Creed-
"You're forcing the man to be your sperm donor, just like his momma did with your daddy.
That’s very fucking ironic."
Tempest threw her head back in laughter, and I instinctively leaned away from her.
Some Black folks liked to playfully hit you when they laughed, but Tempest's heavy-handed ass was extra with it.
Had my ass wanting to hit her back for real.
After an awkward family breakfast at my parents'—which my momma insisted on having—I had left their house.
The mixture of sorrow for my granny and the fucked-up amount of tension between all of us made the house feel suffocating, even the guest house.
We were sitting in the living room of Tempest's condo on Clearwater Beach.
Her legs were propped up on the table, her swollen feet resting uneasily.
The way they looked like they were about to burst, and the way her nose had spread, had me reconsidering pregnancy.
She was still beautiful, though, even if she looked like she was in pain.
I frowned momentarily before quickly straightening my expression.
"I don’t even think he sees the irony.
He’ll get it eventually.
Hopefully, I'll be pregnant and back in Atlanta by then."
She made a face.
"Are you sure this is what you want to do, though?"
Was that really what I wanted?
I had sat up all night worrying about my grandmother and plotting my revenge.
Keeping my child from my family would devastate them, especially Noah.
He’d have to deal with not seeing his child and not telling anybody it was his, but he’d do it because he knew I could make life unbearable for Maine if I chose to.
We might share a father, but my mother was mine, and I knew I could sow discord between them. I’m sure Noah realized that too. Who would Maine have beside Noah if I made it uncomfortable for her to be around? Not her momma. Tiffany didn’t give a fuck about them. Noah would do anything for Maine to be happy because he was always trying to compensate for their deadbeat momma. For DJ's sake, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
"Yes," I finally answered.
"This is what I want to do."
Tempest shook her head, her face contorted.
"You look like your momma, but you're as spiteful as your daddy.
I hope none of this backfire," she said, just before her front door slammed open.
We both turned our heads in the direction of the noise just in time to see her father stride in.
It was ten in the morning, and I knew for a fact he had nowhere to be.
But he dressed in an expensive black suit.
He looked damn good in it too, with his big muscular body and salt-and-pepper hair. Old Creed would have been on some taboo, "fuck-your-best-friend's-daddy" type shit. The new me dropped my eyes and pushed away the nasty thoughts before they took root.
"Hello, Father," Tempest greeted cheerfully.
She didn’t say a thing to him about busting into her house with his face fixed in a near scowl.
Mr.
DeMarco was interesting.
I wasn’t sure where he fell on the spectrum, but I knew he was somewhere on there.
Or maybe he had a personality disorder. Unlike most people with issues, he didn’t mask himself. The only person who could make him smile was his wife, Momma Nova. And she took pleasure in getting a reaction out of him. Even though she wasn’t there, I did what she'd recently taught me to do when he walked into a room. I got up and walked right up to him, offering a side hug. I looked up at him, putting on my best puppy-dog eyes, and called him Grandpa.
Tempest burst into laughter.
His scowl softened a bit.
I knew he liked me.
He had offered to kill for me.
He and AJ had replaced ‘I love you’ with, ‘who do you want dead?’
When they said little girls looked for men like their fathers, Tempest was the perfect example.
AJ was exactly like DeMarco.
Though his father was the opposite of DeMarco.
Mr. Atticus was a peculiar blend of smooth criminal mafia type, and country boy all in one. It didn’t make sense. He and his wife, Grace. They mostly lived in their hometown of Moss Point, Mississippi, but he spoke fluent Italian and had a villa in Northern Italy. AJ said he'd tell me his daddy's story one day, but something told me I was better off not knowing. AJ talked more than DeMarco, even more than Mr. Atticus, but usually about gruesome shit no one wanted to hear about. I teased Tempest about him being a serial unaliver. When I first met him, that was my best guess, but he turned out to be an FBI agent. Tempest's entire family was an odd bunch, but I liked being around them.
Mr.
DeMarco stepped out of my embrace.
"Creed," he said—his way of acknowledging my presence.
Then he turned his attention to his daughter.
"Your mother didn’t think a phone call would be enough.
She wanted me to lay eyes on you personally." He shoved his phone in her face.
"She's on FaceTime." With that, he walked off.
I excused myself to let Tempest speak with her mother and stepped onto the terrace overlooking the beach.
Immediately, my mind drifted back to my situation with Noah.
Was I being unreasonable? I didn’t think so.
He played a role in fucking up my life. I should return the favor.
My cell vibrated in the side pocket of the strapless maxi dress I was wearing, interrupting the background laughter of Tempest's phone call with her mom.
I pulled it out and saw that Devon was calling me.
I let it ring, and as soon as it stopped, a text message came in: "I'm outside Tempest's condo.
I know you wouldn't go anywhere else. Can we talk?"
A sigh escaped my lips as I scratched my scalp in annoyance.
I had to go down and talk to him.
I didn’t want his stupid ass to do anything dumb and end up missing because he upset Tempest.
When I walked back into the house, Tempest was still on the phone, laughing with her mom.
Mr.
DeMarco was staring at her feet in disgust.
I knew as soon as his wife couldn’t hear him, he would say something blunt that could be interpreted as an insult. But Tempest would just laugh it off. She understood how her dad and husband were—honest to a fault.
I signaled to Tempest that I'd call her later before stepping into the elevator and taking it downstairs.
Devon was standing next to my car.
Just looking at him irked my nerves.
"Get away from this girl’s house before her husband gets back," I hissed, my words laced with warning.
Tempest didn’t like him, so AJ didn’t either.
I didn’t want AJ fucking him up in my honor.
He reached out to grab my arm as I tried to sidestep him and reach for the driver's door.
"Let’s go somewhere and talk," he urged, his fingers tightening around my arm.
I snatched my arm away.
"There's nothing to talk about.
You fucked my sister.
You were actively fucking her during our relationship and have a child with her."
"But that's not what happened," he countered.
I couldn’t help but laugh at his whiny tone, but I also cocked my head, curiosity getting the better of me.
He ran a hand over his hair, a nervous habit of his.
"Maine told me she liked me before graduation.
I always knew, but I never saw her in that light.
I made it clear to her that I was interested in you."
He let out a sigh.
"That last night on the beach, when I woke up the next morning, you had left without a word.
I figured you weren’t interested.
I was disappointed, but I wasn’t going to bother you again."
I dropped my head, recalling that morning.
I had gotten up before everybody so I could wash Noah's scent off me and his cum out of me.
Devon continued after another sigh.
"I got up from the beach, went to the hotel to take a shower and pack.
Maine walked into the bathroom, completely naked.
She claimed it was a mistake. Then told me how you told her you weren’t interested in me. She kissed me, and I kissed her back. It escalated. We fucked. I didn’t think I did anything wrong. You and I weren’t together. When you called to invite me to your parents' fourth of July party, I planned to tell you what happened. You didn’t even come down. I left, thinking I’d never see you again. In Atlanta, I tried to tell you, but you told me to leave past relationships behind. I took the out. It wasn’t until a year after we’d been together that I found out about DJ. Maine convinced me it wasn’t a good time to tell you because you were still hurting from losing Compton. I never touched her besides that one time."
I frowned.
"Jason said it was last year when he caught you two having sex."
"That’s complete bullshit.
It never happened," he spat vehemently.
"I put that on my momma.
You know Jason will do anything if Maine tells him to. After I found out about DJ, I was pissed. I didn’t want to interact with Maine at all. I had my mother pick DJ up from Maine’s so my family could spend time with him, and when I was in town. I haven’t been in a room alone with Maine in five years."
Taking a moment, I processed everything he’d said, feeling both lost and exhausted.
I didn’t know who to believe anymore.
Everybody had lied, twisted the truth, kept secrets.
And now Devon was standing here, trying to convince me that he’d just been caught up in the middle, that he’d only messed up once. But how could I trust any of it?
After a deep breath, I shrugged.
"In the end, it doesn’t matter how it happened, Devon.
The fact remains that you lied to me.
You let me build a life with you, knowing all along that DJ was yours. That’s something I can’t forgive."
He opened his mouth to protest, but I raised a hand to stop him.
"We’re done.
This whole mess has shown me exactly who you are.
Go be with Maine, or don’t—I don’t care.
But don’t ever think about coming back to me. Whatever we had, whatever we could have had, it’s gone."
I pushed past him, and slid into the driver’s seat of my car.
I didn’t wait for him to respond.
I shut the door and started the engine.
As I backed out of the driveway, I caught a glimpse of him standing there, looking lost, maybe even hurt. But I was done with his excuses and his guilt-tripping. He’d made his choices, and so had I.
As I drove away, my phone buzzed on the seat beside me.
I glanced down and saw my father’s name on the screen.
My chest tightened.
"Daddy?"
"Creed." His voice was strained, and in the background, I could hear my momma crying.
Scarlett-
“I don’t care anymore, Scar.
You can't bribe me with pussy.
I’m not scared of your anger.
I’m telling Creed that I didn’t know anything about DJ being Devon’s until the same day she found out.”
He wouldn’t stop pacing the length of our bedroom.
I watched him from the chair in front of my vanity.
“No, you aren’t going to do that.”
“Why not?”
he yelled.
“My own daughter won’t even look me in the eye right now.”
“Because it's not the right time, Troy.
My mother is in the hospital.
And I understand why you’re upset.
I know you don’t realize it and never did it on purpose, but everybody else knows Creed is your favorite. Your tether baby. The only one you can look at and not have to think about drama.”
His eyes locked onto mine, his expression a mix of anger and disbelief.
“Are you accusing me of loving my kids unequally?”
I shook my head.
“That's not what I said.”
He was purposely being difficult.
“Creed is just your favorite.
She was the one you absolutely wanted.
You tricked me into having her.
You're the reason she acts the way she does.
The way Maine acts is a direct result of how you've treated Creed.
Jason didn’t need to be coddled, so he didn’t care about the extra time you spent with Creed, or how you gave her special little gifts, or went out of your way to make her smile.
You used to walk around holding her like she was a baby doll.
You rarely put her down.
For God’s sake, you cried like a baby in front of all of us when we had to leave her with my parents for a tour.
Maine saw all of it.
She also had to deal with the stigma of who her mother was. Kids used to tease her about what happened between you and her mother. They called her a rape baby. So, of course, she has some issues.
“Tiffany, I had a fucked-up past.
I still don't like her, but I never mistreated Maine, and I poured as much of myself into her as I did Creed.
Even if I didn’t, that doesn’t excuse Maine’s behavior.
Creed's been good at turning the other cheek when it came to her siblings. She shouldn’t have to in this situation.”
I shook my head.
“I’m not excusing her behavior.
I’m explaining it.”
He shook his head.
“Maine is the way she is because she's manipulative, just like her mother.
I would never say this in front of her, but she is.
Look at the Devon situation.
I sat down with him and refrained from hurting him because I wanted to hear his side.
He said he told Maine he didn’t want her, told her he planned to pursue Creed.
Went on a date with Creed, only for Maine to tell him Creed wasn’t interested without ever talking to Creed.
That doesn’t sit right with me, and it shouldn’t with you.
But you always overcompensate when it comes to Maine because you don’t want her to feel left out or neglected.
By doing so, you’ve unintentionally fostered an environment where she feels entitled to everything and manipulates us.
Like when she moved out.
We bought her and Jason that duplex. She turned down our help to pay for movers to move her furniture from her college apartment, saying we’d done too much and she'd do it herself, just to turn around and ask us to furnish the whole place with new furniture. And when I said no, what did she do, Scar?”
He didn’t give me a chance to answer, he did it for me.
“She cried to you, and you gave her a furniture allowance, and we still had to pay someone to move the previous furniture we’d bought her only seven or eight months earlier.
She's a brat.
A bigger one than Creed ever was.”
He stared me down, daring me to say anything, and I wouldn’t, because he was right.
I wouldn’t tell him it out loud, but sometimes I felt like I was the reason Tiffany had abandoned Maine.
The feeling was irrational.
She had done the same to Noah, but I always felt the need to make up for it.
Troy nodded, as if he’d made up his mind and it couldn’t be changed.
“As soon as Creed gets back, I’m telling her, “He said before he left the room.
I was left alone to dwell on what would happen next.
His anger and frustration were justified, and I couldn't fault him for wanting to tell the truth, but I just wished he’d wait.
Yes, it was for purely selfish reasons.
I didn’t want to have the type of standoffish relationship with Creed that I had with my mother, and if Troy told her that I knew about Devon and he didn’t, that’s exactly what would happen. What’s messed up is that I’d known since the day DJ was born. I walked into the room while Maine was asleep, and the paperwork for the birth certificate was just lying there and Devon had signed it. I honestly didn’t know what to do or say, so I did and said nothing.
I shook my head.
I couldn’t believe the mess Maine had made of our already dysfunctional family.
The ringing of my phone pulled me out of my thoughts.
I rushed to grab it from the nightstand. It was the hospital.
I said a silent prayer that they were calling to tell me my mother had woken up and was going to be okay.