Chapter 14
Antonio
“Up! Up! Up!”
I bob my head to Anite’s cheerful cadence as she bounces and reaches for the ceiling. She recites the word with a clap that has my eyes shifting from the fourteen-month-old to the staircase.
Ain’t no way Ella and Julian let this baby listen to Cardi B. Is “Up” one of those Kidz Bop songs remixed for today’s youth? There are only so many ways to make lyrics about tight asses and men who don’t deserve pussy appropriate for the playground. Maybe Elmo can do it?
I’m halfway through humming the verse when her chubby legs drop into a squat. She propels herself to jump but tumbles forward.
Shit.
I scramble off the sofa and freeze. Whatever baby gymnastics class Ella enrolled her daughter in is paying off.
Anite tucks her head and flops onto her back.
Then she sits up like the Cabbage Patch version of Michael Myers.
Her tiny chin wobbles, her big eyes on me, wondering why I let her bust her ass.
“Nice one!” My standing ovation is thirty seconds too late, but it does its job.
Anite’s brows pinch then slowly relax. She’s back on her feet, her Godzilla steps summoning gravity only to knock her down again.
Ella advised me not to freak out over minor falls.
Her exact words were, “If you stress out my baby, that’s your ass.
” It’s taken a lot of practice to not dive after my goddaughter, but I’m learning.
Plus, I don’t doubt that El and Morgan, Julian’s sister and Anite’s godmother, won’t fly to Buffalo to fuck me up in some alley.
I’d never let anything happen to Anite, but I don’t want her freaking out because I am when she falls.
“You good, little one?”
Anite bares all of her baby teeth in a slow grin. “Hee.” She’s adorable, but she scares the shit out of me when she acts possessed.
“Easy, Annabelle,” I say, holding my hands out for her.
“You calling my baby a demon?”
Julian takes two steps into the living room before his daughter reroutes. A head of black coils and a snowflake onesie shuffle around the coffee table into his waiting arms.
“Is Uncle Ant behaving?” Julian asks his giggling daughter as he kisses her cheeks.
“Ant.” She shifts in his arms and points to me.
If it weren’t for their matching hickory-brown eyes and chocolate hue, I’d question if my best friend was in the room when Anite was conceived. Seeing him hang on to his daughter’s every word tugs at the very small part of me that’s curious to know how it feels. Fatherhood looks good on him.
Julian is still the same person who likes anime and old jazz records.
We’ve been friends since our dads put us in rugby when we were kids.
He’s four years older, but my size and speed had his coach poaching me for scrimmages after my practices.
He’ll say I followed him around, which is a bald-faced lie.
We grew up in the same neighborhood and have been rocking ever since. Julian tries to act like he wasn’t one of DC’s notorious bachelors. I let it slide because bro is crazy in love.
Life shifted for him the minute he met Ella and her two kids. His house, once a destination for game nights that ended in X-rated sleepovers, is now babyproofed, with gates and outlet covers overtop the fossils of a former bachelor pad.
El rushes up from the basement like she just worked a double at the childcare center she runs. Her hair is frizzy on one side and falling out of the bun that’s struggling to stay up on the other.
“Who jumped you down there?” She had one of those messy updos during dinner less than an hour ago.
“Very funny, Antonio.” Her eyes cut to me before she motions for her carbon copy. “I’ll take her.”
“èske ou gen dòmi?” Are you sleepy, little one?” Julian asks in Haitian Creole. “Li le pou kouche.” He kisses Anite and passes her to me. “Say goodnight.”
“You’re growing too fast.” It was only yesterday Julian smacked me upside the head for palming Anite like a rugby ball after Ella gave birth. I promised to visit at least once a month, no matter how busy the season gets.
Anite sprouted from a tiny thing with new-car smell to a joyful soul who plays with her shadow and performs pop-rap when her parents aren’t watching.
Mini Ella stares with thick brows, big cheeks, and a pouty mouth. I tickle her sides and blow raspberries on her neck. “Sweet dreams, Annabelle. See you next month.”
“And we’re done.” Ella bumps me with her hip and takes Anite.
“Hey, Ella Bella? Your shirt is inside out.” I point to her sweater.
Her eyes glide down to ivory seams that shouldn’t be visible. “Oh.” She looks everywhere except at her husband. “Sundays are laundry day.”
My ass!
“Laundry, huh?” I scrub my jaw and peer down at her. “That’s one hell of a spin cycle, to flip your sweater inside out.”
Never mind the fact that the washer and dryer are upstairs. Not in the basement—a soundproof basement Ella snuck in and out of when Julian stayed down there before they got married.
The guilty party, the Lance Gross look-alike of DC, hasn’t stopped shooting fuck-me eyes at his wife since she stumbled up here.
Can’t say I blame him. Ella is a beautiful medley of natural hair, curves, and child-bearing hips that Julian keeps begging to spread.
Bro inherited Jackson, his eleven-year-old son, Haile, his almost nine-year-old daughter, had Anite with Ella, and still stays on his wife’s ass.
Between Jackson playing youth rugby for a team Julian coaches, Haile’s Brazilian jiujitsu competitions, and chasing after a fourteen-month-old, it’s a miracle these two have the energy to run off like teenagers.
“Did you two dip off for a quickie and leave me on babysitting duty? Minute Man here wasn’t gone that long.” I dodge Julian’s fist, laughing at the times he told me he ran out of the basement to come through the kitchen. His white tee and gray sweatpants are the perfect ’fit to drop dick and dash.
Freaks.
“Don’t shortchange my sister,” I chide.
Ella’s smile widens. “He’s been up here for longer than a minute, running my bath after checking on the kids. I’ll get Anite down and say goodbye before you leave.”
“Need me to double-check the water temperature?” Julian gazes at his wife with a tone that borders on Barry White.
“Hello, you have company,” I remind them.
“I’m sure it’s hot,” she says.
I wave. “Still here.” If they start fucking, I’m out.
Ella rolls her eyes and takes Anite upstairs. Julian’s stare trails after her, his lips pulled between his teeth like they didn’t just get it in.
I waste no time going to the kitchen to refill my water bottle. Paintings and certificates of achievement decorate the refrigerator. Paper snowflakes hang from the ceiling and match the feathery ice crystals scattered across the cabinets.
“How’s Mom Dukes doing?” Julian joins me at the kitchen counter.
“Better,” I sigh. “They’re keeping her three more days because of the appendectomy.”
I was on the last plane out of Buffalo after my mother called me from the hospital.
Her appendix ruptured while she was at home alone.
I held it together in Miriam’s kitchen, laughing at my mom’s poor attempts to make light of the situation and keep me calm.
I was in shock, far from calm and so far away, even if “far away” by my definition was an hour flight.
I didn’t want to freak out thinking about her being by herself, and I made it to the bathroom on the plane before I lost it.
That woman is the heartbeat of my family. She assured me they gave her good drugs and to stop fussing over her.
My pops is out of the country on a business trip, and he got a call before I did. He canceled the rest of his time away and got in a little after four this morning. He hasn’t left her side, no matter how much she snips at him to wash his ass.
“I’m glad she’s doing better,” Julian says. “I’ll go over on Tuesday to give your dad some time. My mother already dropped off meals and has te jejanm by the gallon ready to go.”
“Appreciate it, bro.” I run my fingers over my waves, which are in need of a shape-up. “I don’t like the idea of her by herself. Pops is slowing down and getting ready to retire, but look what happened the one time he was away.”
Had my mom not had the strength to call 911 and let them in, she wouldn’t be here to shoo me away after I climbed into that thin-ass hospital bed with her.
Anything could’ve happened.
Sepsis.
Organ failure.
Death.
The thought of losing her forced me to stay awake while she slept.
In true Chrishelle Knight fashion, I got a kiss on the cheek and a boot from her hospital room hours after my dad arrived.
They didn’t want me to worry, and they encouraged me to visit Julian and El, who’ve kept my mind occupied, before my flight back to Buffalo.
Said mind has been so all over the place that I forgot to text Miriam after leaving the way I did.
“Didn’t your mama tell you to stop stressing yourself and her out?” Julian nods at my thumbs as they race across my phone.
“I’m not texting her.”
I’m sorry I left the way I did. My mom is in the hospital with a ruptured appendix, and I flew out to be with her. She’s doing better. I should’ve told you, but I wasn’t in the right head space and didn’t want to put that on you. Send me the details about Wednesday.
Julian chuckles into a Roblox cup that’s likely filled with all gin and no juice. “You’ve got forty-five minutes before you head to the airport. Unless you’re a minute man, keep it in your jeans until you get back to the tundra.”
“Far from it. My stamina is at an elite level, unlike some.” I smirk at his middle finger.
He only plays rugby occasionally with the DC team we started on as flankers. Bro is a few inches shorter than me and a touch leaner on the muscle side, but he still keeps himself in shape.
My phone buzzes.
Miriam
I’m sorry and am happy to hear she’s okay. Do you need anything?