Chapter 4 Riptide
Chapter four
Riptide
Waking up to the smell of breakfast was a trip.
My kitchen was usually a ghost town. The only thing my refrigerator stayed stocked with was bottled water.
Most nights if I wasn’t grabbing takeout I was at Eli’s house letting London put a home cooked meal in front of me just so I wouldn’t have to face the silence of my own dining room.
Eli wasn’t just my cousin. He was my partner in every sense of the word.
We had taken my old man’s home renovation company and built it into something he wouldn’t recognize if he were still alive.
We weren’t just fixing up old builds anymore.
We were designing and erecting custom estates from the ground up.
I was the architect, the visionary behind the blueprints, and Eli was the construction manager who made sure the vision stood tall.
Together we were a problem for the competition.
I had even designed my own house. I could still remember the late nights over the drafting table obsessing over every detail.
The massive quartz island with the deep set sink.
The sleek white cabinetry with chrome finishes.
The flat top stove, the double wall ovens, the open concept flow that bled right into the living room.I had built it for a family that existed only in my head when I was drawing it.
Standing at the top of the stairs now, smelling Amina’s bacon, the house felt less like a dream and more like a museum of everything that never happened. I had designed the perfect kitchen for a woman who would never use it.
I took a breath and headed down. I had to play nice for Demi’s sake. I refused to let my daughter grow up thinking that tension and chaos between a man and a woman was just how things were supposed to go.
“What you ladies cooking up?” I asked, stepping into the kitchen.
Demi’s head popped up and she moved too fast, hopping off the barstool and landing with a heavy plop on the hardwood.
She let out a startled wail and I crossed the kitchen in two steps, scooping her up to check for damage.
She was fine. The shock of the floor hitting back scared her more than anything else.
I smothered her in kisses anyway, whispering that she was okay until her sobs softened into hiccups against my chest.
Amina was beside me, rubbing Demi’s back and echoing my reassurances. I noticed she was draped in one of my t-shirts, her curls a frizzy halo around her bare face, smelling like my Old Spice. She had clearly made herself comfortable in my shower and in my clothes.
“I got her,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Check on your bacon before it burns.”
“Shoot,” she muttered, scurrying back to the stove.
The shirt barely covered her ass and I redirected my eyes toward the living room before my body could respond.
Whatever we had been to each other in the past was dead.
She had made sure of that the moment she decided to poke a hole in that condom and change both our lives without asking me.
I settled onto the sectional with Demi and flipped the TV to Ms. Rachel. The second that woman said “Hi friends” my daughter’s whole body relaxed. I pulled a blanket over us both and had about thirty seconds of peace before my phone dinged.
It was the group chat.
Kam: Damn Nique, you might need a Plan B after last night.
I frowned. All kinds of scenarios started running through my head before I could stop them. I knew better than to go where my mind was trying to take me. Kam wouldn’t cross that line knowing how I felt about Nique and Nique damn sure wouldn’t entertain him. Still my blood was already simmering.
Nique: Wtf you talking about?
Kam: I saw the video of you and that stripper.
Nique: Who the fuck recorded that?
London: Not me.
Kam: I saw it on Amina’s IG story.
I looked over at Amina. No surprise there. She was currently recording herself over the stove, wearing a fake sweet smile. “Just whipping up a little breakfast,” she chirped for the camera like she lived there.
“Aye, don’t post that,” I said, walking into the kitchen.
“Why not?” Her attitude surfaced immediately.
I didn’t waste words. I took the phone out of her hand and killed the upload.
“Give me my phone back!” she snapped.
Demi’s eyes went wide from the couch. I dropped my voice low. “Calm your ass down. You’re scaring my baby.”
That worked the way it always did with her.
She backed off just enough for me to scroll through her story.
It was exactly what I expected. Thirsty selfies, boomerangs of London, videos of her and Paris singing in the back of somebody’s car.
Then I hit the one Kam was talking about and my jaw locked.
Some nigga in lime green spandex was handling Nique like she belonged to him, all on her body, grinding on her with everything he had. My chest went tight. I deleted it fast because the longer I watched the more I wanted to find out who he was.
“Why did you delete my video Dex?” Amina fussed, reaching for the phone.
“Because what happens at a bachelorette party stays at a bachelorette party. Keep other people’s business off your page.”
Her phone buzzed before she could respond. It was Paris. Amina answered and put it on speaker without thinking.
“Whatever video you posted of Nique needs to come down right now,” Paris said, skipping the pleasantries. “She is pissed.”
“Her bestie already took care of it,” Amina said, rolling her eyes at me.
“You with Dex?” Paris asked, her tone shifting into something dry and unimpressed.
“Yeah, I’m at his place making breakfast for him and my baby,” Amina said, laying it on thick like she was winning something.
“Girl, y’all are so toxic,” Paris muttered.
“What’s toxic about coparenting with my baby daddy?” Amina frowned.
“If you like it I love it,” Paris said flatly. “Call me when you leave that man’s house.”
The line went dead. Amina searched my face for a reaction.
I didn’t give her one.I walked back to the couch and sat down with Demi, but my mind was still on that video.
That should have been me she was wrapped around.
I knew for a fact her little girlfriend wasn’t out here making her feel like that, and the thought of some random man’s hands on her lit something in me that I had no right to feel but couldn’t turn off.
I also knew through the grapevine that Kel was terrified of flying, which meant she wouldn’t be stepping foot on that plane to Mexico.
That realization hit me like a green light.
I had been thinking about how to fix things between us since Miami, since the moment I watched her face shift when she saw that text on my phone and walked away from me without giving me a chance to explain.
We had been here before. Jamaica. Miami.
Every time we ended up in the same place with enough distance from real life something happened between us that neither of us could explain away in the morning.
The chemistry wasn’t something either of us manufactured.
It was just there, had always been there, and I was done pretending otherwise.
Mexico was going to be different. I wasn’t leaving that resort without making things right.
The only problem sitting between me and that plan was currently burning bacon in my kitchen.
Amina knew exactly what she was doing by inserting herself into this trip.
She knew the history between Nique and me.
She had known since Paris told her about Jamaica, had watched it eat at Nique from the outside while using Demi as a tether to keep herself close to me.
She wasn’t going to Mexico to celebrate London.
She was going to run interference and we both knew it.
I watched her float over and set a plate down in front of me with a self satisfied grin, burnt bacon and pale pancakes arranged like she had prepared something worth being proud of. I picked up my fork and said nothing.
I had a daughter with a woman I didn’t want, a best friend I had broken something real with, and four days in a tropical paradise to try to fix what two years of bad decisions had made worse.
The odds weren’t in my favor, but I had never let that stop me before.