Chapter 25
If you would have told me a year ago I’d be standing in my parents’ backyard under a Batman balloon arch for a baby shower, I would’ve checked your Wi-Fi and your head but here we were. Black and yellow everywhere.
Custom “Baby Reed” backdrop.
Bat symbols on the plates, napkins, even the deviled eggs and Sevyn was the center of it all.
She had on a two-piece black set—a tube top and a long skirt that hugged her hips and framed the round curve of her belly. Across that belly, Steph had painted a perfect yellow bat symbol, glossy and precise. Her Fulani braids were pulled half-up, beads catching the late afternoon sun.
She looked like everything good that had ever happened to me, personified.
My parents’ yard was full. Folding chairs. Long tables draped in black cloth. A custom cake shaped like the Batmobile. Kids running around with capes. My mama had gone overboard in the best way.
My parents.
Her parents.
Kasey.
Steph.
Angel, Kash and her brothers.
Wolf.
Serenity and Kori.
Even Haze and Hazel had come to celebrate—them living out in High Grove and still making the drive in meant something. I’d installed their security years ago; only found out last month Hazel had been taking Sevyn’s classes this whole time.
“Okay, one more game,” Steph called from the grass, mic in hand like she was hosting the Grammys. “Guess the baby food flavor, but this time it’s the men turn.”
Groans echoed.
Kash was already cussing. “If that green shit touch my tongue I’m flipping the table.”
Sevyn sat in her designated throne; a white chair with “MOMMY” in gold across the top, laughing so hard she had to grab her belly.
I stood behind her, one hand lightly on her shoulder, just…soaking it in.
She’d stopped every now and then to stand for pictures—her parents beside her, my mama crying, Kasey hugging her like they’d been sisters forever, Hazel rubbing her own small bump in solidarity.
Gifts piled up on the table. Tiny sneakers. Diapers. Custom onesies. Two different cousins had brought full crib sets even though we already had one.
At one point my mother pulled me aside.
“You did good,” she said simply, watching Sevyn smile for a group photo. “She fits here.”
“I know,” I said.
Games.
Food.
Pictures.
The sun dipped lower. The air cooled. Someone turned the music down and people started drifting toward the dessert table.
I was helping my dad load extra chairs back toward the garage when something in my peripheral caught.
Sevyn was standing away from the crowd near the side of the yard, half in the shadow of the oak tree and Troy had his hand was in her hair.
Her head was slightly turned away, shoulders tense. One of her hands hovered near his wrist like she was deciding whether to push him off or not.
My vision tunneled.
I turned to my father.
“Take the kids in the house,” I said, voice low.
He followed my line of sight once, face hardening.
“I got them,” he said immediately. “Kids! Come help Paw-Paw with cake inside.”
They started moving.
Kash, who’d been mid-argument with Wolf over who cheated at baby bingo, followed my gaze next.
“Oh we finna jump this nigga,” he said, already rolling his shoulders.
As I got closer, I heard voices.
“…just saying you ain’t have to put Kash on the invite list,” Troy was saying, fingers still in one of Sev’s braids near the scalp. “You know that nigga don’t like me.”
“You don’t have to be liked to show up for your child,” Sevyn said tightly. Her eyes were wet, but not in a soft way. “Let my hair go, Troy.”
He didn’t.
“I’m talking to you,” he said. “You pregnant by this nigga and now you act like I’m nobody.”
“That’s because when you left our daughter at school to take Kori to the fair,” she hissed. “You made that choice for yourself.”
I closed the last three feet between us. This nigga had her fucked up.
“Let her go,” I said quietly.
Troy’s eyes cut to me but he didn’t drop his hand.
“Ain’t nobody talking to you, Reed,” he said. “This between me and the mother of my child.”
“And the mother of mine,” I replied, stepping between them a little, forcing him to loosen his grip on her hair. I reached back and gently guided Sevyn behind me. “I told you already—if you have something to say about pick-ups, schools, schedules, you text her. You don’t touch her. Ever.”
He laughed, ugly. “You think cause you Batman today you can tell me how to move?”
“You’re on my parents’ property,” I said, voice still level. “At my son’s baby shower. Disrespecting my fiancée. You think I’m about to let that slide?”
“Oh yeah,” he sneered. “Congratulations on that, by the way. Nerd ass nigga really proposed with a toy on a crib.”
Behind me, I heard Wolf murmur, “Oh yeah, he getting hit.”
“You drunk?” I asked. “Or you just stupid, because I know a bitter ass nigga not mad at me.”
“Stupid is letting another man raise your kid,” Troy shot back. “You really okay with your stepdad with benefits title? Cause that’s all this is. When she mad, you next. I know her.”
My jaw flexed.
Sev started to step around me. “Troy?—”
I lifted a hand slightly without looking back. “I got it.”
He took that as an opening.
“Nah, let her talk,” Troy said. “I wanna hear if she told y?—”
I didn’t hear the rest. I just swung.
My fist connected with his mouth, knuckles lighting up with pain. His head snapped to the side, and he stumbled back into the grass.
Silence fell for half a second.
Then turmoil.
“Oh, bet,” Wolf said, and charged.
Troy tried to come back up swinging, spitting blood, but he barely got a hand up before Wolf caught him from the side, shoving him back down.
“You not about to put hands in nobody hair over here,” Wolf barked, pinning his shoulder.
Ares moved in next, grabbing Troy’s other arm, twisting it behind his back. Arrow stepped in on the opposite side, boot planting on Troy’s calf so he couldn’t get his legs under him.
“This is restraint,” Arrow said calmly. “You don’t want to see what happens when we not trying to be civilized.”
Kash appeared from nowhere with a kid-sized Batman bike we’d put out earlier for pictures.
“What the—Kash, NO—” I started.
He lifted it like it weighed nothing and whacked Troy across the ribs with the back tire.
The hollow “CLANG” rang across the yard.
“THAT’S FOR MAKING MY GODCHILD CRY AT SCHOOL, BITCH,” Kash yelled.
Angel, from the porch: “Baby, I said HELP, not HOMICIDE!”
“I’m helping!” he protested. “Look, I didn’t hit his head. I’m responsible now.”
Voices overlapped everywhere.
Sev’s mother had a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Haze was standing near the grill looking tired as hell, like this was the fifth time he’d seen some variation of this in his life.
Through all of it, I only saw Sevyn.
She was standing a few feet back, one hand over her mouth, the other over her belly, tears tracking down her cheeks.
I backed up, chest heaving, hand throbbing. Wolf, Ares, and Arrow still had Troy pinned, Kash holding the bike like a cartoon supervillain.
“Let him up,” I said finally, voice rough.
They did, reluctantly, stepping back just enough that Troy could sit up and wipe his mouth. Blood smeared his chin. His eyes were wild, embarrassed more than hurt.
“If you ever put your hands on her like that again, hell, if you even reach in her direction this will feel like a warm-up.”
He spat into the grass, glared up at me.
“You think you won?” he snarled. “You think a ring and some posts on Instagram make you her forever? You just the latest chapter, nigga.”
Sev finally found her voice.
“Troy,” she said, stepping forward, belly first, ring glinting on her finger. “I don’t need him to be my forever for you to respect me, but he is and the disrespect stops now.”
He looked at her.
For a second, through all the anger and the pride, loss flickered across his face.
Then he laughed, bitterly.
“Bet,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’m out.”
He staggered toward the gate, still mumbling to himself. Nobody stopped him.
The yard buzzed.
Wolf shook his hand out. “I ain’t punched on nobody in a minute. That shit felt good.”
Kash rested the bike against the fence like nothing happened. “Should’ve used the scooter. Better aerodynamics.”
Ares and Arrow stepped back to Angel’s side like security returning to post.
I turned away from all of them and went straight to Sevyn.
“You okay?” I asked, every nerve ending still on fire.
She nodded, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “He just…”
“I know,” I said. “He’s done for today. That’s what matters.”
Her hand slipped into mine, fingers tight.
In the house behind us, I could see Serenity and Kori pressed to the back window, little faces worried. My father distracted them with cake slices, my mother corralling them away from the glass.
Haze walked over quietly and clapped a hand on my shoulder.
“You handled that better than I would have,” he said.
“Trust me, if it wasn’t for the girls, he wouldn’t be breathing.”