Chapter 6 Low Tide
Chapter six
Low Tide
I took my time chalking the tip of my cue, turning it slow and steady until it was dusted just right. Then I leaned over the pool table and lined up the bank shot on the eight ball, tracing the angle like I could already see the path it would take.
We were in Eli’s basement, a space I’d helped design with the same precision I put into everything else. Plush charcoal carpet, recessed lighting, a custom built bar. Our company Elidex had built this house from the ground up, but London had turned it into a home.
In the lounge area their daughter Heavyn was glued to the TV. Bluey was playing, the bright colors reflecting in her wide eyes. She was turning two in July, just a couple months after Demi’s birthday in May.
Watching Eli glance over at his daughter with that easy natural pride always twisted something in my gut. He had done it the right way. He had impregnated the woman he actually loved and been present for every ultrasound, every midnight craving, every contraction.
I had been a ghost.
I avoided Amina like she was a plague during her entire pregnancy.
At first I convinced myself she was lying to keep me on a leash.
When the bump started showing I told myself the math didn’t add up.
I demanded a prenatal paternity test, and when she refused, saying she wasn’t about to turn her pregnancy into a spectacle, I doubled down on my coldness.
I missed the appointments. I skipped the baby shower.
I wasn’t even in the room when Demi took her first breath.
I showed up at the hospital with a heart full of ice and paperwork requesting a DNA test, acting like a lab result was the only thing that could make it real.
They handled the swabs right there, clinical and quick, while my daughter lay in the bassinet a few feet away.
I didn’t hold her that day. I was too busy waiting on results to tell me what her face already was.
I feel like a piece of shit about it every single day.
Demi is a carbon copy of me and the guilt of those early months eats at me in ways I can’t explain.
I’m trying to make up for lost time, but you can’t recover time you spent wishing your own child didn’t exist.
“Your shot, man,” Eli said, pulling me out of my head.
I shook it off and leaned back over the table. Before I could line up the cue again the basement steps groaned. London came down and the vibe shifted immediately. She wasn’t the glowing bride to be who had been floating around lately. Her eyes were red and her face was puffy.
Heavyn squealed and launched herself off the couch toward her mama, completely unbothered by the cloud hanging over the room. London forced a smile and scooped her up, but the mask was slipping.
Eli clocked it before she hit the bottom step. He set his cue down and moved toward her.
“London, what’s wrong baby?”
She took a shaky breath. “Just had an argument with Nique. She dropped out of the wedding.”
The room went dead silent. The poolstick suddenly felt like a lead weight in my hand.
Nique was the backbone of that family. She wouldn’t bail on London’s biggest day without a reason that cut deep.
“What happened at brunch?” I asked.
London looked at me, a fresh tear tracking down her cheek. “Nel asked me to invite Stella. We told Nique about it today and she took it worse than we expected. She said she’s not coming.”
Heat crawled up the back of my neck. Stella was a landmine Nique had spent her whole life trying not to step on.
“She’s serious?” Eli asked softly.
“She kicked us out of her house,” London said. “It doesn’t get more serious than that.”
I turned away and pressed my palms flat against the edge of the pool table. I knew Nique. When she drew a line in the sand, she usually fortified it with concrete. I also knew the kind of pain she hid behind that wall better than most people ever would.
My thumb hovered over her contact. I wanted to call her. I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to face that woman alone. I knew I was probably the last person she wanted to hear from though, so I put the phone back down.
“Just uninvite Stella,” I said. To me it was a no brainer. You don’t trade a diamond for a piece of glass.
“It’s not that simple Dex,” London huffed, dropping into one of the leather chairs and burying her face in her hands. “Nel needs this and whether Nique likes it or not she needs it too. Tulum could be a fresh start for all of them.”
“I hear that,” I said, “but a destination wedding isn’t the place to force a family reunion. If they are ever going to reconcile, they need real therapy, not a resort.”
Eli squeezed London’s shoulder and looked over at me with a slow nod.
“Dex is right Lon,” he said. “You can’t expect Nique to just be okay with that woman showing up after all these years. That’s a lot to ask.”
“I know!” London cried. “The plane leaves in four days. If I call Stella now Nel and my father are both going to lose their minds. I’m stuck.”
Nobody had a good answer for that, so we let it sit.
There was a time when I would have been the first person Nique called about something like this.
I would have been the one she vented to until she ran out of breath.
Now I was just another name she was probably ignoring, while she leaned on whoever was in her corner these days.
I had traded being her person for poor decisions, and now when the world was closing in on her I didn’t even have the standing to check on her.
I hated that more than anything.
“She’s coming,” I muttered, though it sounded more like I was trying to convince myself.
“Dex, she sounded serious,” London said quietly.
“Trust me. She’s not going to let that woman win by staying home. She’s just mad right now.”
London didn’t look convinced, but she nodded, kissed the top of Heavyn’s head, and carried her upstairs to bed.
Eli looked over at me once they were gone. “You gonna call her?”
“Nique hasn’t answered a call from me in years,” I admitted.
He shrugged. “Maybe this time she will.”
I stared at the dark screen in my hand. I could call. I could show up. I could do a lot of things. None of them felt like something I had earned the right to do. Nique didn’t need me swooping in like some last-minute savior when I had been the villain in her story for years.
Mexico was supposed to be my shot at fixing what I broke. If she didn’t get on that plane, I wouldn’t just lose the opportunity. I’d have to sit with the fact that I built this distance myself, brick by brick, and then didn’t have the nerve to cross it when it mattered.
I slid the phone back into my pocket and took my shot. Eli didn’t say anything else and I appreciated that. Some losses you just had to stand in for a minute before you figured out your next move. I wasn’t ready to call this one a loss yet.