My eyes never left the baby as she cut past me and sat on the couch. Kam slowly followed her and sat in a recliner on her right. I walked to the couch and sat next to her.
For a moment, we were silent. I heard the baby, Zayn, take short breaths in a steady rhythm, as if he’d never experienced a hard day in his life. Because he hadn’t. That stayed in the back of my mind when his mother rocked him back and forth and didn’t speak a word.
Kam sat back in the recliner, and the noise from the leather stretched through the tension. With his arms folded, his eyes moved between us like a referee.
“So you brought your babysitter?” Amora asked as she stared at him.
“I’m the manager, remember?” he shot back.
“Same shit.” She scoffed. She looked at me. “You still ain’t changed, huh? Still having Kam sweep up the shit you too scared to take care of yourself, huh?”
I looked at her with squinted eyes. “Stop. Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” she shot back. “Tell the truth?”
“The truth is, you invited me here, begged for me to be here, really. Posting subliminals and shi”—I caught myself before I cussed in front of the baby. I breathed out and put my head down before I continued with a quiet tone—“andstuff. So don’t act like you shocked that I came prepared.”
Her narrowed eyes met mine quickly. “Prepared for what, Zay? For me to trap you? For me to beg you?”
“Prepared to make this a scene. We all know you love attention.”
Kam leaned forward then, with a heavy sigh, as if this conversation bored him.
“You always got some shit to say!” Amora swung her gaze to him.
“Because,” he started, “you acting like you don’t know what you doing. You posted that baby with his lyrics like it was a press release. Don’t try to act brand new.”
Her posture straightened as if she’d just heard a noise for the first time. “I did not?—”
“Yes, you did.” I cut her off with a voice sharper than I intended. “You did it. Don’t try to pretend now. What kind of shit is you on, yo?”
“All I did was post my son!” she exclaimed. “I’m allowed to post my son.”
“You posted him withmywords,” I corrected. “Mysong. And named him like you was writing a headline!”
She exhaled and leaned back into the couch, still rocking the baby. For a moment, it was quiet. Right when I was about to say something else, she muttered. “Don’t act like you the only one with feelings, Zay.” She hung her head low, kissed Zayn’s forehead, and spoke so low that it was almost a whisper. “You just cut me off one day. You acted like I was nothing. Like the times we had meant nothing to you.”
It was hard for me to take in what she said. When Princess walked back into my life, I didn’t know or expect everything to transpire as it had. My first love, with whom things ended abruptly, resurfaced and stirred feelings I thought I had buried long ago. Then, to discover I fathered a child with the one that got away caused my life to be disrupted in ways I hadn’t expected so suddenly. I didn’t know what to do, let alone the right or wrong way of handling things, cutting off Amora included.
I leaned forward and placed my elbows on my knees. “Still . . .” I paused before I began again. “Feelings don’t mean tag my life for the internet to see.”
“Right!” she snapped. “You tagged that author, Love Tate, into your life. You tagged her right into your family. All you tagged me in was beinghashtag—single mother.”
Kam grunted. “Alright.”
I shot him a glance. “Kam, man, come on.”
Amora kept going. “You want me to keep quiet so you can look so innocent. You never on social media because you don’t want people to know the truth about you, but you just as fucked up as the rest of these niggas!”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say?—”
“Yes, it is!” She cut me off, her voice high.
Just then, Zayn stirred in his little blanket. A small coo slipped out, soft first, then it grew louder. She rocked him back and forth, but it was too late. He was wide awake, and before we knew it, his little voice boomed through the room with no apology.
Kam’s voice cut low. “Lower your voices.”
She swallowed and stood then. She rocked him, and with a low tone, she spoke to him as if she remembered he was the only innocent one in the room.
