames from her electric fireplace flickered underneath the mounted flat screen TV, more for the aesthetic than warmth. After all, we were in Florida.
After refilling their glasses, they both joined me on the couch, eager to hear all about how my life had spiraled out of control over the last few months.
“Start from the very beginning,” Brit stated.
“Yeah. Don’t leave a damn thing out either,” Neesh agreed.
I huffed out a long sigh. “Okay, okay. Y’all remember that hurricane that blew through here back in July and canceled our Miami trip?”They both nodded, so I continued. “Well, when I got home from the airport that day, I found a man in my apartment.”
Both of their eyes ballooned, but only Brit spoke up. “Inside your apartment, like he broke in?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t home when he broke in, though. He locked Butta in the bathroom and was sitting on my couch when I walked in. My phone was dead, and the power was out, so I couldn’t call anyone.”
“You could’ve screamed.”
“Yeah. I could’ve, but I was frozen solid.”
“And how did we go from frozen to felon fucking? Did I miss that part of the story?” Kaneesha inquired.
“No. But he’s not violent, y’all,” I clarified.
“So, he broke into your apartment, but he’s not violent? Make it make sense,” Brit said.
“He went to jail for drugs. He was getting transferred from one prison to another when the hurricane made landfall, and the bus flipped off the road. He survived and got the fuck out of there. He broke into my apartment to get shelter from the storm, and then I came home and found him,” I explained.
Kaneesha tilted her head to the side. “Still didn’t hear anything about the part where you let a stranger impregnate you.”
Brit’s hands shot up. “Right! You’re stressing me the fuck out, friend.”
“Not like it matters now, but I ain’t know he was a felon until after I’d slept with him. I turned on the news the next morning after the power came back on, and I saw his mugshot. Before then, I thought he’d just gotten into an accident and was in survival mode.”
Kaneesha tossed back the rest of the wine in her glass. “This has gotta be the craziest shit I’ve ever heard.”
“Hold up. Mugshot? I think I remember hearing something about this,” Brit added. “What’s his name?”
“Kareem,” I answered.
“Kareem, what?”
“Dorsey.”
She quickly began tapping against her phone screen. “He got a twin brother named Kadeem?”
“Yeah.”
“This him?” Brit probed, turning her phone toward me so that I could see Kareem’s mugshot.
I dipped my chin. “Yeah. That’s him.”
Brit bit down on her fist. “Sheesh, friend. You should’ve led with the pic. It literally explains all your fucked up choices.”
“Lemme see!” Neesh insisted, waving down Brit to see the picture. “Not you letting a fine ass felon murder the pussy during a hurricane and keeping his secret baby. What in the Tubi movie is going on with yo’ life, girl? At least now we know why you gave the pussy up all willingly and shit.”
My chest deflated with a hard sigh. “Multiple times because it was that good. For real, the dick was dicking, y’all. I swear if I could bottle it up and sell it, I’d be a fucking kajillionaire.”
Brit huffed. “I swear, good D is so damn dangerous.”
Kaneesha waved her hand in testimony. “Say it a lil louder for the people in the back, sis. Just have you doing dumb shit for no reason.”
“But back to the topic. Holy fucking shit, Sawyer. I remember seeing this shit on the news! There was a prison bus accident, and a few inmates were on the loose, right?”
I nodded again. “Yup. That’s the one.”
“To my knowledge, they called off the manhunt after a couple of months and chalked it up to them dying in the storm, right?”
I dipped my chin again. “Mmhm. Only . . . he’s very much alive. They both are.”
“Hold the fuck up. How do you know this? Does this make us accomplices now?” Neesh asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
Brit jumped up and raced over to her shelf near the window, where a mix of low-maintenance houseplants and black literature shared the space alongside her Echo Dot.
“Don’t say another word in this bitch until I unplug the Alexa,” she whispered. “You never know who’s listening.”
“Shut your paranoid ass up,” Neesh said with a chuckle.
My shoulders rose and fell. “She may have a point, though. He’s the only one I told until you two.”
“So, he knows?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“How if he’s on the run?”
I sighed, deciding that coming clean meant telling the whole truth and nothing but. “He sent me a plane ticket to Brazil. I flew out last month to see him and told him about the baby.”
Kaneesha fell back against the couch as if she’d passed out. “Oh shit, bitch, he knows. The fine ass felon knows!”
“Plot twist!” Brit added, pouring herself a much-needed refill. “What did he say?”
My lips twisted to the side. “We’re kinda in funny waters right now,” I admitted.
“Why? He doesn’t wanna be in the baby’s life or something? Because I’ve got no problem catching a flight to put belt to ass on a deadbeat,” Neesh acknowledged.
I swung my head. “The opposite. He was trying to get me to build a life out there with him, but that was too much for me to handle. I mean, it’s not like we meant for shit to get this far. So, I cut my trip hella short and came back to Florida.”
Brit arched a questioning brow. “How short is short?”
“Less than forty-eight hours,” I confessed.
“Hold up, this nigga flewed your pregnant ass out to Brazil and you left early?”
Neesh threw up her hands. “Oh my God, she’s dumb, Brit. The baby is making her dumb. I’m convinced.”
“Right because I would’ve been with child selling fruit out of an old pickup truck on the beach right about now for a nigga that look that good.”
Brit and Neesh cackled, laughing at my expense. “I’m sorry, girl,” Brit apologized. “My damn morals flew straight out the window when I saw that mugshot and heard the dick was dickin’.”
“Mine too,” Neesh agreed. “Morals gone like Lebron’s hairline, baby.”
I rolled my eyes. Suddenly, they were Team Kareem, and all it took was them seeing his mugshot.