Page 20 of Only a Gemini Will Do

I dipped my chin again. “Mmhm. Only . . . he’s very much alive. They both are.”

“Hold the fuck up. How do you know this? Does this make us accomplices now?” Neesh asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

Brit jumped up and raced over to her shelf near the window, where a mix of low-maintenance houseplants and black literature shared the space alongside her Echo Dot.

“Don’t say another word in this bitch until I unplug the Alexa,” she whispered. “You never know who’s listening.”

“Shut your paranoid ass up,” Neesh said with a chuckle.

My shoulders rose and fell. “She may have a point, though. He’s the only one I told until you two.”

“So, he knows?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“How if he’s on the run?”

I sighed, deciding that coming clean meant telling the whole truth and nothing but. “He sent me a plane ticket to Brazil. I flew out last month to see him and told him about the baby.”

Kaneesha fell back against the couch as if she’d passed out. “Oh shit, bitch, he knows. The fine ass felon knows!”

“Plot twist!” Brit added, pouring herself a much-needed refill. “What did he say?”

My lips twisted to the side. “We’re kinda in funny waters right now,” I admitted.

“Why? He doesn’t wanna be in the baby’s life or something? Because I’ve got no problem catching a flight to put belt to ass on a deadbeat,” Neesh acknowledged.

I swung my head. “The opposite. He was trying to get me to build a life out there with him, but that was too much for me to handle. I mean, it’s not like we meant for shit to get this far. So, I cut my trip hella short and came back to Florida.”

Brit arched a questioning brow. “How short is short?”

“Less than forty-eight hours,” I confessed.

“Hold up, this niggaflewedyour pregnant ass out to Brazil and you left early?”

Neesh threw up her hands. “Oh my God, she’s dumb, Brit. The baby is making her dumb. I’m convinced.”

“Right because I would’ve been with child selling fruit out of an old pickup truck on the beach right about now for a nigga that look that good.”

Brit and Neesh cackled, laughing at my expense. “I’m sorry, girl,” Brit apologized. “My damn morals flew straight out the window when I saw that mugshot and heard the dick was dickin’.”

“Mine too,” Neesh agreed. “Morals gone like Lebron’s hairline, baby.”

I rolled my eyes. Suddenly, they were Team Kareem, and all it took was them seeing his mugshot.

“So what you gonna do? You going back to Brazil? Gonna apply for dual citizenship and make some more babies? Because I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Brit acknowledged. “Plus, it gives us a reason to come visit.”

“She’s right. I mean, you kinda owe us a vacay at this point anyway, the way you had us in here snatching out our edges a few minutes ago.”

Brit bobbed her head. “And I’ve definitely got room for more stamps on my passport.”

“Um, question. Do you love this man, Sawyer? Because we’ve not even tapped into the fact that you traveled to a whole other country for this nigga just to tell him you kept his oops baby.”

“Sho’ did,” Brit agreed before turning her glass up to her lips.

I rolled my eyes skyward as a groan slipped from my lips. “I know, but I felt obligated to go once he sent me the ticket.”

“Can we get back to the part where you skipped over my question about whether you love him?”