30. Break & Belly #2
I broke and the table sang—three down clean. The room stood up with me. I talked myself through the next shots: breathe, lock the wrist, trust the math. Nugget rolled and settled. I swear I felt them listening too.
I got funky with a two-rail bank I had no business loving. It kissed home like it belonged there. Somebody yelled, “My God!” like I’d parted the Monongahela with a cue.
Then the belly cinched tight, longer than before.
Not a sip—more like a swallow. I closed my eyes.
Counted. Quentin’s hand found the small of my back and pressed warmth into it like an offering.
Mama edged close enough that I could hear her bracelets whisper.
“Long exhale,” she said, low. I gave it to her, the air leaving like a ribbon.
“You good?” he asked, barely sound.
“Yup.” I cut my eyes at him. “Shoot before I change my mind.”
He stepped in with a measured breath and of course— it was his cleanest rhythm of the night.
He ran a ladder like he’d built it himself: three, five, seven, set me sweet on the eight.
He looked up, checked me, asked without asking.
I rolled my shoulders, nodded, then lined up like a woman about to end a chapter and start another.
Tap-tap. Inhale. Exhale.
The eight dropped. The room held its breath. Just the nine left—long, honest, center pocket. My belly tugged again, not as mean. Nugget knew the assignment.
“Finish,” Quentin breathed while sliding his glasses on. Not order. Benediction.
I stroked through. Smooth. Clean. The nine rolled like a yes and fell like a promise kept.
The Green Room erupted—Tino banging the mic, Uncle Leon slapping the bar, Shawna shrieking a pitch I didn’t know she owned.
Daddy whooped like the first time I sank a shot on the basement table when I was ten.
Ma smiled softly, yelling, “that’s my baby” over the crowd.
And that’s when the big squeeze hit—low, tight, the kind that didn’t ask permission.
I put my hand on the rail and laughed. It came out watery, ridiculous, full of everything. “Okay.”
Quentin slid in front of me, eyes gone wide behind those black frames. He pushed them up with one finger—the thing he does when he’s already three steps ahead. “How far apart?”
“Mind your business,” I said, then curled a little, let a breath shiver. “About… now.”
He nodded like I’d just confirmed a weather report. “We’re four minutes from Magee with the lights we got. You’ve had three in the last forty-ish minutes. We’ll get your bag—Jada’s got it in the car, she told me, because she doesn’t trust either of us. We’re fine.”
It didn’t feel like panic. It felt like a man who had mapped every route to me and folded them into his pocket.
Shawna appeared at my elbow with water and a fan she claimed she didn’t carry but absolutely did. “Say the word, I’m cussing everybody out.”
Keisha pressed a kiss to my cheek, eyes bright. “You did so good.”
Daddy cupped the back of my head and kissed my forehead, voice gone low in a way I hadn’t heard since I was small.
“I’m right behind y’all.” Mama’s palm slid across my cheek, cool from the napkin, warm from her skin.
“We’re right behind you,” she said, and when Daddy slipped an arm around her waist, neither of them made a deal of it. The cruise was in their eyes anyway.
Darren—big, protective—faked a calm that didn’t reach his hands. “Let’s move, Rae.”
“Wait.” I turned, grabbed Quentin’s shirt, pulled him down to me. The whole room was a noise I loved, but the only sound I needed right then was him. “We won.”
He grinned, forehead pressed to mine. “We did.”
“And I did not cheat just ’cause I’m carrying your good luck charm.”
He laughed, then kissed me—soft, fast, packed with that thing we never had the right word for. He pulled away and his eyes shined like he’d just solved for x and found forever.
Tino yelled, “Make a lane! We got a champion and a baby coming through!”
The Green Room parted like Moses finally respected East Liberty. Our people surrounded without smothering—hands on shoulders, quick hugs, jokes to keep the air light.
Malik jogged ahead and pulled the door, bowing like the clown he is. “Don’t name the baby after me unless you want pure chaos.”
Cierra swatted him and cried anyway. “Text us! Every hour!”
Outside, the air was warm and slick with June.
The sky sat deep and velvet, like it had been saving itself for exactly this kind of night.
Quentin guided me to this truck with that firm, gentle hand that always knows the right amount of pressure.
Jada popped out of his passenger side holding a tote like she’d been waiting on a whistle.
“Snacks, charger, robe, chapstick,” she rattled.
“And the playlist with no slow sad songs because no one needs that energy.”
“See,” I huffed, climbing in between squeezes, “this is why I like your people.”
“Our people,” Quentin corrected, buckling me in. His fingers were sure, his mouth soft. “You ready?”
“No,” I said honestly, a laugh breaking on the word. “Yes.”
He jogged around, slid into the driver’s seat, pushed those glasses up again, and looked over at me like he was memorizing the five most important things on earth.
“Hey,” he said, voice a shade to the left of reverent. “You did that.”
“About to do this, too,” I muttered, as another wave rolled in. I breathed through it, eyes on him. “Don’t you speed. ”
“I won’t,” he promised, already easing us into the street. “But I might run one very polite yellow.”
As we pulled off, I looked back through the windshield.
The Green Room crew spilled onto the sidewalk, clapping and hollering like they’d just watched the end of a movie they were going to talk about forever.
Daddy lifted his chin. Uncle Leon saluted with his rag.
Shawna blew a kiss like a threat if I didn’t text.
Malik pretended to faint and Cierra laughed into his shoulder.
Keisha held the boys, both heads tucked under her chin, the picture of Sunday-morning peace on a Friday night.
Mama rested her hand on Daddy’s forearm—easy, familiar—and he covered it, both of them smiling like the ship had maybe turned back toward shore.
I turned forward and grabbed Quentin’s hand on the console. He laced our fingers without looking, thumb stroking once—one, two, three, four—his little secret count that always pulls my breath into rhythm.
“You know what I was thinking tonight?” I said, my voice small because the wave had just let me go.
“What?”
“That I used to be proud of being a loner. At the table. In my life. Thought the game was cleaner when it was just me.” I smiled, sudden and stupid with joy that hurt. “But we run cleaner together.”
His jaw worked. He squeezed my hand, eyes on the road, glasses catching the streetlights like tiny moons. “That’s been the math since the night I met you, Rayna.”
I let my head fall back against the seat.
Another squeeze gathered, climbed, crested.
I breathed and let it move through. With every inhale, I caught the past few months like snapshots—the day I told him I was pregnant and ran, the way he found me on Daddy’s couch the next morning and didn’t try to fix what he could only hold; Grandma telling him he was an anchor and not a chain; my mother’s hands and her quiet confession about the marriage she’d left and the love that never stopped; the way Nia’s shadow had finally slid off my life like it never fit; Malik asking for Whitaker Electric in his program and me and Daddy saying yes without even thinking; Quentin’s ring still in the little box on my dresser, waiting for after the swelling in my fingers went down. All that mess. All that mercy.
The wave eased. I breathed, opened my eyes.
Quentin looked over, mouth tilted in that way that says he’s half in prayer, half in science. “You good?”
I nodded, tears hot and ridiculous and exactly right. “We’re good.”
He smiled, then tapped the brakes gently at the light. The women’s hospital sign glowed ahead like the next rack waiting to be broken.
“Hey,” he said again, softer, and there was the heat under it, the claim that lived in his bones when he said my name. “We got this.”
Nugget kicked, like a fist bump from the inside.
“Yeah,” I whispered, squeezing his hand back, my belly tight and life louder than any room I’d ever played. “We do.”