~~~Chapter 15~~~
My guilty conscience was eating me alive, so I’d played home closely for two days straight, and Paisley had been eating the extra attention up. I hadn’t left to handle business or nothing. We’d gone out to eat, the movie theater, and I even sat through a few lame Netflix movies.
Naturally, I never stopped thinking about my baby, and would sneak and facetime them any chance I could.
Now, it was Tuesday afternoon, and we were kicking it in the living room, lounging on the couch.
Paisley’s head was resting in my lap, when a email from the lab popped up at the top of the screen on my phone.
“Fuck,” I vented aloud.
“What happened, bae?” Paisley moved her head out of my lap and sat up.
I took a deep breath.
She frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I…I just got some results back.”
“Okay. What type of results?”
“I…I uh had run into a old friend. She…she had a baby with her…and she said that the baby…she said that the baby was mine.”
“Oh, really?” Her nostrils flared. “When was this?”
I licked my lips. “Friday.”
“Friday?” Her eyes bucked. “The same fucking night you didn’t come home?”
I slowly nodded, and she slapped the spit out of my mouth.
Calmly, I nodded. “Okay. I deserved that.”
“So, what else happened? She told you that her baby was yours, and then what?”
I gulped. “I told her that I wanted a paternity test.”
“What did she say?”
“She agreed to it…and we got one the next day—”
“So, that was the business you was handling?”
I nodded again. “Yeah.”
“And how was all this fucking communicating happening? Better yet, where were you overnight, until y’all went to take the paternity test?”
“I was at her house,” I admitted, and she swung on me.
The blows were coming left and right, before I stood up and placed some distance between us. Touching my mouth, I realized that my lip was bleeding.
“So, not only do you have a fucking maybe baby, but you was just laying up with the bitch?” She fumed, as she jumped off the couch, with her breasts heaving up and down.
“Nah,” I denied. “Wasn’t no laying up—”
“Stop fucking lying!” She lashed. “And even if you didn’t cheat, right then, you still cheated!”
I sighed, while shaking my head. “No, I didn’t.”
She grimaced. “How the fuck is that?”
“Because. I met her the last time you called yourself putting me out. We wasn’t together.”
“Oh, wow,” she dramatically huffed. “So, so, when are y’all getting these DNA results?”
I gazed at her. “I just got ‘em.”
“And what did it say?” She bucked her eyes.
I tucked my lips into my mouth. “The…the baby is mine.”
“It’s yours?” Her eyes darkened, before tears filled the brim. “No.” She shook her head. “Tell me that you’re playing, Kahmere.”
I exhaled. “I can’t do that, baby. She’s mine.”
“She’s yours?” She cried, while charging at me. “I fucking hate you!” She screamed, while pummeling my chest.
“I know.” I wrapped my arms around her, placing her in a bear hug. “Calm down,” I pleaded.
“No!” She jerked out of my grasp. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do! I fucking hate you!”
“Alright,” was all that I could say, right then.
She shook her head. “I’m not doing this with you. Hell, no. I aint accepting that bitch or her ugly ass baby. So, you might as well pack your bags, nigga. Cause it’s over!”
***
With fresh scratches on my face, and a busted lip, I stepped into my mama’s house with a Gucci duffle bag filled with clothes.
“Hey, baby,” my mama greeted me, while lounging in her recliner, as I marched into the living room.
After buying a five-bedroom house for us in cold cash, my mama still worked just to have her own money to fall back on.
I wanted her to have a soft life, and that she did, as she vacationed every other month, and often lounged around the house, reading books on her Kindle. And this day was no different.
With a lot of shit on my mind, I sighed heavily, before dropping the bag on the floor, then crashing on the couch.
“What’s wrong?” She sat up. “What’s in that bag, and what’s wrong with your face?” She came at me with multiple questions at once.
I gazed at her pretty, golden face, detecting the worry etched in her expression. “Paisley put me out,” I admitted.
She immediately rolled her eyes. “Boy, please. You’ll probably be back at that house within the next hour.”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. Not this time.”
“Well, what did you do?”
I exhaled. “I just found out that I have a six-month-old baby girl, mama.”
Now, she was sitting completely up. “What the hell, boy? Now, I know that a man will be a man, but that’s some reckless shit. Why the hell would you not only cheat, but fuck some nasty girl unprotected?”
I carefully licked my lips. “I didn’t cheat.”
“So, how the hell did this girl come up pregnant?”
“You remember the last time Paisley put me out? That time that I had that Airbnb?”
Her jaw dropped as she pointed. “That time when y’all was broken up for a couple of months.” She snapped her fingers.
“Exactly.” I nodded.
She shook her head. “And I told Paisley about that. She was using the get out tactic when she wanted her way. I kept telling her that doing shit like that could backfire. Now, look at this.”
“Right,” I quietly agreed, while rubbing the side of my face.
“And who is this girl you got the baby with?”
“Her name is Jaylah,” I revealed.
“Jaylah, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she young? Old? Shit, don’t tell me that she was just some floozy you was fucking to pass the time with.”
I chuckled. “Nah, you tripping, lady. She’s far from a floozy.”
“Oh.” She poked out her bottom lip. “That sounds like you like this Jaylah girl. Since you defending her and shit.”
“I mean…I liked her when we had our dealings. But we just both had unfinished business with other people. The timing wasn’t right.”
“If she had somebody too, then how do you know if the baby’s yours?”
“Come on, mama. You didn’t raise a sucker. We got our mouths swabbed.”
“Oh. So, this is for certain?”
“It is.” I nodded.
“Oh, wow. I know that Paisley is heartbroken.”
My jaw tightened at the thought. “I think she is.”
“So, now, what?” She wanted to know. “Are you gonna fight for her, or what?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, mama. This is new territory. The baby changes everything. Then…I know Paisley. She got a selfish streak in her, and I really don’t see her accepting the baby.”
My mama twisted her lips, while seemingly in thought. “Does she have to accept her?”
“Huh?” I frowned. “What chu mean?”
“I’m saying, baby. There’s multiple ways to skin a cat. Maybe this is too fresh for Paisley, right now. But maybe…you just be there for the baby…and keep that separate from Paisley…until she’s more comfortable.”
“Mmm…I don’t know. She told me that it was over, and it’s fuck my baby.
She was honestly out of line, and instead of putting my hands on her, I just walked away.
The bottom line is that I don’t have to apologize for what I did as a single man.
She’s clearly not seeing it that way, and feels violated.
So, I’m definitely not about to go through a whole season of begging, like I did something wrong.
I’m not ignoring the facts to suit her. At the end of the day, she opened the door to this, and it’s either she’s gonna accept it, or we’ll go our separate ways. ”
“Well, damn.” My mama leaned her neck back. “That was cold.”
I opened my arms. “I’m just keeping it real.”
She sighed. “Well, let me ask you this, son. Are you still in love with Paisley?”
I paused, as I thought about it. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
She pursed her lips. “Then that means no. And that’s why your outlook is so callus. It almost feels like you’re using this situation as a way out.”
I frowned. “Where did all that come from?”
“Maybe it’s because you feel very strongly about your new baby and the whole situation.
Now, I’m not saying that you should be a deadbeat or deny your child.
But there also doesn’t seem to be any internal turmoil that most men experience when they have an outside child.
And if there’s no regret in planting your seed in the next woman, it’s because you got interest in the next woman. And you like having those ties.”
Sitting up on the couch, I pushed a few dreads out of my face. “Ion know about all that. Just know that Paisley is tripping, and I’m done with the couch surfing shit, every time she’s in her feelings.”
“Okay. So, what’s my grandbaby’s name?”
I smiled. “Khari.”
“Khari, huh?”
“Yup.”
“And when are you bringing her to meet me?”
“Real soon,” I told her, before standing up, and stretching. “But I’m finna go. I just stopped by to drop my bag over here.”
She gazed up at me. “Now, where you going?”
I headed towards the door. “To go see my baby.”
Jaylah
“So, what’s up, hoe?” Tootie questioned on the other end of the phone.
I smirked, while my phone sat on my lap, as I had her on speaker. “What’s up with what?”
“With you,” she clarified. “You know a bitch been on a mean birthday run, so I’m just sitting down to evaluate some shit. And I’m realizing that we haven’t seen your face since Saturday night.”
“Yeah…about that…you know that I ran into my baby’s daddy…and he’s in her life now.”
“Wait, what? Girl, if you don’t stop fucking playing. Just last Thursday your BD didn’t exist, and now you want me to believe that he’s in the picture?”
“I ran into him Friday,” I revealed.
“So, he’s the nigga that was holding you hostage on the phone all night?”
“Pretty much.”
“Biiitch. So, you back fucking him already?”
“Girl, hell no. Thus far, it’s been completely about Khari.”
She sucked her teeth. “I didn’t see Khari nowhere in the club, when you was on that phone all night. Better sell that dream to somebody else.”
“Girl, whatever,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, I know. So, what’s tea? I thought that you was leaving him where he was at, because of his gal or whatever?”