Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
"Merge"
Right before pulling into my parents’ driveway, my phone buzzed against the center console.
Talia.
“The fuck does she want?” I grumbled.
I unlocked my phone and read the message.
Talia: My back is killing me! ?? I was gonna pay for a massage, but maybe your hands would work better. Lol.
I stared at the screen for three full seconds.
The fuck?
I even looked around the inside of the SUV afterward, just to make sure that text hadn’t been meant for another nigga and accidentally wandered into my phone.
Before I could respond, another message came through.
Talia: The baby is stressing me out already! ??
I rubbed my jaw slowly.
That baby wasn’t even big enough to know what stress was, yet somehow, she had already assigned it blame and requested a couples massage.
I finally typed back.
Me: Take some Tylenol and lay down somewhere.
I hit send, then paused.
Damn.
The baby.
I frowned before sending another message.
Me: Actually, don’t take anything until you check what’s safe during pregnancy.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Talia: Aww. Look at you being concerned about little ol’ me.
I was sure the mug I sported could crack a mirror.
I wasn’t bit more concerned about her; I was worried about the tiny human depending on a woman who acted like she belonged under observation half the damn time.
If Talia was the same girl from the club, then that statement about good pussy being attached to crazy women might’ve actually been a scientific fact.
Before Talia could send anything else, I locked the phone, grabbed my keys, and headed inside my parents’ house already exhausted.
People usually got nervous around me, not the other way around. But that evening, I felt the weight of walking into that house knowing one conversation could either calm everything down or make my life significantly more complicated.
The smell of my mama’s cooking filled the air immediately while soft jazz played somewhere deeper in the house. Everything looked polished, like always.
“Well look who finally remembered he has parents,” Mama teased the second she spotted me walking in.
“Chill, Ma. We talk every day.”
She rolled her eyes. “Talking on the phone and physically showing up are two different things, Mayzen. Prison inmates talk on phones too.”
Mama was probably the only person who still called me by my government name without fear, hesitation, or needing permission first.
I loosened the collar of my shirt lightly. “Damn. Well… when you put it like that, I’ll make sure to come over more often.”
“You better.”
“I will. I promise.”
I leaned over and kissed her cheek.
That seemed to satisfy her enough.
When I stepped into the dining room, Pops sat at the head of the table fully invested in the newspaper, glasses resting low on his nose while a half-finished glass of whiskey next to him.
The man looked retired for exactly five seconds until he sensed me walk in.
“Ey, Pops, what it do?” The greeting came out smoothly. It was pure New Orleans, the kind of slang that belonged to this place, this city, this life.
He lowered the newspaper immediately, expression shifting from focused to genuinely pleased.
“Son!” he exclaimed. “Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise.”
“Damn,” I said while pulling out a chair. “Didn’t know my presence sparked so much joy around here,” I joked.
Mama took a seat. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re still hard-headed and stressful.” She smiled softly while resting her hand over mine, and added, “I do enjoy seeing you, though.”
I smirked faintly.
Mama cleared her throat. “Well, it’s not every day that our one and only son voluntarily comes over for dinner, so this visit clearly has some good news attached to it.”
Across the table, my father watched me carefully over the rim of his glass. Unlike Mama, he noticed everything.
“I hope so,” he muttered calmly. “Or there will be bad news following behind it.”
There it was… the reminder.
The week before, he’d already warned me that if I still hadn’t made anything happen on my end regarding finding a suitable wife that he was moving forward with a forced arrangement himself, meaning, he’d already found some politically perfect woman he approved of and planned to start pushing her into my life whether I liked it or not.
The old man wasted absolutely no time preparing backup plans.
I pulled my chair out slowly before sitting down.
“Actually…” I cleared my throat once. “I do have news.”
Mama immediately perked up. “Ouuuu! Well, what is it?”
I glanced between both of them once before finally revealing, “I have a surrogate.”
Mama blinked and Pops’ brows pulled together slightly.
Then both of them spoke at the same time, damn near in the same confused, shocked tone.
“A surrogate?”
“Come again?”
I exhaled slowly before briefly explaining how the arrangement happened. By the time I finished speaking, they still looked stunned.
Then suddenly, my mama gasped loudly. “So… I’m about to be a grandma?!”
Really, Ma? After everything I just laid out, that’s your takeaway?
I couldn’t say that without her possibly throwing a roll at my head, so instead, I replied, “Yeah. Looks that way.”
“Oh my God!” she squealed suddenly before jumping up from the table and hurrying around it toward me. “I don’t care how the baby was made! I’m getting my grandbaby!” she laughed emotionally before grabbing my face and kissing my forehead.
I couldn’t help but laugh a little at her reaction.
Then suddenly she froze.
“Oh! I have to call Joyce!”
Joyce was my aunt… and unfortunately one of the nosiest fuckin’ women alive.
“I gotta tell her immediately! And don’t touch my food while I’m gone!” Mama said while hurrying toward the kitchen.
The second she disappeared around the corner, the room got quiet again.
I looked over at Pops.
He still hadn’t said a word; he just sat there calmly sipping his whiskey with the same unreadable expression he used during business negotiations and funerals.
“Pops… say something,” I finally said.
“I suppose congratulations are in order.”
I frowned slightly. “So… you’re not mad?”
“Mad?” He scoffed, softly. “Hell no.”
He set his glass down slowly.
“Like your mother said, I don’t particularly care how the child was conceived, as long as the kid arrives on time for me to step down.”
I laughed under my breath.
Of course… somehow this still circled back to business.
“So, are you even a little excited that you’re having a grandchild?” I asked out of genuine curiosity.
“Of course, I am.” His expression sharpened immediately afterward, eyes narrowing just slightly. “The real question is, are you excited about having a child?”
That question wiped whatever mask I’d been wearing clean off my face.
“Yeah,” I answered, but even I could hear the doubt bleeding through. “Why you ask?”
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers steepled. “When you were explaining everything just now—and that 'yeah' reply you just gave me—you didn’t sound thrilled at all, you sounded conflicted.”
See... always observant and reading between the lines I didn't even know I was writing.
“Talk to me,” he added, his tone softer but no less demanding.
I leaned back in my chair slowly, jaw working. “It's the surrogate.”
His eyebrows lifted. “What about her?”
“I don’t trust her. Then again, I don’t trust a lot of muthafuckas.”
Pops nodded. “Facts. But keep going.”
“I just don’t know if I trust her enough to carry my child. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but something about her feels… off. Every instinct I got keeps telling me to watch her closer.”
“Do you need me to step in?” he asked calmly.
That was the scary thing about my father. In the face of chaos, he never exhibited panic, there were no frantic questions or emotional outbursts, just a calm resolve to find solutions.
I shook my head. “Nah, I got it.”
Pops studied me for a moment longer, before giving a slow nod. “Well, regardless of how you feel, remember, this is still the woman you’ll have to marry.”
“Fuck,” I cursed in irritation.
I’d been so focused on securing a child that I kept forgetting about the other important part of the damn arrangement—the marriage.
“Pops, on some real shit, I don’t think I can marry this girl.”
His expression barely changed. “Merge…”
“Pops, hear me out,” I cut in quickly. “I know what the bylaws state. I know we already talked about me divorcing too soon, having multiple wives, and even killing one, if necessary, but damn…” I rubbed my jaw slowly.
“This girl texts like she got unlimited data and unlimited emotions. I’m talkin’ paragraphs, hell, voice notes that go on for three minutes.
One day she texted me six question marks because I didn’t respond fast enough. ”
Pops chuckled. “Well, son, it does take you forever to respond to a text. But the bigger question is, does it feel like she’s reaching out about the baby, or does it feel more personal than that?”
“Hell, both!” I exclaimed immediately.
That made my father laugh.
“I’m serious, Pops.”
He leaned forward slowly, resting his forearms on the table while thinking. Then, “I know we had this conversation a year ago, but would you feel better marrying Zonnique?”
I looked at him waiting for the punchline. I got no smirk or hint of amusement. The nigga was dead ass serious.
“Zonnique?” I repeated flatly. “Pops, I just told you she can’t have kids.”
He held his palm up. “I know. I know. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m probably just as desperate as Zonnique at this point… just for different reasons.”
I frowned slightly. “Meaning?”
“What if we fake Zonnique’s pregnancy and keep the surrogate quiet?” he suggested.
I snickered. “Pops, you know what’s crazy? Zonnique said that same shit when I found out about the surrogate.”
He leaned back, intrigued. “You don’t say?”
“Real talk. She was talkin’ ‘bout doing fake bellies… the whole fake pregnancy rollout. I shut it down because I told her you’d never go for something like that.”
Pops sighed heavily. “Normally, I wouldn’t. But…” he exhaled slowly, “I’m tired, son.”