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“What’s up Beautiful,” he said, voice calm—too calm for the way I was losing my shit right now.

“What’s up Beautiful? Have you not been looking at your phone?” I whisper-yelled, pacing around my half-organized closet. “The news is out! Somebody leaked it!”

He sighed, and I heard the sound of weights clanking in the background. “Serenity, chill. Yes, I saw, but ain’t nothing either of us can do about it right now. I’m in the middle of PT at the facility,” he said, voice even. “Breathe.”

“I can’t breathe! This was not supposed to happen yet! We haven’t even told the kids.”

“Shit, they see us go to the same room every night for the past two weeks since we got home. Our kids are smart baby, I think they know.” He chuckled and I could have slapped him. Why was he not freaking out the way I was?

I squeezed my eyes shut, running a hand down my face as I felt panic bubbling up in my chest. “You said we could keep this to ourselves—now it’s on the blogs?! My phone is blowing up with texts! Ari just sent me the link, my manager is calling me back-to-back, and now we have to deal with this before we even had a chance to tell people ourselves!”

I could hear movement on his end, a low grunt escaping him. “Alright, I’m coming home. We’ll talk about it.”

“I just don’t get it, Creed! How did this even happen?!” I started pacing again, mind racing a mile a minute.

“Baby, I don’t know,” he said, his voice still irritatingly calm. “But we’ll figure it out, okay? Just breathe.”

I opened my mouth to respond when I heard footsteps behind me. Turning quickly, I came face-to-face with Tasha standing in the doorway of the closet, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open in shock.

“Tell me it ain’t true,” she said, hands on her hips.

Fuck.

I froze, still holding the phone to my ear.

“Tell me you and my son didn’t run off and get married in some damn Vegas chapel without telling nobody,”she pressed, voice rising.

I swallowed hard, eyes darting to my phone screen, realizing that Creed could hear everything.

“Tasha, I?—”

“Answer the damn question, girl!” she snapped.

I inhaled sharply, then exhaled slowly, deciding not to evade or lie. I nodded, gripping my phone tightly. “Yes, it’s true.”

Tasha blinked, her lips parting slightly in shock. And then, to my absolute surprise, she let out a squeal, clapping her hands together. “Finally!”

I blinked, completely caught off guard as she suddenly rushed toward me, wrapping me in a hug. There was no way Tasha Langston was happy about this. Even though we let bygones be bygones for the sake of my daughter, we still weren’t particularly close.

“Oh my God—Serenity, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this moment!” My eyebrow shot in the air at the omission, confused, shocked. “I always knew you and my son were gonna end up together, but Lord knows y’all took the longest route to get here,” she said, pulling back to hold my arms. “Why the hell didn’t you just tell me? I woulda helped y’all plan something nice instead of y’all running off like some damn kids.”

I stared at her, still processing her reaction.

“I—what?”

She grinned, shaking her head. “Girl, I’m happy for y’all. I know we haven’t always been on the best of terms, but I know now how much my baby loves you and I’m just glad it wasn’t that triflin’ ass Jailah.”

I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding as she pulled me in for another tight hug. On the phone, Creed chuckled. “Told you everything would be fine,” he said.

I rolled my eyes, even as a small smile pulled at my lips. Tasha pulled back, looking down at my phone, then snatched it out of my hand before I could react. “Boy, why the hell didn’t you tell your mama you got married?!” she snapped into the phone.

I laughed, finally relaxing a little as I listened to Tasha chew Creed out over the phone. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Later that night, my parents and Sevyn came over for dinner. We barely got the words out before my mom sighed, shaking her head.

“Well, at least we didn’t have to hear about it from the blogs,” she muttered sarcastically, giving me a pointed look.

I winced. “I’m sorry Mommy. It wasn’t supposed to come out yet.”