Seeing him stuck in the throes of passion was my cue to drop the bomb I had been holding in for weeks. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes.
“I’m pregnant!” I blurted before I lost the nerve.
Icame so hard that I would have blacked out if it weren’t for Carteay’s confession. Her voice snatched me out of the abyss and thrust me back into reality.She’s what?Now all the crazy shit she had been eating and even her claim to have quit drinking to work on her health hit me at once. When my body finally relaxed, I found my voice.
“Untie me, Carteay.”
“Why? Are you mad? I’m sorry. I was gonna tell you.”
“Is he mine?”
“Who said it was a boy?”
“Is he mine?” I repeated.
I didn’t know why her hands shot to her face. I needed her to talk to me. I used the hand that I’d been able to get free toremove her hands. It broke my heart that there were tears in her eyes. It didn’t matter to me if the baby was mine or not. I just wanted to know. I wasn’t going to abandon her. Still, I couldn’t help but hope that it was mine.
“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked.
She sniffed. “I don’t want you to hate me, Kannon.”
“I could never hate you, baby. Talk to me.”
“I don’t know if it’s yours. I don’t know how far along I am, but I haven’t had my period since before I came here the last time. I took a test before the incident with Cyrus.”
“In that case, I don’t want to know if he’s mine. We’re not going to try to do all that calculating and figuring shit out. You’re mine, so he’s mine. I’ma take care of y’all. I don’t have to be hands on with my business. The only time I really do it is for you. I’ll follow you on the road if I need to. This can work, Carteay.”
“Kannon, you don’t have to stop your life.”
“Who said something about stopping my life? You’re part of my life. I should have known it was something. I knew you were getting more beautiful every day for some reason. Now I know it’s because you’re glowing. I want to do this with you at least ten more times.”
Her pretty brown eyes ballooned, making me chuckle. “Ten times, Kannon?”
“Don’t worry. I’ma take good care of you. You know that.”
“You don’t even know how this pregnancy is going to go, and you’re already planning on doing this ten more times?”
“I’ll do the heavy lifting. You just be pretty and cook our babies. If you saw what I saw right now, you would understand, gorgeous.”
“Let’s just do one at a time and see how it feels.”
“That’ll work.” I nodded. “Now can you untie me, woman?”
She laughed as she removed the handcuff from my wrist. “I was so caught up in the moment. I almost forgot you were tied up.”
I scooted down the bed to help her release my feet. Her little maniacal ass had all kinds of knots in the ropes that were on my ankles.
“If you think you ain’t marrying me, Carteay Hoyt, you’re crazy. I’m not about to be no single dad of twelve. Frisky is already a bastard as it is. We’re not doing that again.”
Her eyes ballooned. “Twelve?”
“OK, seven.” I shrugged.
“Let’s get this one here first.”
“I’m excited, Carteay,” I confessed.
“Wait a minute, did you call Frisky a bastard?” She giggled.
