Chapter 8 #2
He didn’t speak. Instead, he walked over to me and stood in my face.
He grabbed my fidgeting hands from my jean button, and he unbuckled them himself.
Then he picked me up and sat me on the table and pulled them down as well.
Maybe he felt my nervous energy or the fact that I didn’t know what to fucking say?
For so long I had reminded myself of this, damn near making it a law until Boom!
It was now null in void and I didn’t know what to say or feel.
That was exactly where I was and lowkey where I stayed the entire rest of the appointment.
The doctor used her machine, and she indeed proved that I was eleven weeks pregnant.
She went on about successful high-risk pregnancies, and I gave minimal input.
Surprisingly, Savior was the one who took the pamphlets and listened to her when all I wanted to do was go home and wake up again.
When we finally did leave the doctor’s appointment, I sat in the back seat next to him with my eyes closed.
“Speak your mind, Regancy.” His voice was commanding.
“I don’t know what to say. I could say we should’ve been careful, but I was told that it would take a miracle for me to get pregnant again.”
“A miracle, huh?”
“Yup, and here I am with a freaking miracle that I wasn’t even—”
“I want you to keep it.” He had that vulnerability in his voice.
“I don’t believe in abortion. That is why Kale i—”
“Well, I got you, this baby, and Kale until the rest of fucking time.” His voice was so sincere, and he was so serious that it warmed my heart, but we were fairly new, and I wasn’t sure that he was ready for this type of commitment.
“But Savior.”
“But nothing. It’s settled. I’m a man, and I fall short at plenty of shit, but I come through on much more shit than I fall short on. Just trust me on this.”
For the first time since I got in the car, I opened my eyes, and I looked at him. “I trust you.”
“Good. Now c’mon so we can get lil’ mama and board.”
The car came to a stop, and I looked out, spotting my mama and one of her nosy friends sitting on the porch.
“Don’t tell me you’re about to start this dramatic shit.”
I laughed as I opened the car door. “No. I’m not.” I walked up the pathway to my mother’s porch, where she sat with a smirk planted on her face. I had accidentally told her what Savior did the day I met Vee for lunch.
“So we meet again, Savior.” My mama smiled.
I smirked. “Well, hello to you too, Mama.” I kissed her cheek and then went to get my child.
Thank God her bad ass dog was with my neighbor because I thought I’d be pulling an all-nighter at the tavern today, and my mama said he couldn’t stay the night.
She banned him last week after he chewed up all her plants.
“Kale, get your stuff. We’re going home.” I walked in, and my baby was planted on the floor watching some cartoon with her tablet in her lap.
“We are? I’m hungry. Grandma made tomato soup, and it was nasty. I threw it away when she wasn’t watching.” She started gathering her stuff and putting it in her backpack.
“You better not let her hear you say that.” I cracked up laughing. After a few minutes, she had all of her stuff, and we were headed out.
“Savee!” she squealed, running and hugging him like she’d known the man forever when she hadn’t. She’d even given him a nickname and everything.
“Savior said you guys are going on a boat and that it’s a normal thing.” My mama batted her eyes at me as I watched Savior and Kale. They were close, and she had bonded with him.
I glanced over at my mother with a smile. “Things getting serious since he threatened that old Bible–selling boy, huh?”
I cracked up laughing because ever since Amil said that shit and told my mama, now she referred to him as a Bible salesman. “Something like that.”
“Good, because you’re too much like me, and you need somebody to love all of you, even the parts you don’t love yourself, and she needs a father figure.
” My mother had learned from her ways, but she was still old school.
She believed all women needed a man to be whole.
I disagreed. It was a difference between needing a man and wanting one.
Need was too strong of a word, but who was I kidding at that point?
I was becoming too dependent upon Savior’s presence.
And with our new situation, I knew for a fact that I’d be way too dependent on him, and I didn’t know if I was ready for that.
I sat on the deck, balled up, watching the sun set with a million thoughts looming through my mind.
Of course, Savior said the right things earlier, but that didn’t stop the flashbacks of the last time I was pregnant and what I went through mentally with that pregnancy.
I was in complete and utter turmoil, and I was depressed.
I had to continue to level with and remind myself that, that time was different.
I heard his footsteps before I felt him scoot in behind me. “My mama used to tell me that I thought too much and carried too much shit on my brain. I never knew what she meant until now, standing here, watching you carry the world all alone as if you have to.”
“Your mother is a smart woman. Where is she?” I asked, trying to think about anything other than what was currently on my brain.
He chortled. “Right now, I don’t exactly know but somewhere in London.”
“What do you mean somewhere?” I was confused.
“My mother is a citizen of the world. She has never stayed in one space longer than one month besides when she stopped to try to raise my sister and me. She didn’t succeed, because, as she said, she didn’t have what it took.
She was better at being a political journalist. So, she dropped me and Ariel off with my grandmother.
Shit was good with grams until mama went to jail for one of her pieces in one of those third-world countries, and the money stopped rolling in, as well as the letters. ”
I rested my head on his chest. “How often do you see your mother?”
“Twice a year—Christmas and whenever she drops by.” He laughed. “She didn’t grow up in America. She was born and raised in a small city on the west bank of the Nile in Egypt. She always says in Sohag the customs and people are different and less American.”
“So your grandfather on your dad’s side raised you?” I was probably prying into his life, but he was so interesting, and I felt like I needed to know everything about him
“Yes.” He nodded.
“And your father?” I asked.
“Never met him, or at least I feel like I haven’t. He died two days after my sister was born. He walked out in front of a train during a mental break caused by PTSD from the war. I was too young to know the man.”
I looked up and just looked at him in awe.
Savior had the ability to be two beings at once and never flaw in one because he was him, in tune with the duality of himself.
He was the hardest man I knew, but he also wore his vulnerability, never afraid to show it like others.
Some men were embarrassed by it and even tried to hide it, but not him. He was him.
He pressed his lips against my temple, and for the rest of the night, I got lost in being in that very space with him.
LANE
That day had probably been the longest day of my career, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a bed and close my eyes.
First my client skips town on bail and then the state’s attorney filed a motion to suppress key evidence in a trial for a man’s freedom.
It was the day that had me questioning why I chose my profession, but I’d never give up.
I felt everybody had those days. It was just a thing of life.
However, I was so happy that my day was over, and I was headed out until I looked up and saw my father opening the glass doors to my office.
He wore a weary expression, and his face was tired like he hadn’t had a wink of sleep.
None of that mattered to me because I needed to get out of there and into my bed.
I was exhausted, and he was another thing standing in the way of me getting out of the building.
“Hello, Father. How can I help you?” I asked.
He stood in the middle of my office, glancing around before he finally looked at me.
I loved my father, but we’d always had a bit of an odd relationship because I was the epitome of a woman he couldn’t handle.
I was too strong to southern-bred men like him.
Some men needed women to need them because they couldn’t handle her having her own.
“Hey, baby girl.” He smiled. He definitely had something on his mind. It was funny because he always used to tell my mother I was too strong willed and that he didn’t know how to approach me. “I was stopping by to have a word with you about Sabastian.”
I didn’t mean to smirk when he said his name, but I couldn’t help it. “What about him?”
“Well, he misses you and could use your comforting.”
I laughed. “I’m sure Joseph has done enough comforting.”
“Lane!” My father all but gasped.
“What? Are you bothered, or did they lie to you to make you think it was just a compromising position at the wrong time? Well, Daddy, I caught Sabastian sticking his penis in your son’s—”
“Lane! That’s enough.” He was grossed out, and I was having a fucking field day. That was probably one of the better moments of the long ass day.
“Some men go through phases, and some—”
“Well, did you go through a phase, Dad?” I looked over my reading glasses at him.
“Hell no.” He looked offended that I’d ask him something like that.
“My point exactly. It’s fine. I was actually going to tell Sabastian that I’ve moved on. So truthfully, there are no hard feelings.” I smiled.
My father gave me a toothy grin. “Moved on? Have I met this fellow?”
“No. He’s someone new.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted Taurus to meet my family yet.
“And why have we not had him over for dinner?” he asked.