9. Maddox Creed #2
First time since I’d gotten to the office, I stopped staring at my phone long enough to actually think about what he said.
Maybe I couldn’t get back the years I’d lost…
Maybe I couldn’t fix every mistake…
Maybe I couldn’t erase the hurt… but I could show up, and right now, that was a hell of a lot better than doing nothing.
The thought stayed with me long after Kyro left. Not because it was some life-changing piece of advice, but because it was simple. There was no way around it. No excuses. No overthinking. No bullshit. Just show up.
A vibration against my desk immediately pulled my attention away from the window.
My eyes dropped to the phone.
For a second, I just stared at it.
Then I grabbed it.
The second I saw Gia’s name, something loosened inside my chest. Not relief exactly. More like the release of a breath I’d been holding all damn day.
Opening the message, I read the three words twice.
HER: She’s okay.
That was it.
No extra conversation. No follow-up. No warmth. Just three words sitting on a screen.
Honestly, I couldn’t blame her.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I probably would’ve responded the same way. I’d disappeared without explanation and left a little girl trying to figure out why the father she’d just met suddenly stopped calling.
For a minute, I considered typing out an explanation. Something about everything that had happened. Something about Luciana. Something about how my entire life had blown up overnight.
Then I deleted every word, because none of it mattered.
It didn’t matter how overwhelmed I’d been or how much my life had fallen apart. None of those excuses changed the fact that Nylah hadn’t heard from me.
Gia didn’t need an explanation either.
She needed to know whether I was going to show up.
Taking a slow breath, I started over and typed the only thing that actually mattered.
ME: Can I see her?
After hitting send, I tossed the phone onto the desk and tried forcing myself back to work. Tried being the key word.
Ten minutes later, I was rereading the same email for the third time without retaining a damn thing. My mind kept drifting back to Vegas. Back to Nylah. Back to the possibility that she was sitting somewhere thinking I didn’t want anything to do with her.
The thought irritated me enough to push back from my desk.
A few minutes later, I was grabbing my keys.
Work wasn’t happening today.
By the time I pulled into my ma’s driveway, I still hadn’t figured out exactly why I came. Maybe because she always had a way of cutting through the bullshit or because I was tired of being alone with my thoughts.
Either way, I was already here.
I hadn’t even made it all the way up the walkway before the front door opened.
“Well, hey there, my oldest son…” I chuckled as she stretched out her arms for a hug.
When we parted, she just looked up at me like she had already sensed something wrong.
On some real shit, I wouldn’t be surprised because somehow Mama always knew when one of her sons was carrying something heavier than he was willing to admit.
I followed her into the house and once again, she was cooking.
This lady loved cooking, whether she was having company or not, she was gon’ cook a full course meal. It didn’t matter if we were kids or grown men with businesses and families of our own, Ma believed every problem in life could be discussed over a plate of food.
“You hungry?” she asked.
I wasn’t, but that clearly didn’t matter.
She was already pulling food out before I answered.
A few minutes later, I found myself sitting at the island while she moved around the kitchen doing what she always did.
Watching…
Ma had a way of looking at you without looking at you. She could be cooking, cleaning, watching television, and still somehow know when something was bothering one of her sons.
“You hear from baby girl?”
I took a drink of water before nodding.
“A little while ago. Well, her mama texted me.”
“And?”
“She said she’s okay.”
Ma stopped stirring the pot and looked over at me. The second our eyes met, I knew that answer wasn’t gonna satisfy her.
“That’s all?”
“That all Gia said…”
She studied me for a moment before turning back to the stove.
“Well, I guess at least you heard something.”
“Yeah.”
The kitchen settled into a comfortable silence. Ma kept cooking while I sat there picking at the label on my water bottle, already knowing she wasn’t done.
She never was.
Sure enough, a few seconds later she asked, “How things going with Luciana?”
I leaned back in my chair and let out a tired breath.
“Same shit…”
Ma sucked her teeth.
“The hell that supposed to mean?”
“It mean exactly what it sound like.”
She shot me a look that would’ve had me apologizing without a second thought twenty years ago.
Now… not so much.
Unfortunately, getting older didn’t stop her from pulling information out of me whenever she wanted it, though.
After sitting there for a minute, I finally gave her something.
“We went to therapy the day I dropped the boys off over here.”
That got her attention.
Her eyebrows lifted as she turned off the burner, wiped her hands on a dish towel, and walked over to the table before taking the chair across from me.
“How was it?”
I chuckled because honestly, I didn’t know how to answer that.
“It was therapy.”
“Maddox...”
“What?”
“Stop being difficult.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and looked down at the counter.
“I ain’t trying to be.” The words came out quieter than I intended. “I just… I don’t know.”
The admission hung between us for a second before I shrugged.
“Apparently I’m grieving.”
Ma didn’t laugh. She didn’t look surprised either.
Instead, she nodded like she’d already come to that conclusion on her own.
“Well… you are.” My eyes lifted to hers and she met my stare without blinking. “You found out somebody stole nine years from you. I’d be worried if you wasn’t grieving.”
Her words settled over me in a way I wasn’t expecting. Hearing somebody else say it out loud made everything feel a little more real.
For a while, neither one of us said anything.
Then Ma broke the silence.
“Ya’ll going back?”
I already knew she was talking about therapy.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
I let out a low chuckle.
“You don’t even know what happened.”
“I don’t need to.” She folded her arms across her chest and looked at me. “The fact that you went tells me enough.”
I shook my head.
“One session don’t mean shit, though.”
“Maybe not.” She shrugged. “But it tells me neither one of ya’ll quit.”
I leaned back in my chair, letting her words sink in.
She wasn’t wrong. I mean, I could’ve walked away. Hell, Luciana probably would’ve understood if I had. Instead, I was still here.
Still showing up.
Still trying.
…and I wasn’t entirely sure what that said about me anymore.
Maybe Ma saw that on my face because she didn’t push any further. She got up from the table, gathered our plates, and carried them over to the sink while I sat there staring at the countertop.
The last few weeks had forced me to question damn near everything. My marriage. My judgment. My future. Some days it felt like I was making progress. Other days, I couldn’t tell if I was moving forward or just standing in the same place, trying to make sense of something that never would.
The vibration of my phone against the countertop pulled me out of my thoughts.
My eyes dropped to it immediately, and I noticed Ma doing the same. Neither one of us said a word as I picked it up and unlocked the screen.
It was Gia.
The tightness that had been sitting in my chest eased before I could stop it. It wasn’t simply about hearing from her. It meant I’d finally hear something about Nylah.
The message was short.
HER: She’d love that.
I read it once, then found myself reading it again. By the third time, a smile had crept across my face before I even realized it was there just as another message came through.
I opened it.
HER: You hurt her feelings.
The smile faded almost instantly.
There wasn’t a long explanation after it. No lecture. No accusations. Gia hadn’t tried to make me feel guilty, and she didn’t have to.
Those four words landed harder than anything I’d heard all week.
I stared at the screen, reading them over and over until they started sinking in.
My daughter had every right to have her feelings hurt.
I’d walked into her life, promised her I wasn’t going anywhere, then disappeared without so much as a phone call.
From Nylah’s point of view…
I’d done exactly what she’d probably spent nine years hoping I never would.
Hell, if I was being honest, hurt feelings were probably the best-case scenario. The alternative was Nylah deciding I wasn’t worth the disappointment, and that thought alone was enough to make my stomach turn.
“What happened?” Ma asked.
I looked up.
She’d already figured out the message wasn’t all good news.
Without saying a word, I handed her my phone. She read the message, then quietly passed it back.
Neither one of us spoke for a moment because there wasn’t much to say.
Adults had a way of explaining things there way. We understood bad timing, complicated situations, and how messy life could get. Kids didn’t see the world like that.
To a child, it was simple…
You showed up, or you didn’t…
You called, or you didn’t…
You kept your word, or you didn’t…
There wasn’t anywhere to hide behind excuses because none of them changed how they felt.
Ma settled back into her chair and folded her hands in front of her.
“She’s a little girl, Maddox.”
“I know…”
“You can’t disappear on her.”
My jaw tightened as I looked down at the phone in my hand.
She was right.
“I know.”
The words came out rougher the second time.
Ma’s expression softened.
“Then stop beating yourself up and do something about it.”
“That’s the plan…”
I looked down at my phone, opened the message thread, and started typing.
ME: Can I call her?
My thumb hovered over the screen for a second before I finally hit send.