Epilogue #2
“I love you too.” She walked away before I could stop her, leaving me standing there with Smoke and a thousand questions I couldn’t ask fast enough.
I looked at him again. “You really got on a plane and came all the way to Los Angeles without telling me.”
“Yeah.” Smoke reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “You ate yet?”
I looked down at our hands before bringing my eyes back to his face. “No, but what’s going on?”
“Come eat with me.”
I should’ve made him answer me right there. Instead, I squeezed his hand because I had missed touching him more than I had admitted to myself during every phone call we had shared since I left. “I have another meeting in less than an hour.”
“We ain’t goin’ far.”
“You planned this around my schedule?”
Smoke started walking toward the doors with my hand still in his. “Yo’ lil’ friend helped.”
I stopped walking. “She knew you were coming?”
“She told me what time to catch you.”
“That bitch.”
Smoke laughed and pulled me forward again. “Come on, Lace.”
I followed him outside because I wanted answers, but more than that, I wanted the forty-five minutes I had before my next meeting with the man who had finally gotten on a plane and come to me.
Smoke had already found a restaurant a block away, which confirmed that he had put more thought into this surprise than I originally realized.
We were seated quickly, and I spent the first few minutes looking at him across the table while he looked through the menu like showing up at my job from Bellhaven was completely normal.
“You could’ve told me you were coming,” I said after we ordered. “I would’ve made time instead of squeezing you between meetings.”
“I didn’t need you doin’ all that. I wanted to see what you be doin’ out here.” Smoke leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “You look good as fuck in that pantsuit.”
I blushed. “Thank you.”
“You like the new position?”
“You know I love it. Some days are stressful as hell, but I knew they would be. I have a good team, I like having more control over what I’m working on, and the travel hasn’t gotten on my nerves yet.”
Smoke nodded. “I’m proud of you, baby.”
He had told me that before I left Bellhaven, but hearing it again made me smile anyway. “Thank you.” Our food came before I could ask why he was really there again, but I was actually starving, so I dug into my salad. He started eating his burger, and for a few minutes, it was quiet.
Then, Smoke wiped his mouth and set his napkin beside his plate. “I got the paternity results.” My stomach tightened immediately, and Smoke watched me for a few seconds before continuing. “Baby ain’t mine.”
Relief came so quickly that I didn’t even try to hide it. “Oh, my God.” I covered my mouth with my hand and leaned back in my chair while everything I had been preparing myself to deal with disappeared in one sentence. I closed my eyes briefly before looking at him again. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Lace. I’m sure.”
“And Denisha is okay?”
“She’s aight. The other dude stepped in and, you know, they figurin’ shit out.”
I nodded and reached for my water because my throat suddenly felt dry.
I had spent eight weeks telling myself that I would deal with whatever the result was when it came.
I had thought about Smoke becoming a father, Denisha being part of our lives, and what it would mean if I eventually moved back to Bellhaven.
I had tried to imagine myself accepting all of it without punishing anybody for something that happened before I came home. Now I didn’t have.
“I know I probably shouldn’t be this happy about it.”
Smoke frowned. “Why the fuck not?”
“Because it’s still somebody’s baby.”
“And that somebody ain’t me.”
A laugh came out before I could stop it. “Sherrod.”
“What? You want a nigga to lie?”
“No.” I looked at him for another few seconds before something occurred to me. He had come all the way to Los Angeles because he wanted to tell me something this important in person. Meanwhile, I had been carrying something just as big around in my purse since the day I found out.
My nerves hit me all over again, and Smoke noticed immediately. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Lacey.”
I reached for my purse before I could talk myself out of it. “I was gonna tell you.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “Tell me what?”
“I just wasn’t gonna tell you over the phone. I figured I’d wait until I could fly back to Bellhaven in a few weeks.”
Smoke didn’t say anything while I opened my purse. My fingers suddenly felt clumsy as hell digging through it, even though I knew exactly where the envelope was. I pulled it out and laid it on the table between us. His eyes dropped to it instantly. “Fuck is this?”
I swallowed and opened the envelope. “Just look.”
The ultrasound picture was exactly where I had tucked it.
I stared at it for a second before sliding it across the table, and Smoke’s entire expression changed when he looked down and realized what I had just put in front of him.
His eyes moved over the picture before lifting slowly to mine, and for once, I couldn’t read a damn thing on his face.
His eyes dropped back to the picture. He picked it up, stared at it again, then looked at me so hard my stomach twisted. “You pregnant?”
I nodded. “Surprise.”
Smoke’s jaw flexed. “Wit’ my baby?”
“Unless there’s something you know that I don’t, yes.”
He stared at me, then his eyes narrowed. “You been knowin' this shit?”
“I found out a little over a week ago.”
I’d realized my period was late and tried to convince myself it was probably stress until I started thinking back to Bellhaven.
My routine had been all over the place while I was there, and I knew there had been a couple of days when I couldn’t remember taking my birth control pills.
Once that thought hit me, I bought a test on my way home from work.
“A fuckin’ week?” Smoke leaned back and dragged his hand down his beard, still holding the ultrasound in the other one. “You been walkin’ ‘round pregnant wit’ my baby for a whole fuckin’ week and ain’t say shit to me?”
“I just told you I wanted to do it in person.”
“We got FaceTime, Solace.”
“That’s not in person.”
“That shit close enough when you pregnant wit’ my fuckin’ baby.”
“I didn’t wanna tell you through a screen, Sherrod.” I lowered my voice when I noticed the woman at the next table glance over. “And you were waiting on a paternity test for another woman’s baby. I wasn’t about to call you in the middle of that and drop this on you too.”
His brows pulled together as he looked at me.
“I didn’t plan this. I literally take my birth control pills religiously, but clearly I missed a few,” I continued.
“I needed you to get those results first, and not because this baby depended on them, because it didn’t.
I was gonna tell you regardless. I just wanted you to have one answer before I gave you something else to deal with. ”
“Deal wit’?” His face tightened. “You think this some shit I gotta deal wit’?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then don’t say it like that.” Smoke looked down at the ultrasound again, and this time he stayed quiet long enough for some of the fight to leave me. His thumb moved slowly over the edge of the picture. “How far?”
“Almost eight weeks.”
His head snapped up, and he stared at me while he did the math. I could practically see it happening. “The Ferris wheel?”
My face got hot. “The timing lines up.”
“Goddamn.” He dropped his eyes back to the picture, and the corner of his mouth twitched before he shook his head. “My baby was made on a fuckin’ Ferris wheel.”
“Please don’t ever tell our child that.”
“I’m absolutely tellin’ my child that.”
“Smoke.”
“I ain’t tellin’ ’em the nasty shit.” He looked at me again, but whatever joke had been sitting behind his eyes disappeared just as quickly. His hand tightened around the edge of the ultrasound. “You good?”
That question hit me harder than everything else. “I’m okay. So far, everything looks exactly how it’s supposed to.”
Smoke nodded slowly, but he kept staring at me. “And you?”
“I just told you I’m okay.”
“I heard you.” He reached across the table and took my hand. “I’m askin’ if you good, Lace.”
My throat tightened. “I’m scared, and I’m happy,” I admitted. “Really fucking happy. I just didn’t know how you were gonna feel with everything else happening.”
Smoke’s chair scraped against the floor before I finished. He came around the table, pulled me up, and wrapped his arms around me so tight I could barely move. “You crazy as fuck if you thought I wasn’t gon’ want this baby.”
“I didn’t think you wouldn’t want it.”
“Then what the fuck was you scared of?”
“All of it.” I wrapped my arms around him. “I’m scared about us, the timing, being pregnant, and being miles away from you. There’s a lot of shit going through my head right now, babe.”
Smoke was quiet against me before his hand moved between us and settled low over my stomach.
He held it there without saying anything, and I covered his hand with mine while I tried to get my emotions back under control.
When he finally pulled away from me, he looked at my face for a long moment before reaching into his pocket.
He pulled out a black ring box, set it on the table beside my ultrasound, and opened it.
My mouth fell open when I saw the huge marquise-cut diamond. My eyes went from the ring to Smoke, and the intensity in his stare made my eyes water before I could even process what the hell was happening. “Sherrod, what the fuck?”
“A nigga came all the way out here tryna surprise you, and somehow yo’ ass surprised me instead.” Smoke glanced at the ultrasound before looking right back at me. “I already told you what’s up, Lace. I love you and I ain’t losin’ yo’ ass this time.”
I stared at him through the tears spilling down my face. “Are you serious?”