27. Collision Course
Collision Course
U ncle Leon clocked me the second I crossed the threshold. He wiped the same clean spot with a bar rag and lifted his brows.
“Stay cool, Sparky,” he murmured when I kissed his cheek.
“About what?—”
And then I saw her.
Ms. Big Head in a pencil skirt. The history teacher—Carver’s lot last week, and before that The Loupe—eyeing Quentin like he’d been labeled “for faculty use only.” Nia.
Tonight the wrap dress was retired for “I’m at work but still thick” realness, blouse tucked neat, skirt hugging thigh, that body doing violence to department-store neutrals.
A small necklace. Gold studs. Tapered cut gleaming.
Her hand sat on Quentin’s forearm. Not a passing touch. A linger. Her smile said I know exactly who I’m standing with.
My man. My baby’s father.
The words were so loud in my head I almost turned to check if anyone else had heard. Maybe it was hormones. Maybe it was the ghost of fluorescent light, paper gown, and Dr. Rutman’s even voice.
“Congratulations, Rayna. You’re pregnant.”
She’d pushed her glasses up on the chain and waited—no rush, no verdict—while I sat there blinking like my eyelashes could redraw the world.
“How far?” My throat worked around it.
“Based on your LMP and urine test, about five and a half weeks. We’ll confirm with bloodwork and schedule an early ultrasound. Any pain? Spotting?”
“No. Just… nausea.” I didn’t add the rest—that coffee had turned traitor, that fried food was suddenly a crime against me, that my whole body wanted one man and panicked over it at the same time.
“Any support at home?” she asked gently.
I lied. “Yes.”
But the truth was more complicated. The truth was I had to decide if Quentin Hale was just a man who kissed me good, or the man who could carry this with me.
I had to decide if I wanted to hand over not just my body, not just my nights, but this child, this forever, to him.
Could I trust him to be a partner? A father?
Could I trust myself to let him in that far?
That was the gravity. That was the choice. This wasn’t just love and orgasms and the way his eyes found me across a crowded room. This was my life breaking open, my body about to change in ways I couldn’t take back, my heart on the line in a way that made running no longer an option.
And I’d decided. I wanted this baby. I wanted him. I wanted the family we hadn’t even dared to name yet.
Which is why seeing her at The Green Room hit me like a sucker punch.
Ms. Big Head Coleman. Pencil skirt, smirk sharp enough to cut, acting like curiosity excused her crossing lines she had no business near. Smiling like she had a stake in what was mine.
And that’s what it was now. Mine. My man. My baby’s father.
Her presence didn’t just irritate me. It threatened the very confidence I’d scraped together in that paper gown. It whispered, What if you’re wrong? What if he isn’t as free as you think he is? What if you’re about to raise this baby alone?
Uncle Leon’s palm landed on my shoulder, heavy, certain, pulling me back.
“Don’t cut nobody in my place,” he muttered, eyes still on the game.
“I’m calm,” I lied.
But inside? I was anything but calm. Inside, the decision I’d made felt fragile as chalk dust on felt—solid until somebody blew on it.
“It’s so funny running into you here.”
That’s what my mouth said. My body said something else—fists tight on my cue case till the leather complained, breath pulled in even strips like I’d sprinted and refused to show it.
Quentin turned toward my voice. First look, surprise behind those black frames.
Second, with a flicker of oh hell—not guilt, but that caught-with-his-hand-near-the-cookie-jar awareness.
Like he hadn’t even done the dirt yet, but I was already staring him down.
If it were anyone else, I might’ve laughed.
Not tonight. Not with nausea still ghosting my ribs, not with the word pregnant ringing in my skull like church bells I couldn’t un-hear.
Nia’s smile tipped smug, like she’d been waiting for me.
My jaw clenched. My mouth, though—it curved sweet. “Well. Ms. Coleman. History, right? The Loupe… and the school lot.”
I made sure lot landed sharp. Last time we crossed paths, she’d been circling him like she was tenured in his personal space.
Quentin’s glance cut to me—gratitude and dread wrestling in his eyes. Nia brightened, all innocent. The heaux . “That’s right.”
The air inside me felt live, dangerous. “As you know by now, I’m an electrician,” I said, letting it slide silk over steel. “I notice connections. Especially the ones that don’t belong.”
Her brows lifted a hair. “We were talking work.” She tapped his sleeve again, like she wanted to prove me right. “Nothing serious.”
My pulse spiked. I looked at her hand, then the line of his shirt sleeve like I was inspecting a faulty wire. “Mmhmm.”
Quentin cleared his throat, cautious. “Rayna?—”
I cut him off, my voice sweet as honey. “This is school grounds? I must’ve missed that memo.”
Silence hit. Leon huffed a laugh that tried to be a cough and almost lost his rag. My chest burned, but I smiled.
I leaned a hip to the rail, chalked my cue slow, blue dust blooming like smoke. “Since we’re being studious—pop quiz. When a woman keeps showing up where she’s not invited, what’s the polite way to say go home ?”
Her smile faltered and thinned. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Sure you did,” I said, honey-slick, acid underneath. “But the field trip’s over, Ms. Coleman. Papers won’t grade themselves.”
Quentin finally moved. Looked at her hand on his sleeve, then at her face. Teacher-voice flat, final. “Goodnight, Ms. Coleman.”
She read it, I saw it land. Still, she tried a last graze down the seam of his sleeve like an “oops.” I tilted my head and didn’t blink. Her fingers fell.
“Seems I read this all wrong,” she said, chin high.
“Just make sure you take down this history this time,” I shot back, my voice sugary sweet.
Her heels clicked away, each step ringing like chalk snapped in half .
I turned to Quentin. “Don’t stop your game for me,” I said lightly. “Play.”
He searched my face for support. Found none. Nodded and went back to the table.
And unraveled.
He tried to play. Tried to stand tall with those broad shoulders like nothing happened.
But his rhythm was gone. Missed an easy two-ball, scratched on a safe that should’ve been child’s play.
His under-breath count—the four-count that usually steadied his hands—vanished.
His cue looked heavy in his grip, like the weight of my eyes made the wood bend.
The Green Room felt it too. Heads turned. Rail talk thinned. That hush rolled in—the kind of hush that always said somebody’s shook .
I crossed my arms, found a pillar, and watched my own power do what I’ve spent years avoiding—make a man lose his footing. A petty piece of me liked it. A truer piece hated that I liked it.
Tino slid by with two waters, bumped my elbow in uncle-speak. “You want me to bounce her next time?” he murmured.
“She bounced herself,” I murmured back.
“Uh-huh. You ain’t slick,” he said, fond, pressing a bottle into my hand before drifting off to bully the mic stand.
Quentin lost the rack on a miss that he had no business missing. Not a tough cut, not a bank—an easy drop he could’ve sunk blindfolded. The cue ball rolled limp, clattered against the rail, and died.
Heads turned. The hush rolled in—the kind that always says somebody’s shook. His under-breath count—the four-count that usually steadied his hands—vanished. His rhythm was gone, and without it, his whole frame looked wrong. His cue hung heavy in his grip, like my stare had bent the wood.
He set it on the rail harder than he meant to and walked to me.
“Step out with me?” he asked.
I nodded. We hit the night.
Penn Avenue breathed cold—air with teeth. I pulled it in like I was drowning.
Quentin’s hand hovered at my back, not quite touching. My body remembered every place it had, every place it wanted it again, but my mind—my heart—was back in that exam room. Paper gown. Dr. Rutman saying pregnant like it was fact carved in stone.
I’d made a decision that day. I’d said yes without saying it out loud.
Yes to this baby. Yes to the terrifying, beautiful risk of letting myself be a mother.
Yes to trusting him to be more than a good fuck, more than a warm chest at night.
Yes to believing he could be a partner, a father, the anchor my child deserved.
And then that heaux walked into The Green Room like she belonged, and all that confidence wobbled. Shook loose.
Because if Quentin was mine, why did she think she still had a chance? And if she thought it—if she dared it out loud—did that mean part of me wasn’t sure, either?
That was the real scratch. Not her hand on his sleeve, not the smirk she wore like armor. The scratch was inside me—wondering if I was enough to hold him, wondering if the man I’d chosen to build forever with was already mine, or just passing time.
I glanced at him under the streetlight—tall, broad, glasses catching gold—and I wanted to believe. God, I wanted to believe. But belief felt fragile when forever was already blooming inside me.
He turned toward me, jaw set. “Rayna, listen?—”
I put my hand up. “Don’t.”
My palm shook. Not big, just enough that I felt it in my bones. The nausea I’d been holding down rose mean, pressed against my ribs. My body was giving me away.
He stopped. Watched. His jaw ticked once.
“I’m pregnant, Quentin.”
The words ripped out, scraped my throat raw. Saying them out loud made my skin prickle, my belly seize like it didn’t know whether to clutch or soften.
Shock widened his eyes—but it wasn’t just shock. Something else flashed through, fast and bare: recognition. Like a man bracing for a storm he’d already read in the sky. Fear, awe, the weight of knowing—all of it flickered across his face before he caged it tight.
And that hit me harder than his silence. He’d known. Not in words, but in the way his eyes lingered on me, the way his hand rested at my stomach like instinct, the patience he’d wrapped around me all week. He’d known, and he’d been waiting for me to say it.
“I pulled back because I got scared,” I said, voice shaking, belly twisting harder with every syllable.
“Scared fast would be the excuse to run from this—” I pressed a palm to my abdomen, light, terrified—“baby. Then I told myself what we have is real, no matter the pace. But every time I blink, that bitch is in your space. Wherever you are, there her bobblehead ass is.”
I saw him cover his smile before turning serious. “She works with me.” His voice was way too contained.
“This is work?” My voice leapt, hot and ugly. Too loud. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, Baby, don’t let them catch you looking out there looking like a messy bitch.
I swallowed it down, but it burned all the way. My stomach lurched again.
“We’re not doing this out here,” I said, quieter. “It’s been fast. I didn’t know everything. But I know enough.” I took a step back, because my body was already leaning forward, aching for him even in fury. “Don’t worry about the baby. Live your life. Have fun. I’ll figure it out.”
He reached—not to grab, but to anchor, his hand half-raised, steady. My chest clenched, nausea rolling hot. Touching him would’ve broken me wide open, forced everything out—the truth of how his voice steadied me, how his glasses made me feel safe, how I wanted him everywhere I was.
“Rayna—”
I ran.
Not a sprint. That fast, proud walk that pretends it isn’t fleeing. Boots slapping concrete. Keys clacking in my palm. My stomach pitching, throat burning. Altima. Door. Ignition. Pull out like the road moved just for me .
The tears came at the first red light. Hot. Stupid. I swiped at them with the heel of my hand, gagged on the salt taste sliding down my throat. The nausea, the fear, the anger—they all piled into the passenger seat, crowding me out of my own body until the city smeared into streaks of wet light.
My car didn’t ask where we were going. It knew. Daddy’s house. Porch light glowing steady like it had been waiting on me, like it always would.
Inside, he was posted in his recliner, the jumbotron humming some game he wasn’t even watching. I barely made it two steps before the nausea twisted sharp again, bile creeping high. I pressed a fist to my mouth, trying to will it down.
Daddy stood slow, eyes narrowing the way they did whenever he knew I wasn’t right. He didn’t ask questions. He just went to the fridge, grabbed two beers, and handed one my way.
The smell alone turned my stomach. I shook my head quick, bile crawling. “I can’t.”
He studied me—beer heavy in his hand—then grunted like something had clicked into place. He set mine aside, cracked his own, and eased back down. A pat to the couch cushion followed, no words. Just an opening.
I sank. The leather squeaked under me, my body vibrating with anger, grief, nausea, fear. Hands shaking in my lap until Daddy’s big palm found my back, once, twice. Slow circles, the same way he used to steady me over breakers and sockets when I was a kid.
That broke me.
The tears came ugly—hiccuping, choking, tearing up my chest. My head fell to his shoulder, soaking his T-shirt, and I hated myself for needing to be somebody’s child when I’d just told Quentin I could handle it alone. But Daddy didn’t flinch. He let me pour every jagged thing out until I was empty.
“It’s gonna be okay, baby,” he said finally, voice low, steady as a benediction.
The words didn’t ask. Didn’t demand. They just held me, long enough for me to lean.