“This is the soon-to-be Mrs.Smith and our sunshine, Ryver,” Kojo said as I laid eyes on Daelite. I had to fight my urge to roll my eyes at his fakeness.
She looked surprised to see me. I would say she looked amazing. Her chocolate skin was glowing, body was on point in her fitted pants suit, and hair slayed. Her entire aura screamed happiness. Daelite had the kind of glow that you had when you were truly happy. She seemed like an entirely different female than the one I’d met before.
“Hi, stranger.” She walked around Kojo, who looked at us curiously.
“Hey, how have you been?” I genuinely asked. The few times I’d hung around her, we got along well.
“I’ve been good. Frankee and I started up our own real estate firm. Living my life to the fullest.” She smiled looking down at Ryver. “She’s adorable, looks just like…” Her words paused as she looked up at me with wide eyes.
”Me… I know, she’s my twin,” I quickly finished her sentence. I didn’t need to hear another one of Kojo’s rants about Faheem.
Yes, he knew Ryver wasn’t his daughter. He knew she was Faheem’s daughter. Kojo knew almost everything about my entire situation with Faheem. It’s not like I had much of a choice but to tell him after the broken nose Faheem caused Kojo.
Unlucky for me, Rye looked just like the long faced nigga. There was no denying who Ryver shared DNA with, but Kojo thought since I hadn’t told Faheem by now, I shouldn’t tell him at all. He wanted to keep this facade that he was living in his head up. We were supposed to be this big happy family. We were the perfect couple, and everything was great.
However, I had no intention of going along with that. I had every intention to tell Faheem about our daughter. The one time I attempted to tell him, I’d worked the nerve up. Putting my big girl panties on, I hyped myself up into telling Faheem he was about to have another baby. Going to the condo like I was billy bad ass, I went unannounced, using my key because Faheem hadn’t changed the locks. I ended up with my little feelings hurt more. I was greeted by the sounds of Faheem and his baby mama fucking. With resentment and anger running through my veins, I was determined not to be the only one in a bad mood when I left. On my way out, I knocked over Faheem’s big flat screen TV. While I was crying, missing him, he was still balls deep in Mixie. Apparently, he needed a reason to cry. With no regret, I put off telling Faheem I was pregnant. I wanted to give myself time to heal, and Kojo was right in my ear egging me on.
Before I knew it, I had Ryver, and a year had passed. She was one, and I still hadn’t said anything. Every time I thought about telling him, I feared his reaction. Faheem was going to be pissed; there was no way around it at this point. I wouldn’t try to convince myself otherwise. Now it was finding the right way to tell him. I didn’t have much of a choice to tell him about Ryver because we’d become face to face again. One look at Ryver, and it would be all over for me. Hell, I couldn’t be sure Daelite wouldn’tsay anything to Frankee, who I knew would tell her brother without a doubt.
After my big blow up with Faheem, I had no intention of ever speaking to him again. Everything he said to me that day hurt me deeper than I cared to admit. I really loved his bitch ass, and I thought we were going to really be together. When he said he hated me and he was going to be a family with Mixie, it was like a stab through my heart. If Faheem wanted me to hate him, he wasn’t making it hard. I felt stupid for letting myself get caught up in all his lies. I was smarter than that. I knew better than to believe words without actions. When it came to Mixie, he was all bark and no bite. I should have cut him off the moment I felt myself falling for him. He wasn’t shit. At the end of the day, Faheem was more concerned with Mixie’s feelings than mine.
He didn’t want to hurt her by leaving her, so he’d rather hurt me. He might have some type of love for me, but not enough to put me first when it came to Mixie. If anything, he wanted me to blindly go along with him stringing Mixie along. I let him play with my heart instead of making him work for it. He should have earned my heart. I learned my lesson in love; love doesn't love anybody. I was the fool that had to learn it the hard way. I had one problem, my heart wasn’t ready to let go of Faheem.
My mind was screaming fuck the nigga when my heart was screaming for his love. No matter what I told myself, my heart refused to let go of the love that I had for Faheem. I really wanted to hate his ass. He didn't deserve the love I had given him. I should have treated him like a trick.
Then I had to stare at his twin everyday and be reminded of the life I really wanted to live. If anything, I mourned what should have been. Faheem and I were supposed to be raising Ryver together as a family, in love, building a future together, but that wasn’t in the cards for us.
“Yeah, well, let’s go take a look at the house,” Daelite happily said, stepping back, allowing us to enter. “Now, this house has four bedrooms, three baths, a finished basement, and a basketball court in the back. It’s smaller than the other houses, but you said the Mrs. would love it.” Daelite shrugged as she walked into the living room.
“Do you like it, babe?” Kojo asked, trying to grab my hand.
Knowing I didn’t care for all that affection, I frowned at him. He always tried to do that shit in front of people so I wouldn’t cuss him out the way I would if it was the two of us. Kojo really irked my nerves at the few company events I’d gone to with him. He’d put on a show for all his colleagues, wanting to kiss and touch all over me. He knew better, and I’d stopped going to any company functions because of that. Oddly, there wasn’t a huge physical attraction for me when it came to Kojo.
I hated when he touched me or kissed me. It didn’t seem right. The only time I could tolerate him touching me was if I wanted some dick, and that ended as soon as I came. Once I’d gotten my nut, I was repulsed by the nigga, and it wasn’t because of his looks. Kojo was a fine ass nigga. His light honey brown skin, grey eyes, plump lips, full bread, waves, and his body was on point too. He was a suit and tie, clean cut type of nigga. Bitches stayed in his face, and he ate the attention up. He didn’t do it for me though. What I craved was more than looking good on the outside. Like most niggas that looked good, his dick was mediocre. If I didn’t cum in the first seven minutes, it was over for me. Kojo could barely last ten minutes in bed. The best thing aside from his looks was his tongue. Other than that, he was nice to look at, but that was it for me.
“It’s fine,” I answered, looking around as we made our way through the downstairs area. With Rye in my arms, a slight frown was on my face. I didn’t not like the house, it was nice, butthe thought of living in the same house as Kojo made everything look a mess to me.
“You stress me out, Juniper. Every house is fine to you. You’re acting like you don’t want to move in together.” Kojo looked at me, aggravated.
I wanted to say I didn’t want to live with him let alone marry him. Kojo wasn’t a dumb man by far. He knew how to get what he wanted by all means necessary. Six months ago, he asked me to marry him. I was thrown for a loop at what I thought was dinner with his family had turned out to be a proposal from hell. For one, we’d never been in a fully committed relationship. I always told him I didn’t want to put labels on anything. I just wanted to have fun, Kojo didn’t care because he had hella bitches he fucked with. I wasn’t dumb, I saw all the bitches names on his phone. I didn’t care, I wasn’t looking for another love connection. I was okay with us being friends with benefits. Kojo, though, that nigga had been plotting. He knew my marriage to Faheem was due to be over soon too. He knew I wouldn’t let him be embarrassed which is why he asked me in a room full of his family, mainly his parents, his mama already didn’t like me, not that I cared. Margret could fall off a cliff for all I cared. However, I knew she’d talk a bunch of shit to Kojo if I said no and I didn’t want him to have to deal with that so I said yes. I had every intention of telling him the wedding wasn’t happening anytime soon. I didn’t want to be his wife or anyone else’s, not when I still had to divorce Faheem’s crazy ass and deal with him finding out about Ryver. That right there was enough to deter me from being with anyone else on a serious level for a long time.
Kojo wasn’t trying to hear me when I tried to explain everything to him. He pulled the dramatics, tears, begging, pleading, and all that. He wore me down eventually by pointing out all of our good times and convincing me to really give him a chance. I could admit I’d been keeping him at arm’s length.The way my heart was set up, I didn’t have time for another heartbreak. I told myself I would give Kojo until our wedding day to prove to me he was worth taking a risk. He hadn’t done anything wrong per say, but he didn’t do anything that screamed he was right for me. He did the basic things a nigga did when he was trying to show you he wanted to be with you. We went on dates, mostly places he wanted to go. Kojo didn’t care for my nature activities. I mostly did those with Rye. He bought me gifts, again, stuff he wanted me to have, not stuff I liked. Nevertheless, they were expensive jewelry, purses, and other stuff that all collected dust in my closet. I liked nice stuff, but he went over the top with it. He did try to get me a fur coat that I immediately gave back to him. I hated furs, and had he been listening during any of our talks, he would have known that.
Kojo wasn't a bad dude, I just didn’t think he was the one for me. We were the kind of opposites that didn’t attract. The closer we came to our wedding day, the more I understood he might not be worth the trouble. I truly dreaded the thought of us living together.
“Jo-Jo!” Rye called out to Kojo, waving her fat fingers for him to grab her from my arms. That was one of the things that I did like about Kojo. Rye loved him, and normally, he was putty in her hands.
“Come on Rye,” Kojo said, grabbing Rye from my arms, and her chunky butt happily went with him. “Let’s go look at our new house since your mommy wants to be a doo-doo head.” Kojo tickled her belly playfully, and I rolled my eyes since I knew what was coming next.
”Doo-Doo!” Rye exclaimed happily, laughing. That was their little inside joke they did together.
I flipped Kojo the bird as he ascended the stairs talking shit with Rye.
“Happy family, I see,” Daelite snickered from behind me. Startling me a little, I jumped, turning around, giving her an uneasy smile.
”If that’s what you want to call it.” I grimaced, hearing us being referred to as a family.
“Frankee was in her feelings when you disappeared on her too.”
