Page 47

Capri

The thought of sticky wings made me sick to my stomach. I was hungry and as I looked at these wings on my desk, I wanted to scream.

With Cherry, I couldn’t get enough of them, and with this baby, I wanted them far away from me.

I closed the container and put it on the desk behind me as I went back to replying to emails.

With Mercer in custody and his bail being denied, everything was moving fast. So much shit was coming out and I knew everybody involved was on edge.

The FBI took this case and went running with it. We had a meeting in fifteen minutes, and I had been dragging my feet because I didn’t want to sit and hear everyone’s theory on this case. We were merely assisting the FBI, and that was their way of being nice and saying they didn’t need our help.

Our meeting today wasn’t about Mercer and the egg farming. Although, I lit some fire under Lucia’s captain’s ass, because why had so many cases gone cold when it came to her? Nobody over there was actually doing their job.

The meeting today was about all the art that had been stolen throughout the city. I wasn’t talking little pieces, either. These pieces were worth millions of dollars and older than my mother. They didn’t know who was connected, but this meeting was pretty much spit balling.

Apparently, there were some leads with the local gangs, and they wouldn’t be wrong. Goon told me what he and his brother were into, and I promised to keep them covered. Goon and Khaos were sons of a Jamaican immigrant mother, who could barely put food on the table.

She didn’t have a big hustler like Jean Delgato that made her life somewhat decent before everything fell apart. Their mama had to get it out the mud, and her boys were determined to keep her from having to ever do that again.

I took care of my own and would continue to do so for as long as I was in this position. Keeping my brothers and husband out of prison was my only job. The rest of the things I had been into were side quests.

“Sug?”

I looked up from the computer and saw Meer standing there. He was determined to get around without his crutch, and he did. Physical therapy was hard on his leg and the other night, he tried to tell me that rain was coming because he could feel it in his leg.

Mind you, it never rained.

He heard Gams saying she could feel the rain in her joints and then decided to use it with his phony self.

“What are you doing here, Meer?” I came from around the desk and closed my office door while pulling the blinds closed.

Meer had come to my office a few times, but he hadn’t come up here since everything went down with our home, and then he and Sim were shot.

He patted his pockets before he pulled out a single pregnancy test. I hadn’t told Meer that I was pregnant, and honestly, I was too busy trying to put out all these fires.

I wanted to tell him, but I also wanted to make it special, since the last time I freaked out while being worried what my mother would think.

This time, I wanted it to be special for the both of us. Time hadn’t been on my side because I had been so busy.

“Did you take that from under the sink in the bathroom?”

“Yeah… your period been late, Sug.”

I folded my arms. “You came to my job for me to take a pregnancy test. How you know my period late anyway?”

He shoved his phone in my face, and he had the same app that I used on his phone. “Quameer, did you sync my app with yours?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged like it wasn’t nothing and this wasn’t crazy of him.

“Meer, I’m pregnant.”

He stood there and was staring at me. “Sorry, Sug.”

It was now my turn to stare at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“When I be up in yo shit… it be feeling too good, so I don’t be pulling out quick enough.” He spoke and was serious as I stood with my arms folded.

“Robert, be serious.”

“I’m dead serious… but I know you wanted to wait until we had more. Baby, whatever you wanna do, I’m with you… you know that, Sug.”

“We’re married, Meer. As much as we wanted to wait, this baby felt the need to come into our lives at this moment. Let’s pray for a boy so we can be done.”

The door opened and I saw Peach’s head poke in. “Peach!”

She had been spending a lot of time with her mother. So much was going on and Meer wanted to protect her from it. She was still struggling with what happened when our home was broken into, and she witnessed cops holding their guns to her father.

Brandi and Meer decided that therapy was good for her, and it had been helping her a lot. I only wanted the best for that little girl, and I hated she even had to witness that. “Hi, Suga mama… I asked daddy to come see you, too.”

I hugged and kissed her. “I missed you so much, Peach. Are you staying with us this week?”

She smiled. “Yep, I’m out of school for holiday break. Mommy took me with her to her friend’s house in Miami for Thanksgiving… his house was so big.”

Meer cut his eyes and sat down in one of the chairs. Thanksgiving came and went, and we didn’t celebrate. My mom cooked because she was used to doing it, but no one was in the celebratory mood.

I stayed in bed all day and then went to bring Blair some food. She refused to leave Quasim’s side, and I couldn’t blame her. I would have done the same with my husband and wouldn’t have made any complaints about it.

“Oh really?” I looked over at Meer, surprised he allowed Brandi to introduce Peach to her new man.

“Water head deserves happiness, too,” he spit the words out like they tasted like lemons. Despite Meer hating Brandi, I could also recognize that he felt she deserved some of the happiness that we had.

Don’t get me wrong, he still couldn’t stand her. He just wasn’t against her moving on and having someone, too. Brandi had gotten her act together and came correct, so I didn’t have much to say to her when she came over to pick Peach up. Our situation was cordial, and I preferred it that way.

Peach clung onto me as I sat on the edge of my desk. “Wanna have a girl spa night tonight?”

She smiled. “Yes… can we keep Cherry in her bouncer?”

With Cherry about to turn a year old, my baby was all over the place. If she wasn’t buckled down, she was crawling all over. Everyone was betting on when she would get up and walk.

“Don’t hate on my baby, Peach.” Meer called her out.

“Alright, then when she has red nail polish all over her body, don’t complain, Daddy.” She called her father out.

“Why we doing red nail polish anyway… Gams already said she’s too young for red nails.” He reminded me what both Gams and my mother told me.

Growing up, I could get my nails any color I wanted except red. Red was associated with being grown, and I couldn’t disagree more. How was the color of nails and long hair considered grown on a little Black girl?

When I used to get my hair braided, my mother would tell the braider not to make my braids long. She couldn’t help but make them long because my actual hair was long. I never understood how or what was associated with being grown.

“We’re not doing that with our girls, Meer. I told you that I want her to be free to explore whatever, as long as you and Brandi are cool with it. Brandi doesn’t mind that she wants red nails. She sees me and Blair with red nails and just wants to be like us… nothing more.”

“Nanny has red nails now, too.” Ryder reminded us.

I raised my brow at him. “Don’t give me that look, Sug.”

“All I’m saying is we know what kind of girls we are raising. She doesn’t want to be grown; she just wants to follow the long line of Inferno women that have red nails.”

Peach squeezed me. “Yep. And I’m gonna ride a bike like Suga mama, too.”

“Don’t push it just yet, Peach. Soon as you’re old enough, it’s on,” I whispered to her, and she grinned while kissing my arm.

My office door opened before he could respond. “Have you seen the news?” Skyler questioned.

“No, what happened?” Every time I turned around, there was something going on and I was sick of it. The late hours and always being on go was starting to pull at me. I missed being able to hang with Peach and Cherry on the weekend.

I missed being present with my daughter and not having her being bounced around from my parents’ house, Erin, Alaia, or Gam’s house because her mother was out here doing everything but raising her.

The mom guilt consumed me because I felt like I needed to be better. It didn’t matter how much everyone tried to tell me I was doing a good job; I didn’t feel like I was doing a good job.

Skyler pulled something up on her phone and came over towards me. “Lucia has her partner barricaded inside of her house and is threatening to kill them both.”

Peach gasped and Meer came over and held her hand, pulling her behind him. My heart dropped. Irie was only in this position because we put her there. When we told her everything, she wanted to help more than anything and now her life was in danger.

“Yo, Skyler, take her back out there with you,” Meer told her as she held Peach’s hand, and they quickly left.

I held Skyler’s phone and watched the news and squad cars outside of Lucia’s house. Running my hand through my hair, I paced in front of my desk until I felt Meer’s hands around me.

His lips touched my neck and just feeling and smelling him next to me calmed everything around me. “Breathe, Suga…you didn’t know this bitch would do some shit like this,” he reminded me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and rested my face on his shoulder. “Meer, this is so much.”

“Look at me, Sug.”

I pulled my head up and looked into his eyes. “Give me the word, Sug… all I’m waiting for is for you to tell me this is too much and Big Pa gonna fix it… you know that, right?”

My lips pressed against his as he pulled me closer to him. He held me since being home like he never wanted to let me go. Every night before I laid on his chest, I thought about how he looked before going under in surgery and remembered how he looked so unsure.