“You wouldn’t happen to be avoiding me, would you, Avery?” he asked.
Him calling me by my middle name caught me by surprise. “I’m not avoiding you. I’ve been in the hospital but make no mistake, I’m still not trying to see you. How do you know my middle name?”
“Paid the lil’ pudgy ass nurse for your charts.”
When he allowed that to escape his lips, I just looked at him. “Why would you do that? My charts aren’t your business. Nothing about me is your bu?—”
His laughing interrupted my sentence. “Do you really believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Even though you’re carrying my child.”
This fucker really did pay for my chart.“Really, North?”
“Really North, what? You didn’t think I paid for your chart? I shouldn’t have had to, but I did what was necessary.”
Now it was my turn to laugh because I know he wasn’t standing his ass in front of me telling me what he shouldn’t have had to do. “Go home, North.”
“I am home. Now get over here and feed my seed.”
Him and that tone turned me on, but visions of old girl’s ass in the air turned me right off. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of arguing with him, instead I walked over and grabbed myself a plate. I didn’t get him one because I didn’t care to feed him. He was already crashing my night.
Once I had a few slices of pizza on the plate, I grabbed the two-liter RC and went into my living room.
He laughed behind me. “Petty ass.”
I didn’t respond, instead I pressed play on the episode and attempted to drown out his presence. North could kiss my ass right about now.How dare he know about a baby that I didn’t even know if I was keeping? The audacity of him to come here and care when he was part of the reason my heart hurt the way it did. How dare he?
Chapter Nine
Surah
Ilaughed at my cousin’s irritation. She was frustrated as fuck and refusing to talk to North, but he didn’t give a shit. He was there every time she turned around and even had her lunch delivered to the shop a few times. It was cute even though she was really giving him the cold shoulder.
“How much longer do you think he can keep this up? He has a life of his own and I’m sure plenty of bitches that miss his attention.” She rolled her eyes while eating the Cobb salad that he had delivered to her. As mad as she was, she didn’t turn down food.
“Probably, but right now you have all of it. Doesn’t that at least make you smile a little?”
“No. It’s been three days.”
“He knows that he fucked up and he’s trying to be there,” I tried to reason with her. She’d filled me in on her situation with North as well as the baby she was carrying. Of course, I was ecstatic, but she was the opposite. Not only was she on the fence, but she was also thinking about not having it. That along let meknow that Omyia was in a bad space, because if anybody was against abortion she was.
“I’m just not feeling like myself and I?—”
“Your child’s father killed himself. You got sick yourself. You just found out you’re pregnant after walking in on your baby daddy being a nigga. Being yourself is off the table right now. Right now you have to cut yourself some slack for not wanting to show up,” Luna tried to reason with her.
Omyia shook her head. “Every time I look at him, I see that bitch he was giving backshots to. I feel stupid as fuck because I knew what this was, but I still caught feelings. Nothing I’m going through right now is on him. It’s on me. I have to find myself outside of this.” She laughed at herself.
“Tell him that.”
She just looked at me before nodding her head. “He isn’t trying to hear it. In his mind he can fix this. What if he can’t?”
“Are you even willing to give him the chance to?” Luna asked.
Ommy shrugged.
“I hate to play devil’s advocate here, but at the end of the day you agreed to do this with him without strings and put off telling him how you really felt. How was he supposed to know it all changed?”
