Chapter 1
CHYNA
Today was just one of those shitty ass days, and it was only seven in the damn morning.
My eyes popped open this morning, not because of my peaceful alarm I had carefully selected so I didn’t wake up in panic and disarray every day.
No. This morning started with the sound of Liam, my three-year-old son, dropping an entire carton of milk on the floor.
He was at the age where he thought he was a big boy and could make his own breakfast. No matter how many times I told him he needed to wait for Mommy, he didn’t quite grasp it.
After cleaning up after him and his attempt at making his own breakfast of cereal and a piece of bread, I bathed him and then took a shower. Now, I scrambled to put my shoes on in my cramped bedroom when Liam ran into the room.
“Mommy!”
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked as I put my earrings on in the full-length mirror hanging off the back of my closet.
“I want a baby sister,” he announced.
My brows scrunched and my lip turned up. “Not a chance,” I muttered.
“What, Mommy?” Liam asked innocently, and I sighed.
After making sure my thirty-inch waves were perfect and my lip gloss and lash clusters looked good against my mahogany skin, I turned to look at my son.
His face was so sweet, I couldn’t help but shake off the negative energy I felt looming in the air.
Something bad was going to happen today. I could feel it.
“Okay, Bear, I hear you.” He loved when I called him Bear. I’d been calling him that since he was a day old because he was always so damn cuddly.
He beamed. “I can have a sister?”
“I said I hear you. I didn’t say I could give you a sister.”
His cute little face balled up into a pout. Those big brown eyes framed by long lashes that I loved so much pierced my heart. “Why not?”
“The stork is fresh out of babies at the moment, Bear. Sorry.”
He looked up at the ceiling, like he thought really hard about what I said. Finally, he shrugged and said, “I try again tomorrow.”
With that, he ran full speed out of the room. I didn’t know what it was with that kid and running, but he didn’t seem to understand that walking was an option.
I sighed as I stood up and checked myself over once again. My thick thighs were covered by a gray pencil skirt. The white blouse I wore covered my large breasts and stomach, that could be flatter and a little more toned, but that my sister and cousins constantly told me was one they would kill for.
“Bear, grab your backpack and let’s get ready to go!” I called out as I exited my room.
My home was small, but it was perfect for me and Liam.
We lived on the bottom floor of a duplex, and I paid a little extra every month for the backyard.
The upstairs tenants, who were a young couple with no kids, didn’t want the backyard, so they paid less in rent.
It worked out for me because I got to provide Liam with a place to play outside, which I felt was important.
Growing up, all I had was my imagination and the damn outdoors.
Although, my outdoors looked a lot different from Liam’s.
When I was young, I had to watch out for crackheads and dope boys while being careful not to step in a puddle of piss or on a broken crack pipe or condoms.
Liam had it pretty good. We didn’t live in the biggest house or the best neighborhood, but it was clean, and the people were nice.
When I made it to the front door, Liam was there with his blue backpack that was almost bigger than him, looking like he was up to no good.
“What are you up to?” I asked suspiciously as I grabbed my purse and keys.
“Nothing, Mommy.”
My eyes narrowed. “Open your backpack, sir.”
Liam’s eyes widened innocently. “We go, Mommy. KJ waiting for me.”
I shook my head and pointed at his bag. “Open.” Dramatically, he let his backpack fall forward, and I leaned over and grabbed it. When I opened it, I was horrified to find my black lacey bra inside. “Liam! Why do you have this?”
I held it up with my brows damn near up to my hairline.
Looking down at his shoes, Liam kicked his foot back and forth as he mumbled, “Superhero mask.”
“Excuse me?”
Liam sighed like I was slow or something. “Superhero mask, Mommy. I want KJ to see it.”
If I wasn’t already so flustered by the morning, I might have laughed.
“This isn’t a superhero mask, Bear.” I tossed my bra on the leather couch before I ushered him out of the house and toward our car, which was parked on the street in front of our house.
Liam grumbled about his superhero mask the entire way to the car, while I buckled him in, and the entire ride to my job. I filled his blabbing with frequent uh-huhs, yeahs, and okays.
By the time we pulled up to my work building, Liam seemed to have gotten all his complaining out. As I helped him out of the car, his grumbling turned into excitement.
“KJ, Mommy! KJ!”
“Yes, baby. KJ,” I replied as I locked the car and walked toward the entrance of the pristine building.
KJ, as in Keegan Junior, was Liam’s best friend. He also just so happened to by my boss’s son. Actually, Keegan Slater was more like my boss ten times over. Keegan owned the tech company I worked for, and I worked in the HR department.
I had a late start with college. Liam’s father, Damien, and I had a toxic ass relationship, and he held me up from a lot of things straight out of high school.
I gave that man way too many years of my life.
Toward the end, I started getting myself together and preparing to give my son the best life, even if I had to do it myself.
In my last year of college, Damien and I finally broke up.
I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in human resources, and shortly after that, I found out I was almost three months pregnant.
I took the first job I could get, and it just so happened to be with Keegan’s company.
It was a tech company that made millions, though my salary was a lot humbler than that.
Still, I loved what I did, onboarding new hires and holding all the orientations.
It helped that there was affordable on-site day care.
That was where I met Keegan. We dropped our boys off there around the same time every morning, and we started out with small talk.
It was months before I found out that he owned the damn company.
KJ and Liam were the same age and had been thick since they were babies, since they were the only two in their age group at the day care.
Keegan and I even had a couple of play dates for the boys at my house, but I always made sure to keep things friendly and not personal at all with that fine-ass man. It wasn’t hard. Believe me.
Inside, Liam clapped his hands and took off running toward the elevator.
“Liam, stop!” I shouted across the lobby.
He didn’t stop. “KJ, Mommy!”
My four-inch pumps were no match against his energy.
I tried jogging to catch up with him, but his little ass jumped onto the elevator, and it started to close.
I was still a few yards away and wouldn’t make it in time.
My heart hammered in my chest. I knew the building had cameras and whatnot, so he wouldn’t be hard to track down, but that was the last thing a mother wanted to deal with.
The panic of your child getting on an elevator without you and not knowing which floor he might get off on.
“Liam!” I shouted again just as the elevator doors closed.
Tears swam in my eyes, but before I could start hyperventilating, the elevator doors popped back open, and this time, I could see who was inside with Liam.
Keegan Slater.
KJ stood next to his father, holding his hand and looking up at me curiously.
“Doll, Daddy. It’s Doll,” he said as he pointed up at me with the cutest smile.
I tried to smile back at him. His calling me by the nickname Keegan had given me had always melted my heart, but I was sure my smile looked more like a grimace at the moment. The elevator made its ascend to the third floor where the day care was.
I dropped down to my knees and grabbed Liam by his arms. “Liam, why didn’t you stop when I told you to?”
“KJ, Mommy,” he muttered as he pointed at KJ. Tears rimmed his eyes, and I knew that he knew he was in trouble at that moment.
Instead of scolding him right away, I brought him in for a hug. “You need to listen to Mommy, Bear, even when you’re excited. Do you hear me?”
“I sorry.” He cried against my neck, and I closed my eyes and shook my head.
When I pulled away from him, I held his shoulders. “Don’t do that again. Do you hear me?”
Liam nodded, and I stood up, wiping tears of frustration from my eyes. Slowly, I turned to glance up at Keegan. My knees felt weak looking up at all that sexiness. He nodded at me. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
His light brown eyes seemed to only ever soften when he looked at me. It was one of the many things I noticed about him. Most people in this building looked at him like a tyrant. I’d even seen him act an ass with others, but whenever he interacted with me, there was a different version of him.
“You sure? You need me to talk some sense into the lil nigga for stressin’ his mama out?” he asked.
I giggled as I elbowed him in his ribs because I knew he was dead ass serious. “No, Keegan. I got this handled.” I glanced down at KJ and finally offered him a genuine smile as I pinched his cheek. “Hey, kiddo. How are you this morning?”
KJ tapped his chin thoughtfully, and I bit back a laugh. He was his damn daddy’s son. KJ always thought before he spoke, much unlike Liam who said everything that came to his little mind.
“Sleepy.”
I nodded in mock seriousness. “Same, kiddo. Same.”
“And Mommy wouldn’t let me bring my superhero mask.” Liam had finally stopped feeling sorry for himself for getting in trouble and inserted himself into the conversation, as if we had been talking about superhero masks all along.
I felt my cheeks grow warm as I glanced at Keegan. “Liam, I told you that wasn’t a superhero mask,” I said through gritted teeth.
Liam ignored me and kept talking to KJ, thankfully not about superhero masks.
Keegan gazed down at me with a stern expression. “What else goin’ on wit’ you? You seem off today.”
The elevator stopped, and I grabbed Liam’s hand firmly as I guided him toward the day care. “Just a tough morning.”
“Who I gotta see about that?” Keegan asked.
He was always so willing to step in and save the day when it came to me.
Many times, I wondered what it would be like to have Keegan as my man.
I hadn’t dated since Damien and I broke up over three years ago.
Keegan made it easy to think dating again might not be so bad, but I never crossed that boundary.
God knew I needed this job, and if anything went bad between us, I didn’t want to stress about my income.
Before I could respond, my phone vibrated in my purse. I dug around in my bag for my cell as I said, “Just a second,” to Keegan. When I found it, we had just made it to the day care check-in desk when I answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Ms. Chyna? I need you to come home,” the voice said in a heavy accent.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at who called me since I was too distracted before I answered. My heart dropped when I realized it was my landlord, Mr. Chang.
“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked, but I somehow knew it wasn’t good.
Mr. Chang wasn’t the best landlord. He was really frugal and didn’t really bother with maintenance requests.
As a matter of fact, the only time he was seen or heard of was on the first of each month when he collected rent, so the fact that he called me right now didn’t sit right with me.
“Mr. Ronnie call and say water come out of your front door. All over floor.”
“What? I just left home, and everything was fine.”
“I have permission to go inside?” Mr. Chang asked, completely ignoring what I had just said.
“Huh? Uh, . . . sure, I guess.” I glanced at Keegan, who split his gaze between checking KJ into day care and me. “I-I’m on my way.”
I hung up the phone with fresh tears swimming in my eyes.
“What’s wrong? That fuck-ass baby daddy called?” Keegan asked.
“Fuck ass!” Liam shouted.
I cut my eyes at him and popped him on the top of his head. “Don’t say that.”
“Ouch.” Liam rubbed his head as he peered up at me through furrowed brows, looking just like his damn daddy with that expression.
“My bad. I forget these two are like parrots,” Keegan said.
“It don’t matter. I need to let Taylor know I’ll be in late. My landlord just called and said something about water coming out of my house?” I said it more like a question, because I was still unsure about what the hell was even going on.
“Take the day off, Chyna Doll. I’ll talk to Taylor,” he said.
I shook my head as I glanced down at Liam. “I have to keep Liam here, so I might as well come back.” I shrugged.
“I’ll drop him off after work,” he replied.
“No, Kee. I can’t have you do that.” I knew he wasn’t about to take no for an answer.
This wasn’t the first time he had come to my rescue.
As single parents, we kind of had each other’s backs from the beginning.
If he ever needed me to watch KJ, I would without even thinking twice about it.
If I needed to leave work early for an appointment or something, Keegan would bring Liam home after work for me, so I didn’t know why I was acting like this wasn’t our norm.
Judging by the look on his face, he didn’t either.
“Chyna, go handle your business. Matter of fact, you want me to come wit’ you?”
My eyes widened. Now that was new. We never did anything together before if it didn’t have to do with the boys.
“No. Thanks, though. I’ll send you a text,” I replied as I dropped down to squat in front of Liam. “Give Mommy a hug. Kee is going to bring you home at the end of the day, okay?”
“Okay, Mama. And sleepover with KJ.”
I shook my head. “Not tonight, honey. Maybe this weekend. Be good today.” I kissed his head and stood up. “Thanks, Keegan. Really. I appreciate your help.”
“It ain’t nothin’. Just don’t forget to let me know what’s goin’ on.”
I nodded, took in a deep breath, and turned to head back to the elevator, dreading whatever waited for me back at my home.