1. Andrew Nicholas Jennings #2
She gripped the edge of the couch, and I kicked her legs apart. When I entered her, her walls were loose, but shorty was dripping wet like someone turned on the shower.
I stroked her deep and hard, making her scream my name. Truthfully, I wasn’t even in the mood to have sex tonight. It had become a ritual, one that I had no idea how to break.
As I fucked her, I wondered what life would be like after retirement. Things had been over between Kendra and me for a while.
I’d only attempted to settle down with her because of my son. She had shown me that was a joke from the start. About six months ago, I’d given up on the illusion that she wanted a relationship with me. She wanted my baby because she saw a payday on the horizon.
There would be no more victory celebrations, game day fucking, wild parties, or any of that shit. I’d still have access to the life, but not an excuse to indulge.
I was thirty-five. Maybe it was time for me to settle down, but until then, I was gonna get this nut one way or the other.
I fucked shorty hard all night long, from the living area to the bedroom to the balcony. She got the dick, and she got several nuts out of me, only in the condom, though. I made sure I flushed that shit down the toilet. I wasn’t about to let another gold-digging bitch get my million-dollar seeds.
I was tired as a muthafucka and angry as hell. Kendra not only didn’t show up at Disney World for the all-expense paid trip, but she wasn’t home when I arrived for the parade. She had been missing for the last few days, and now she had pulled up in the driveway like everything was fine.
I stood in the window and watched as she unstrapped my son from the car seat and hefted him in her arms. It took a lot of restraint to not move the entire time she walked up the sidewalk to the house.
The four minutes it took for her to reach the living room where I was passed by painfully slow.
Some days, I wondered why the hell I had this big ass house at all.
I wasn’t happy here, and I hadn’t been for a long time.
The only reason I’d bought it was because Kendra thought it was fitting for my status.
“Hey, you’re back,” she greeted happily when she stepped into the living room.
“Where were you?”
The smile dropped from her lips. “Drew, I haven’t been feeling like myself. I just needed some time is all.”
“You had one fucking job—get my son to Florida.”
“I told you that I didn’t feel like going. Please don’t come home and be on this bullshit.”
“You could’ve let my sister bring him down there to me. The arrangements were made.”
“I don’t like the vibes your sister gives. She doesn’t like me, and I don’t trust her to not poison my son against me.”
I ground my teeth to keep from saying, “For good goddamn reason.” Instead, I turned away from the window and fully faced her. She dropped her eyes away from mine and looked at my son asleep in her arms.
“Give him to me,” I commanded, reaching for him.
“He’s asleep, Drew.”
“You don’t think I know that? I’m looking at him, Kendra.”
She sighed and smacked her lips, but she handed him over. Noah was thirteen months, and he was the joy of my life. I carried him to his nursery and put him to bed before I returned to his mother.
“You wanna tell me where the fuck you been?”
“Home.”
“You a damn lie. Dani’s been in this house since she flew into town a couple of days ago. She waited for you, until I returned to town. She just left an hour ago. Now try that shit again.”
Kendra sighed and rolled her eyes. “I went to spend some time with Amonte, okay?”
“Why couldn’t you just bring him here to spend time with him?” I asked, narrowing my gaze.
Kendra had a twelve-year-old son who lived with his father because she could no longer handle him after a while.
“It was easier for us to go over there. I didn’t want to be in this big ass house alone.”
“You didn’t have to. You could’ve been there with me.”
“And I told you why I didn’t want to!” she snapped, spinning away from me.
I grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around. I narrowed my gaze at her and got in her face. “You still fucking that nigga?”
“No!”
“Then why the fuck are you spending the night at his house?”
She exhaled deeply. “Listen, I know y’all got beef. I know that he was disrespectful as hell to you on multiple occasions over the phone, but he’s still my son’s father.”
“Right,” I replied, nodding slowly. “Kendra, make up ya mind this day who you gon’ choose—life or death. ’Cause fucking around on me with that cornball-ass nigga gon’ cost you ya life.”
“I’m tired, Drew. I’m tired of all the arguing, the mistrust, you being gone all the time.”
“I’m retiring.”
“And I’m tired.”
“So what are you saying, Kendra?”
She sighed and pulled her hands through her sew-in. “I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want us,” she declared and waved her hands around the house.
“You should’ve started with that. Should’ve said that shit before I came back to town.”
“I didn’t want to impact how you played or how you celebrated.”
I scoffed. “Since when you ever gave a shit about that?”
“I haven’t,” she remarked sassily and walked away toward the front door.
“Where the fuck you going, Kendra?”
She glared at me. “To be with my baby’s daddy.”
My fists clenched, and my jaw worked back and forth. I closed my eyes and counted slowly backward from five.
“Walk your ass out that door if you want to; don’t think you’re coming back.”
“Tuh. What you gon’ do, Drew?”
“Test me and see.”
“Whatever.” She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. I walked back to the nursery to find my son was awake. He stood in his crib, shaking it and smiling at me as slob dribbled down his chin.
I lifted the light-skinned baby with curly hair and golden eyes—the one whose paternity my family always questioned, the one who looked nothing like me—into my arms. I pressed a kiss to the top of his curly head and exhaled slowly.
“God, give me strength to do what needs to be done,” I prayed softly.