“I mean you gotta wanna be me right? You was dating my ex.”
“How is that by the way?”
“Champ ain’t focused on the fight. He’s too busy tryna be me.”
“What? She left you like she left me. Niggas got something to prove?”
He needed a rise out of me, but he didn’t get it. He’d done what everybody in the media did, assumed Selah and I weren’t together anymore because our shit wasn’t all in everybody’s face. There was the picture in the beginning, but that was it. Not a soul knew shit because we had other things on the line instead of putting on for people we didn’t know on fucking apps.
“People really think you and Selah broke up,” Jordyn said. It was like she had read my mind. “This was brilliant. What did Drake say? I wasn’t hiding my kid from the world, I was hiding the world from my kid.”
I laughed at her reciting the lyric word for word. “Ain’t hiding it. These people just don’t need to know.”
“Exactly. But when she starts to really show, what is the plan?”
I shrugged. “Shit, that’s on you, boss. I have no clue. You and her cooked this shit up. I’m just rolling with it.”
Jordyn laughed. “Of course you are, and for that, I am grateful. All I want to do is keep you both safe and ou?—”
“No need to explain. I know you got us, Jordyn. And for that, I am grateful. I trust your direction, no matter how crazy that shit sounds at the moment.”
She laughed as we pulled up to the bakery. I got out first, holding my arm out for Jordyn who was known to take a tumble or two over her own feet from heights.
We entered the bakery seconds after Duke opened the door. It was seven in the evening, two hours after close, so of course the door was locked.
“She’s back there. She said she had one more batch to ice and we’d be gone.” Duke looked from the back hall to me.
I laughed. “Yeah aight, that’s the okeydokey.”
While Jordyn stopped to check in with Duke, I walked to the back in search of Selah. When I turned the corner she was working hard to manipulate the white icing on top of the cake. She glanced up and we locked eyes before her attention went back to the task at hand.
“I was on my way. I just wanted to get this laid before I left. I promise I would have met you there.”
I leaned against the doorway, taking her in. Selah was so fucking beautiful to me, the type of beauty that often had me just staring at her. Then my eyes went from her face to the easily missed belly she now sported. Her body was changing daily and I noticed everything, finding myself mildly obsessed with her and my child.
“It was sexy watching you ignore him even though at every turn he was trying to pull you out of character,” she said out of nowhere, snapping my thoughts from her midsection to her voice and what she said.
“You watched?”
“Yeah.” She threw her head in the direction of the massive tablet propped up against the dark gray backsplash below her cabinets.
“Thought you didn’t watch sports?” I said, just to fuck with her.
“I don’t, but I’m kind of obsessed with a certain boxer.” She grinned, looking up from the icing to me before getting back to it.
“Yo, for real?” I asked, playing around.
“Yeah, so obsessed in fact I’ve been tuning into a few conferences just to see him.” She finally got the icing on evenly and stepped back.
I laughed, pulling her body against mine, my hand landing on her stomach.
“What do you think? How does it look?” she asked as I ducked my head to kiss her neck.
“Like a cake, baby. What’s it supposed to look like?”
“Like an evenly layered cake. That way tomorrow I can put the color layer on and the designs. Let me put it in the fridge and we can head out.”
I let her go and watched her work. It was covered and placed in the massive industrial fridge about two minutes later. Within the next two minutes, Jordyn joined us in the kitchen on some straight begging shit, and in true Selah fashion, she packed her several pastries in a few to-go containers before we finally left the shop.
