Chapter 10
The cooler on Sevyn’s counter looked like we were moving in, not going to SeaWorld. Waters. Capri Suns. Cut fruit. Little sandwiches in rows. Snacks bagged up the way Kasey liked to do Kori’s school lunches.
I closed the lid for the third time and checked my phone.
KASEY:
we still good for kori?
I hit FaceTime.
She answered in a bonnet, one lash on, one eye naked. “You already packed, ain’t you?”
“You know I don’t like disorder,” I said. “You good bringing Kori?”
“Yeah, I’ma just ride with him and drop Kori off, so I don’t have to drive.” She squinted. “This the famous pilates lady house?”
Before I could answer, Sevyn’s voice floated from the hallway. “Batman, you seen my other lash glue?”
“In the bathroom cabinet,” I called. “Third shelf behind the edge control. Clear top.”
Silence.
Then, from down the hall: “How the hell you know that?”
Kasey started cackling. “Oh yeah. You in love.”
“Shut up.”
“Let me see her,” she insisted.
“Sevyn,” I called. “Come here real quick.”
She appeared in the kitchen doorway a second later, one lash on, hoodie half-zipped, curls piled on top of her head. When she saw the screen, her brows lifted.
“This her?” she asked.
“This me,” Kasey said. “I’m Kasey, the better Reed.”
“Lies,” I muttered.
Sevyn smiled. “Nice to actually meet you. I’m Sevyn. With a y.”
“Of course you are,” Kasey laughed. “He got a type already. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you cool with Kori tagging along.”
Sevyn’s face softened instantly at Serenity’s name. “That’s fine with me. Serenity gonna love having her with us.”
“Bet. We’ll pull up when her daddy do.” Kasey’s eyes cut back to me. “And you better not leave my baby at no dolphin tank.”
I rolled my eyes. “Bye, Kasey.”
She hung up still laughing.
The front door swung open a few minutes later without a knock.
“Batman!”
Serenity’s voice hit before I even saw her. Tiny footsteps, beads clicking.
“I told you to walk,” Sevyn said from the hall.
“I did walk,” Serenity lied, breathless as she barreled into the kitchen.
I lifted her onto my hip easily. “You ready to see some stingrays, terrorist?”
“I’m not a terrorist,” she giggled. “I’m a princess.”
“A destructive one.”
She gasped. “Mommy, he rude.”
“Don’t let him bully you,” Sevyn said, leaning around the doorway, both lashes now on. “You royalty.”
My phone buzzed.
KASEY:
we outside
Almost at the same time, a horn tapped twice from the street.
“Batman, can you grab the door?”
“Yeah.”
I stepped onto the small front stoop and the heat hit my face. The street was quiet. Troy’s black SUV was just pulling up, music low, kids’ silhouettes moving in the back.
I’d seen this truck before on quick exchanges. What I hadn’t noticed before was the other head in the front passenger seat.
Kasey.
She turned, said something over her shoulder, and the second the car stopped, the back door on that side flew open like somebody had fired a starter pistol.
“UNCLE KASE!”
Kori damn near fell out the truck trying to get to me, little backpack half on, braids swinging.
My stomach dropped.
“Troy,” I said without meaning to, eyes dragging from my niece to the driver’s side.
He cut the engine and climbed out.
We both froze for half a second.
“You—” came out of both of us at the same time.
All the missed connections slammed together in my head at once.
Kasey’s “her daddy.”
Sevyn’s “Troy.”
The “other daughter” Sevyn had mentioned a hundred times when she talked about why she didn’t fool with him like that.
Same nigga.
My sister’s baby daddy was Sevyn’s baby daddy.
My gut tightened so hard it hurt.
Behind me, the front door creaked.
“Serenity, don’t run—” Sevyn started, then stepped out onto the porch and saw exactly who was in her driveway.
Her whole face changed.
She looked at Troy then to Kasey in the front seat. At Kori halfway to my arms.
Her mouth parted. “Oh, hell no.”
Kori didn’t notice any of it.
She launched at me. I caught her automatically.
“You didn’t say I was going to SeaWorld with my sister!” she said, like that was the most important problem here.
Serenity slid past Sevyn’s leg onto the porch, eyes bright. “Kori!”
Troy dragged a hand down his face. “Man…”
Kasey got out slower, shutting the passenger door with a soft click, eyes bouncing between all of us, reading the mess fast.
“Wow,” she said under her breath. “Okay.”
The girls had already converged at the bottom of the steps, Kori reaching for Serenity’s hand like this was any other Saturday.
“Look,” Kori said. “We match backpacks.”
“Oh my God,” Serenity breathed. “We do.”
“Inside,” Sevyn said tightly. “Y’all go inside and turn the TV on. We’ll be there in a second.”
“Can we still go see the dolphins?” Serenity asked warily.
“Yes.” The answer came out of Sevyn’s mouth fast. “Now go.”
They went, still talking a million miles a minute about whales and snacks, backpacks bouncing as they disappeared into the house.
Kasey let out a long, low whistle. “So…this your baby daddy,” she said to Sevyn.
“And this your baby daddy,” Sevyn shot back.
They both looked at him like he was gum on their shoe.
I swallowed hard and stepped off the stoop, Kori’s weight already gone from my arms, leaving an ache.
“I didn’t know,” I said, voice low, aiming it straight at Sevyn. “I swear to God, I didn’t know y’all had the same dad for your kids.”
Her eyes snapped to mine.
“You knew he had another kid,” she said.
Not a question.
“I knew my sister co-parented,” I said. “I knew you co-parented. I never connected them as the same person. I ain’t never seen him with Kori before. I just saw Troy in two separate conversations and my dumb ass didn’t put it together.”
“That’s crazy,” Troy muttered. “Whole city, same small circle.”
“Shut up,” all three of us said at once.
He held his hands up. “Damn.”
Kasey stepped closer to Sevyn, eyes softening just a little. “”I wish we were meeting under, you know…literally any other circumstance.” She said.
Despite everything, Sevyn’s lips tilted almost the same way.
Then her gaze cut back to me. “Say it one more time,” she said quietly. “Because if you sat on this, Kasen, that’s something I can’t come back from.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “If I had even a hint, I would’ve told you the second I found out. I’m not built to lie to you.”
She searched my face for a long second.
Whatever she saw there made her shoulders drop a fraction.
“This ain’t on you,” she said finally. Her eyes slid to Troy. “It’s on him.”
He sucked his teeth. “I ain’t hide nobody. You knew I had another kid.”
“I knew you had a daughter,” she snapped. “I didn’t know you had a whole Reed family tree around the corner.”
Kasey rolled her eyes. “You really out here double-dipping, that’s wild.”
He glared at her. “You chose me too, remember?”
“And I been regretting it every other Tuesday,” she said. “Don’t get cute.”
Under different circumstances, I might’ve laughed.
Right now, the only thing I cared about was Sevyn.
“You still wanna go?” I asked her softly. “We can cancel. Take ‘em another weekendor I’ll sit in here with you and we can cuss him out via text all day. Whatever you need.”
Her gaze drifted to the front window where two little faces were smashed to the glass, watching anxiously.
Serenity’s hand was on Kori’s shoulder. They looked excited and scared they might be about to lose each other.
Sevyn’s jaw worked once.
“No,” she said finally. “The only people that would get punished if we cancel are them. I’m not giving him that kind of power. We still going.”
“Thank you,” Kasey said quietly. “For not taking it out on Kori.”
“I love my child too much to make today about y’all,” Sevyn replied. “We can schedule the argument for another time.”
“That’s fine,” Kasey said. “I’ll text you so we can exchange numbers, figure out…whatever this is for them.”
“Do that.”
Troy moved like he wanted to say something else.
Sevyn cut him a look that shut it down.
“You can go,” she said. “We’ll talk when I feel like I won’t stab you.”
He nodded once. “Bye,” he called weakly toward the window.
Two little hands lifted in stiff waves from behind the glass.
He got in the truck. Kasey lingered a second longer.
“You good?” she asked me under her breath.
“No,” I answered honestly.
“Same.” She squeezed my shoulder once, then went back to the SUV.
When they pulled off, the silence in the driveway felt heavy but not empty.
I turned to Sevyn.
“You sure?” I asked again.
“No,” she said. Then she huffed out something close to a laugh. “But I already put on mascara, so we going.”
That pulled an actual smile out of me.
“Yes ma’am.”
SeaWorld was chaos.
Kids everywhere. Water, screaming, overpriced souvenirs. Sun bouncing off every surface. The girls didn’t care about any of that. They dragged us from tank to tank, Kori yelling facts she’d clearly gotten off YouTube, Serenity gasping like every fish personally sent her a love letter.
By the time we found seats for the big show, my shoulders had finally started to unknot a little. The stadium was packed. We ended up in the middle section—out of the direct splash zone but close enough to feel the mist.
Serenity and Kori sat in front of us, elbows on the rail, whispering like they were plotting to move in with the whales.
“Mommy, look,” Serenity said. “We almost matching braids.”
“Y’all cute,” Sevyn said. Her voice was softer now.
The music kicked up. The first orca surfaced in a burst of water and noise. The whole crowd screamed.
Including our kids.
“Oh my God!”
“Uncle Kase, look!”
“I see,” I said, even though my attention was half on the tank, half on the woman beside me.
Sevyn let out a breath I felt more than heard.
Without really thinking about it, I rested my forearm along the back of her seat, giving her room if she wanted it.
She hesitated for a beat then leaned slow at first. Just her shoulder against my bicep. Then, when I didn’t move, she let more of her weight sink into me until she was pressed along my side, head just under my chin.
“You good?” I murmured near her hair.
“No,” she answered, honest. “But this helps.”
I tightened my arm around her shoulders, pulling her all the way in.
“Then I’ll stay right here,” I said.
Down front, a whale launched itself out of the water and crashed back down, drenching the first few rows. The girls shrieked with delight, jumping up and down.
“They happy,” Sevyn said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said. “They are.”
“And they sisters already,” she added, voice going a little thick. “Messy ass daddy or not.”
I looked at them—two girls pressed shoulder to shoulder, losing their minds over a whale like the world wasn’t complicated at all.
Then I looked at the woman leaning on me, mascara still perfect, mouth set like she’d walk through fire for both of them.
My chest ached.
“I got you,” I said, low enough only she could hear.
Her fingers curled lightly in the fabric of my shorts.
“I know,” she whispered back.