Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Come in, baby. I’ll make you breakfast before you gotta head home,” Darius invited.
“’Kay,” I mumbled and wandered in.
I took a seat next to my son.
“Did you get good sleep?” I asked him.
“Dad bought me one of those hybrid mattresses. It’s the shhhh-oot.”
I bumped him with my shoulder and teased, “It’s the shoot?”
“Cussing isn’t such a bad thing, Mom,” Liam informed me. “Dad and his buds do it all the time.”
My eyes cut to his father.
Darius cracked an egg into a bowl, shrugged and agreed, “It isn’t.”
“A gentleman doesn’t curse,” I declared.
Father looked to son, son looked to father, and they busted out laughing.
Oh Lord.
We’d had an equilibrium, with one authority…me.
Now I was outnumbered.
“Are you two going to make a habit of ganging up on me?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” Liam answered.
“Not on any important stuff, sweetheart,” Darius assured.
“I think cursing is important.”
Darius seemed perplexed.
He sounded it too, when he asked, “Really?”
“Maybe we should talk about this when the boy is not in attendance,” I suggested sweetly.
Okay, not sweetly.
Fake sweetly.
“You’re still not gonna change my mind. I don’t buy that shit that swearing shows a lack of intelligence,” Darius retorted. “It just demonstrates another way the establishment tries to control your behavior by making random shit wrong, like words.”
“Or sex,” Liam put in.
Darius nodded. “Or sex.”
It felt like my eyes had bugged out of my head.
“We’re definitely talking about this when the boy is not in attendance,” I decreed.
“We’ve had the talk, baby,” Darius replied. “A couple of years ago. He’s got condoms.”
I made a cacking noise then my forehead thunked on the stainless-steel counter because I couldn’t hold it up anymore.
Though, it must be said, I was relieved they’d had the talk. I hadn’t done it yet because I was committed to the task of avoiding it like the plague. Not smart for a woman who’d been a teenage mom but cut me some slack. That stuff wasn’t easy.
And anyway, I’d been secretly hoping my dad or Tony had stepped in.
Fortunately, Liam’s own father did.
“I think you broke her,” Liam remarked.
“She’ll be fine,” Darius replied, and I heard him whisking my eggs.
I lifted my head and wheezed, “Coffee.”
“Get your mother a coffee,” Darius ordered.
Liam left his plate and went to the coffeepot.
He then returned with a handsome mug that was a matte charcoal gray on the outside and a shiny robin’s egg blue porcelain on the inside.
Right.
Now this was just weird.
I examined the cup then looked to my man. “Is everything in your house perfect?”
“Aunt Danni and Aunt Gabby bought everything in this place,” Liam informed me. “They even put together my space. It’s sick.”
“Danni and Gabby?” I whispered to Darius.
Those were his sisters, Danielle and Gabrielle.
“They own an interior design business together,” he shared.
Now this was weird too, but not the good kind.
Because I realized how much I didn’t know. How much I missed. How much I didn’t ask about.
Even Lena last night knew about “the reserve.”
But I hadn’t even seen it and had just heard about it.
“Don’t go there,” Darius warned, reading my mind.
“It’s impossible not to,” I returned.
“We’ll catch up. Mom’ll have a dinner. It’ll be all good,” he declared.
“You can’t catch up on eighteen years over a dinner, Darius,” I informed him.
“You can make a start,” he returned. “All we can do, the three of us, is take it one step at a time. We’re having breakfast. That’s this step. Let’s focus on that. You with me?”
“Stop being rational when I’m on the verge of freaking out,” I snapped.
“Get used to it, sweetheart,” he shot back.
I felt something strange and turned my head to see our son’s attention was bouncing between his dad and me and his grin was large.
When I witnessed it, I was sure glad I didn’t make any promises about crying.
Liam saved me by stating, “This is the best fucking breakfast ever.”
Then he munched into his toast.
My son had just casually dropped the F-bomb in front of me.
I swung a killing look at Darius.
And again, he busted out laughing.
Liam joined him.
I didn’t.
I drank coffee.
* * * *
I’d gone home, washed yesterday’s makeup off, showered, dressed, and was on my way to work when the first call came in from someone I didn’t know.
I had a son who was out in the world, and he had a new car, which was a muscle car, but even before that I’d lived a life where I knew anything could happen, so even if this meant I regularly had to hang up on marketers and scammers, I took the call.
“Hello?”
“Malia! Hey, it’s Indy. We’re putting together a Malia and Darius Are Together party. Obviously, since you’re one of the people of honor, you gotta come. Are you free Saturday night?”
“I think so.”
“Perfect. Text me Toni and Lena’s numbers. We have to ask them. And your folks.”
“Um…okay.”
“So are you moving in with Darius, or is he gonna move in with you?”