“A’ight then,” she said, handing me the bowl anyway.
I took the bowl from her and grabbed the fork, taking a few bites while she watched me like she was waiting on somethin’.
“That’s good,” I said, handing it back.
She took the bowl back, and her eyes stayed on me a second longer before she looked down at the fork in her hand and turned it around slow, dragging her tongue over it and licking the ranch off like I wasn’t sittin’ right there watching her do it.
I let out a low laugh and leaned back again, shaking my head a while I took another pull from my cigarette.
“Yeah,” I muttered under my breath.
She glanced at me. “What?”
“Nothin’,” I said, looking back out at the garden.
But it wasn’t just nothin’...
I finished my cigarette slow, lettin’ the moment sit the way it was without trying to turn it into somethin’ else, and when I crushed it out, I leaned back in the chair and looked out over the yard again.
Trill-Land had been good to me.
But lately…
I was starting to feel a lil’ more interested in the island than I planned.
Tril-Land, Jungle Estate
It was late in the afternoon and I was laying in bed with Kaylon feeling like my whole body was off. My head had been hurting for hours, like something was sitting behind my eyes and wouldn’t move. Every time I tried to sit up, a wave of nausea rolled through me, and it kept building without ever giving me the relief of actually throwing up. It just sat there, making everything feel worse.
Kaylon was pressed against me, his little body warm while he moved around, and I tried my best to keep up with him even though I felt like I needed to just lay still and not move at all. My hand rested on his back while he played with the edge of the blanket, and I closed my eyes for a second, hoping that maybe if I just stayed still long enough, the feeling would pass. But it didn’t.
Pressure was at the restaurant. I had already texted him, and I knew the second I sent that he wasn’t about to just respond back with a message. He didn’t move like that when it came to me, and sure enough, not long after, I heard his footsteps coming toward the room.
The door opened, and I turned my head just enough to see him walk in. He set his duffel bag down by the door without even looking at it again, and his attention went straight to us.
Kaylon lit up the second he saw him and reached his arms out, making those little sounds he always made when he wanted to be picked up. Pressure walked over without hesitation and scooped him up, kissing all over his cheeks while Kaylon laughed and grabbed at his face like he always did.
“Aye, my boy,” he murmured, his voice softer than it usually was, and then he leaned down and kissed me on the lips, his hand coming up to rest against the side of my face.
“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked.
“I just don’t feel good,” I told him, my voice lower than I meant for it to be. “My head hurt, and I feel lightheaded… and nauseous.”
He looked at me for a second, and I knew he was already trying to figure it out before I even said anything else.
“You start your period?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I said, then added, “but you know it been irregular since I had the boys.”
He nodded a little, but his eyes stayed on me, and there was something in the way he was looking that made my stomach twist even more.
“You need to take a pregnancy test,” he said.
I barely had time to process that before he kept going.
“I’m ’bout to call it in. I’mma have somebody go grab it.”
I frowned a little and shifted in the bed, suddenly not wanting to deal with that at all.
