But his expression was all wrong.
His eyes were cold, his face hard.
“Malia—”
I cut him off this time by blurting, “Liam Edward Clark.”
He leaned back with a jerk and the air in the room gotoppressive.
This was it.It wasn’t how I wanted it to go, but I had nochoice.I had to work with it.
“I had to guess, but I named him what I thought you’d wantto name him,” I shared.
And I had.Liam, his best friend Lee’s name.And Edward, forhis other best friend, Eddie.
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ shitting me.”
“No.”
“You had my kid, and you didn’t fuckin’ tell me?”
His voice was quiet, nevertheless, his rage was glaringlyevident.
The man he was now, I was certain most people quaked intheir boots at his mood.
But…wait.
Hang on.
I was pretty even-tempered.I had great parents.I was closewith my sister Lena, who was my other best friend, along with Toni.I had atight-knit family.I had friends like Toni who thought I was an idiot, and shestill packed her scarf and sunglasses to go on some moronic quest with me.Growing up, we weren’t rolling in money, but we were never hurting.I was ateenage mom and not a single member of my family or that first friend didanything but support me and help me through my pregnancy and beyond.
I didn’t have much to get shitty about.
But with what Darius just said, I was feeling the need toget shitty.
“Well, you know,” I started sarcastically, “I did call…eightythousand times.You refused to speak to me.”
“You got my baby in your belly, you figure out a way tofuckin’tell me,” he shot back.
“I’m sorry.”Yep.Still sarcasm.“How was that supposed togo?‘Oh, hey, Miss Dorothea, I know you have a few things on your mind, but Ireally need to speak with Darius, since he got me pregnant.’”
“Don’t take that tone with me, Malia,” he said in thatquiet, scary voice.“You don’t got the high ground here.”
Oh yeah.
I felt the need to get shitty.
“I don’t?Wait, was ityouwho found out you werepregnant at sixteen?And was ityouwho called and called and postedletters and begged to speak tome, only to be shut out time and timeandtime again?And was ityouwho carried a child, pushedthat child out, breastfed that child, changed his diapers, chased after himwhen he started crawling, chased after him more when he started walking,struggled to put clothes on him when he went through that phase where he decidedthe only suit he wanted to wear was his birthday suit?And was ityouwho took classes even though all this was going on, leaning on your family tohelp out, so you could eventually make decent money to put a roof over his headand food in his belly?Sorry, I thought that all wasme.”
“I could have given you money,” he bit out.
“I don’t want your money, Darius,” I retorted.“I wanted youto be Liam’s father.Which was why I was at the bar for Shirleen to see metonight.It’s time for you to be his father.”
“I’ll get you money, how much do you need?”
“Darius—”
He threw a hand my way.“You got this, obviously.You don’tneed me.”
