Sterling
EVERYTHING HAD BEEN going so well. After Aldrich had his game against the Stars, we were thrown even more in the spotlight.
Because of that, Billy asked me to meet her for lunch so that she could see where my head was at.
I’d shared with her my lack of wanting to be under scrutiny and she could tell by the way I didn’t use my family name that fame wasn’t for me.
I wanted calm but I wasn’t going to leave Aldrich to get it.
We’d had a nice lunch and she’d fawned over Ami as soon as she woke up. At six months old, she was reaching for everything on my plate and I had to keep a close eye on her so she wouldn’t get hurt. “You are really good for her.”
I glanced up at her and she had those multi-hued eyes glistening like she was watching something adorable. “Yeah.”
I tried to be convincing but clearly I was wearing my emotions on my sleeve.
The most harmful of what was being said about me was that I had basically stolen Ami’s mother’s life and that shit was haunting me.
No one knew the real reason why that girl was dead and that she had basically committed suicide.
But the life we lived inside our home no one got to see.
And despite my having a thick skin, I was sensitive when it came to them speaking on my baby.
I’d dressed her in a dark pink romper with a matching bow that made her melanin-rich skin pop.
It complemented the dark pink pants and cream silk shirt I’d worn to meet Billy.
“Uh-oh. I know that sound. Tell me what’s going on.
” She sat back and crossed her legs in the cream sheath dress she had on.
Her style was very much boss but she had a feminine flair to all of it that was so uniquely her.
The ruffled gauze shirt she wore beneath her dress gave the right amount of softness to her look.
Like she wanted you to have something pretty to look at while she robbed you and got her players max deals.
“Is that how it works? I just spill my guts because you ask?”
Billy looked shocked as though I was the first person who ever questioned whether they should confide in her.
“I mean…yeah? Wow, I’ve never had anyone question it before.
Am I being intrusive? I do that sometimes but I mean well.
I just see you’ve got this sadness floating around you.
It’s why she’s fussy, she can feel your emotions. ”
Ami was whining and trying to gnaw on my fingers and she drooled on my hand. “I’m just having a hard time with where I stand right now.”
“Because you’ve moved from caregiver to live-in girlfriend?” She nodded her understanding and I appreciated how insightful she was.
“Yeah. And I’m attached.” I leaned down to the dark brown curls on top of Ami’s head and inhaled her scent. There was no way I could not be attached being around her as much as I was.
“I’d imagine so, Sterling. But I’m still not seeing the problem.”
“We could break up tomorrow—”
Billy huffed a laugh and waved me off. “You’d get a ring on your finger before Money did something that stupid.”
“But I’m not her mother. I might feel like it. I might take care of her like it, but one day she’s going to have questions. And no matter how much I love her, she’s going to be upset that her real mother isn’t here.” I had to blink several times because I could feel the tears start to well up.
She sat upright and looked surprised at my confession. “Is that honestly what you think?”
“Yes. I might not like my mother but I know her. I feel like I destiny swapped with some girl I didn’t even know.”
“You definitely didn’t do that. It takes a conniving bitch to step into someone else’s life and it always comes back to bite them.
But what you need to understand is that she’s always going to see you as her mother.
Be honest with her, but bonds have been formed, Sterling.
She’s not going to love you any less.” Billy was staring at me sympathetically but she was speaking like she could understand where my doubts were coming from.
Shifting Ami again I didn’t want to be nosy but I had to ask, “How do you know?”
She smiled gently before she picked up her phone and hit a number. “From experience.”
I waited because I had a dozen questions. I’d met Billy’s mother and they favored each other far too much for her not to be biologically related. Maybe she was an aunt or some other relative. I thought about Yzabel and she was the spitting image of her mother so I know she wasn’t adopted.
“Yes, Willa?” Her mother’s heavily accented voice came through the line and there was dim noises in the background.
“Mama is Destiny close by?” My ears perked up because why would she be asking for Destiny?
Her daughter had the perfect mix of her parent’s features. Her hair was the same curly blonde as her father and her skin tone was similar to her mother’s. She had the most vividly colored violet eyes I’d ever seen on a human but she couldn’t have been talking about Destiny.
“You know your daughter wouldn’t be anywhere else but underfoot. Desi, mommy’s on the phone!”
I heard Destiny speaking about something to her grandmother before she got closer to the phone. After a little fumbling, her voice came over the phone. “Hi Mommy.”
Billy’s face lit up the way I was sure mine would whenever Ami started to speak.
Even now when she reached for me I was sure I looked that way.
Like everything right in my world was owed to her.
I was thankful that the restaurant we were in had placed us in a back corner so that no one could overhear such a deeply personal conversation.
“Hello my love. One of Mommy’s friends has a problem and I want you to help me help her, okay?” Billy’s voice was softer but not a baby voice.
“Ohhh, like a big girl? I can do that!”
Her enthusiasm was contagious because I was ready to pick this little girl up for a playdate. Billy turned the phone around and Destiny waved at me as she grinned. “Hi Ms. Sterling! How is baby Ami? Is she coming to play with the twins soon?”
I glanced down at Ami who had looked around when she heard her name being called. “She’s almost old enough and then yes I’ll be more than happy to come and let her play.”
Destiny’s eyes lit up like she had an amazing idea. “Or you can come pick them up. They’ve started to get into my room and—”
“Destiny Grayson that is not why you’re on the phone!” Billy took the phone back and gave her a mama look that she’d better stop playing with her.
“Sorry, Mommy.” Her tone of voice let me know she really wanted them kids to stay out of her room and she wasn’t the least bit sorry.
“Do you remember when me and daddy talked to you about your other parents?” My breath stilled because she was being this open with me and I hated to feel like I’d forced her to bring up something that was painful for her.
But the look on her face made it look as though this wasn’t some deep family secret.
Especially if a five-year-old who was friendly with everyone like Destiny knew something.
“Yes ma’am. They had to go away to be safe.”
Billy nodded and the two tendrils she’d left out in the front of her face shook while the rest of her bun was still intact. “That’s right. How do you feel about them?”
“I love them because they made sure that I would have you.” My heart damn near stopped with how she was saying the words I would hope I would hear from Ami one day.
“Are you still okay with Mommy being your mommy?”
“Of course, silly, you’re always going to be my mommy no matter what. And Daddy is going to be my daddy. He says I can stay here in my room until I’m thirty-five.”
Billy laughed and I knew she was grateful for it because she’d started to tear up. “Absolutely not. But Ms. Sterling wanted to hear from someone who has two mommies how you felt about it.”
“My other mommy can’t give me presents but I know she had to love me to find me a mommy like you. I’m glad she carried me in her tummy but I only want you for my mommy. You love me and take care of me and I love you.”
It was wild to hear but this little girl couldn’t have been over five and was getting emotional thinking about how much she loved her mom. Billy, of course, was trying to hold it in but she had watery eyes and Destiny did too.
“Thank you, baby. I love you, too. So very much.”
“I know. I’m a superhero. Daddy said I saved his life.”
Billy choked up then and a tear fell down her face and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. Instead, she just smiled and nodded at her daughter. “You saved mine too, baby. But give your Gigi the phone okay? I’ll see you when I get home.”
“Okay, Mama. I love you.”
“I love you too Desi girl.” Her mother came back to the phone, and she quickly assured her everything was fine and Billy promised her she’d be home within a few hours to help with dinner.
“Now, you were saying?”
“That seemed too easy.” I wiped my face because I wasn’t ashamed at how I’d been moved by the way they were talking to and about one another
Billy used her napkin to blot at her face and she took a sip of her water to calm her nerves.
“It’s not. Her parents were on the run for their lives and dropped her off at a hospital.
It was easier for them to leave her here in their minds without them than to have her go back home without means to take care of her.
Coby’s foster mother is a social worker so she found her and called me immediately.
She forced Coby to be selfless at a time when he was so bogged down in grief that he became severely depressed.
I’d just had a miscarriage and we were on the verge of a divorce.
I wasn’t eating and things were just bad between us. ”
“The two of you? No way.” That man looked at his wife as if she were the center of his entire world. The same thing with his children but I’d clearly missed the tragic part of their fairytale and was only witnessing their living happily ever after.
Her eyes looked stormy like even thinking about that time dredged up the memories all over again. “Love is a tricky thing. Because as much as you have it if you can’t receive it and work through your shit it won’t be enough. But tighten up.”
“Me?” She went from being all sweet to getting in my ass.
“Yes you. I get it. I swear to you I do. You’re in a situation where you don’t know where you stand not just with the baby, but with the man.
Jacoby had the same feelings because we weren’t technically together when I decided I wanted to move forward to adopt Destiny.
He started to come around and I got knocked up without even realizing it. ”
My mouth was hanging open and I was getting all her business today. “Not the Desperados being like damn Dynasty. Y’all got all kinds of shit going on.”
“Girl, this team has more drama than The Game did.”
“And now I’m a part of it. But what made him decide to adopt her?”
“I went back and had the paperwork amended to add his name when I saw he was going to do right.” She smiled brightly and I swore I was the one with the bright-eyed look.
“Were you worried?”
“No. The ring on my finger and his didn’t make my decision for me.
If he wasn’t going to act right I would’ve filed the paperwork and represented myself.
But he showed me who he was again. Battled the darkest parts of himself, worked on himself once he got over his depression and was there the way he was always meant to be.
He put in the work and there was no one I would want to do life with but him.
I was grateful that he got his act together because I wouldn’t have loved anyone the way I loved him. But I wasn’t pulling his deadweight.”
“Damn. Looking at the two of you I wouldn’t have ever thought that either of you had known a minute of sadness in this world. But to hear everything y’all went through—”
“It’s comforting?” She grinned like she knew I wanted to say yes.
I felt bad because yes was exactly what I wanted to scream but it seemed rude as hell.
“Well, no, because I feel so bad for you. The idea of how much sadness y’all would’ve been going through is so heavy.
But right now I feel like I can commiserate.
I don’t know what is going on with my future but I am so attached.
I feel like her mother and even when I try to keep myself away from the attachment, I can’t. I’m so in love with this baby—”
“And her daddy.”
I wasn’t about to deny it because the truth was there. “And her daddy. We feel like a family and there is a part of me that has me wondering if that’s what he wants.”
“Ask him.”
I pouted and threw a mini tantrum in my seat. “I can’t. He says I’m her mama but talk is cheap. It all feels good and sounds good but she’s still not mine. And I know I need to stop stressing about it but I don’t want him to pull her away from me. It would break my heart to be a day without her.”
“Not having Destiny would’ve gutted me for sure. Extremely.”
“Now imagine losing Jacoby and Destiny at the same time.”
Her face turned sympathetic realizing I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. “Damn. I understand completely. I lost our first baby before I knew he or she was even there and that loss was enough for me to stop caring about everything. The idea of losing a child I am attached to would gut me.”
“And that’s why I’m not sure what to do.”
“You give it time and, when the moment comes, bring it up. I’m sure that Aldrich is too busy to think about something like this, but that’s no excuse.
You’re his partner and season or not, he’s got to do his job and reaffirm you.
Make sure you hold him accountable and you don’t let him off the hook because he strokes you right. ”
“Billy!” I couldn’t believe she’d just said that out in public but she didn’t look at all apologetic.
“Girl, I am not your mama. But are you guys coming to the twin’s birthday party?”
“Yes, Aldrich picked our costumes so if it’s a hot mess, blame him.”
She chuckled but I knew she knew it was a real possibility that we were going to show up as something ridiculous. “I’ll keep that in mind, but his wanting the task is a good sign. Go ahead and prepare yourself, Sterling. Changes are coming and I can tell they’re going to be good.”