Page 161 of Steel

And I loved that, above all else, it was family over everything. They could fight like cats and dogs but let somebody else try one of them, and you had the whole army coming after you.

“Pop, you mind taking the kids?” Kerrion asked. “I wanna take Neha somewhere right quick.”

Several eyes fell on him, including mine. What was he up to?

“Not like that!” he said, laughing. “I just wanna show her something.”

Shar smirked. “I bet you do.”

He playfully mushed her. “Get your mind out the gutter.”

“I got them,” Senior said. He was already holding KJ, who was busy plucking with his earring.

“We’ll see you at the pizza place, baby,” Kerrion told Nayelli.

“The surprise?” she whispered.

He grinned. “Yep.”

“Surprise?” I parroted. “Not you two keeping secrets.”

Nayelli giggled. “It’s a good secret.”

I gave Kerrion a side-eye. “What are you up to?”

“You’ll know soon enough. Come on.”

He grabbed my hand then led me through the crowd and outside to his truck. As I climbed in, my mind raced with what he could possibly have to show me. The entire drive, I was nervous as hell, but I didn’t ask any questions, because I knew he wouldn’t give me any answers. I’d learned a long time ago to just roll with the punches when it came to surprises from this man. While I was sitting over here nervous, he was driving and singing softly to music while caressing and kissing my hand.

We pulled into some street parking about ten minutes from the school, and he shut off the car. Getting out, he came aroundto get me. He reached into the car’s glove compartment and grabbed something before closing the door. Hand in hand, we walked about two minutes to a huge, open clearing where it looked like they had just broken ground. My eyes widened.

“Kerrion, . . . what is this?”

“Well, you never got back to me on your health and wellness center. I wasn’t sure if it was everything going on or if you thought I wasn’t serious, but I was. This is yours.”

“What! When did . . . how did . . . what!”

He chuckled. “I told you I’m gonna support you in any way that I can. I know how much this means to you. I didn’t want to overstep, but I had to give you a little push. Dinah so graciously slipped me your sketchbook.” He pulled out a folded piece of paper and presented it to me. “Now, you had a couple different things in there, so when I presented it to the architect, I had him incorporate elements from each sketch. I think he got you right.”

I looked down at the mockup, and my mouth dropped. It was perfect, . . . absolutely everything I could dream of. When I noticed there were two pieces of paper, I pulled out the other one to see it was the interior layout. Again, absolutely perfect. I didn’t have any words as tears sprang to my eyes. This man. This fucking man had outdone himself. I fell into his arms, crying profusely.

“Thank you!” I wailed. “Thank you!”

His arms encased me, and he pressed a kiss to my temple. “You’re welcome, baby.”

“I can’t believe you did this,” I said, wiping my eyes.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d take care of you a long time ago?”

I nodded. “You did. I just . . . I never thought we’d be here. After what I did, . . . I don’t deserve this.”

“You deserve it because you are my woman.” He kissed my forehead. “My love.” He kissed my nose. “My life.” He kissed my lips. “Everything I am belongs to you and our two kids.”

I bit my lip, contemplating if I should tell him the secret I was carrying. With everything that had been going on, I attributed my missed period to stress and the many life changes we were going through. It wasn’t until I was using the bathroom at Smoke and Romi’s house, did it dawn on me that I was late, . . . really late.

I knew she kept a supply of pregnancy tests because Smoke was certain he was going to get his boy one of these days. When I took the test and it came back positive, I was shocked as hell, like I hadn’t been letting this man raw dog me. I wanted to wait until my official appointment, but now seemed like as good a time as any. Grabbing his hand, I placed it on my stomach.

“Correction, . . . it’s three.”