Page 46 of Only for Me

He locked his jaw and I could already tell this situation with us was no longer going to work. We had been back and forth on a lot of things over the past year. After I lost O’Rion, I bailed on a lot of commitments which meant threats of breaching contractual agreements. He claimed it made him look bad but my name was in the companies’ mouths, not my agent’s. My pockets suffered, not his.

“And what about the kid?”

I angled my head to the side, grilling the fuck out of him. “My daughter is not your concern.”

“Have you talked to Vanessa? People are already whispering about it. It’s going to leak sooner or later. We need to get ahead of this.”

“Wedon’t need to do shit. I’ll run it by Van and we’ll deal with it. Is that all you have for me?”

He nodded stiffly and I lifted from the chair. “Aight, I’ll holla at you and no announcements about this, Kari, or my daughter. We’re keeping it private. We’ll handle it on our own timeline.”

When he didn’t respond, I grilled his ass again and he threw his hands up. “Fine.”

As soon as I was out of his office, I hit Vanessa’s line and it went to voicemail. I let her know I needed to holler at her then ended the call. Tony was about to be replaced and I needed Vanessa to look into people already knowing about Avi. She was going to be pissed that I hadn’t hit her up about it already but I could deal with that as long as she could deal with making sure we got ahead of this.

“You made it.”Makari seemed surprised when she opened the door and saw me. I took Avi from her arms and situated her on my left side while I grabbed the stroller with my right. She stepped out and locked the door while I headed to my truck in the driveway.

“We can take my car. You don’t have a car seat.”

“I have one,” was all I said as I moved to the rear of my Range and pressed the button to open the trunk after I leaned the stroller against the bumper until it was open enough for me to lift it into the back.

Makari rounded the truck, frowning at me. “You have a car seat?”

“Yeah, the same one you have.”

“When did you do that?”

“Last week. I took a picture of yours and showed it to the lady at the store. She hooked me up.”

She frowned hard as hell. “And did she put it in for you too?”

I smirked and nodded. “You gonna be mad if I say yes?”

Makari glared at me, walked to the passenger rear door, and yanked it open. I watched her, enjoying that thick ass body and plump ass while she checked the straps and made unnecessary adjustments before she reached for Avi. “She did it wrong.”

“Nah, she didn’t do anything wrong…” I paused and she opened her mouth to argue but I cut her off. “Chill, man, she didn’t do shit wrong because she didn’t help me. I did it myself and all that tugging and shit you were doing was unnecessary.”

I bumped her out the way and instead of handing off Avi I buckled her in myself. She stood there watching me, waiting, but I nudged her forward and shut the door ,knowing she was about to try and go behind me.

“Get in the truck, Kari. I know what I’m doing.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert now?”

“No, but I’m smart enough to not put my baby at risk.”

She smiled and turned her head but got in the truck. I rounded the front and got in the driver’s seat.

When I backed out the driveway she pulled her phone out of Avi’s diaper bag and unlocked the screen. “I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

“I’m trying this new thing called responsibility. I’m not crazy enough to get on your bad side again. Them little ass hands of yours got some work with them.”

“Cute.”

“Cute is for little boys and babies. I’m a grown ass man.”

“I was talking about your sarcasm, not you. Did everything go okay with your meeting?”

“Yeah, it was straight.”