Page 90 of Steel

“It’s nice to meet you both,” she said, softly. She looked at KJ, placing a kiss on his forehead. “Can I have him this weekend? I want him to spend some time with his mother.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. It’s about time for a visit to her anyway.”

“I’m sure you’ve been busy,” she said, throwing a look at me and Nayelli.

I fought back a frown. She clearly wasn’t feeling him having another child. She placed KJ back in his seat and clasped her hands in front of her.

“Well, you all enjoy your meal. You can drop him off tomorrow morning if you’d like.”

“That’s fine. I’ll call you before I bring him.”

“Okay.”

She leaned in to kiss his cheek before walking away from the table. Kerrion stared after her for a moment before returning his attention back to us.

“I apologize. She’s still having a hard time.”

“It’s okay. I can only imagine what she’s going through. She seems to love KJ.”

“Honestly, this is only her third time keeping him over the weekend. She’s been deep in her grief since we lost Donna. I’ve been patient with her and trying to move on her time when it comes to KJ. I’m just glad she’s spending time with him now.”

“Daddy?” Nayelli called.

“Yeah, baby.”

“Did you love KJ’s mom?”

“She was one of my best friends, and I loved her very much. Just not in a romantic sense.”

“Not the way you loved Mommy.”

His eyes drifted to me. “No. Not the way I loved your mother.”

I was happy as hell to see the server return with our food, because my child was surely plotting on me and her father, and she wasn’t shy about it. It was going to be a huge disappointment when she didn’t get the family she wanted. In life, it would be great if I could give her everything her heart desired, but his . . . the ball wasn’t in my court on this one.

Dinner commenced without a lot of talking, and I was grateful for that. By the time we finished eating, Nayelli’s eyes were tired. She’d already done her homework, so I expected her to take a shower and climb into bed when we got home. KJ was full from nibbling on his daddy’s food and drinking his milk, so he was knocked out. Kerrion paid the bill, and we loaded the kids into the car. He followed us home to make sure we got there safely.

After hugging him goodbye, Nayelli dragged herself up the front steps where Dinah was waiting. Kerrion and I stood outside his truck, a comfortable silence between us.

“This was nice,” I finally said.

He nodded. “It was. Maybe the three of us could hang out this weekend. Have a movie night or something.”

A smile spread across my face. “Forts?”

He laughed. “Damn, you remember that?”

“Of course I do.”

On weekends that we both stayed on campus, we’d sneak and have sleepovers in my room. When we had our movie nights, we’d pitch a makeshift fort in my bedroom and watch movies on a projector. As childish as it was, it was my favorite thing to do with him. We’d go grab pizza and a bunch of junk food from the corner store and have the time of our lives.

“Those were good times,” I said, reminiscent of our time together.

“They were. We used to have so much fun together, man. Tearing that campus up on the weekends. You remember that time we put that soap in the fountain and flooded the quad with suds.”

“I’m still shocked we didn’t get caught. They would have expelled us.”

I vividly remembered the night we’d gotten high as hell and snuck into the quad to put a shit ton of soap in the fountain,then ran off to watch it overflow with suds. It wasn’t until other people started playing in the shit did we come out of hiding to join them.