“Mid,” I told my mama.
“Wow.” She poured sparkling juice into her glass and took a big gulp. I hid my smile, knowing she was probably wishing that the juice actually had an alcoholic content. “So, you’re pregnant by a professional athlete who wants you to terminate? Are you gonna blast him in the court of public opinion? Get on social media and call him out?”
It was my turn to wish there was alcohol present. “Absolutely not. I’m cool with him not wanting to be connected to me forever in the form of a child. We were messing around. I was something for him to do, and he was an experiment for me to see if I was ready to move beyond my relationship with Channing. Thispregnancy was unexpected. He’s good. He can stay right where he is, living his own life.”
“Right,” LoLo seconded, still munching on the breakfast that my mother and I were largely ignoring. “She doesn’t need Preston Wilcox, because she already has somebody who’s willing to play stepdaddy.”
“Oh my gawd!” My mother groaned, then stood from the table. “It’s not even nine a.m. and you have me needing liquor. Where the hell is my Casamigos?”
“You talk too damn much,” I told LoLo through gritted teeth.
She waved me off dismissively. “Auntie can handle it.”
“That’s not the point.”
LoLo stared at me silently for a few seconds while she chewed the food in her mouth. Finally, she swallowed and spoke. “The point, Wyndsor Castle, is that she can’t be there to support you if you don’t tell her the whole story. You suffered in silence every time Channing went into a manic state, acting like keeping it to yourself was protecting him. News flash, it wasn’t protecting him or you.”
“I know that.”
She rolled her eyes. “I hope you do. Because what I’m not gonna do is watch my best friend rebuild herself from the floor again. You were keeping Channing’s secrets, and I was keeping yours. I’m not doing that again, Wyn. It took you two years to get out from under the depression and anxiety of watching Channing continually spiral. You couldn’t even grieve your loss.”
“I know that.”
“If you know that, then I hope you understand why I just did what I did.”
I understood. Channing’s mental health issues sent me into a mode where I felt like I had to protect him. I convinced myself that we were all each other had and all each other needed. When the burden of trying to be his everything got too heavy for meto carry, I would dump everything on LoLo. We were all in our early twenties. None of us were equipped to carry what we were carrying without the guidance and support of seasoned adults. It was a shit show. And LoLo wasn’t wrong for refusing to enter another situation like that with me. My mother was a nurse. She knew the medical industry. She was more than equipped to help me if I started to have trouble dealing with my current situation. She could at least get me a referral to a good therapist.
My mother reappeared at the table and set the bottle of tequila down with a thud. “LoLo, did you get enough to eat, hon? Because I need to talk to my daughter . . . in private.”
LoLo shoveled one last forkful of food into her mouth, grabbed her purse from the floor, and stood. “Thanks for breakfast, Auntie.” She walked over and gave my mother a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll call you, Wyn.”
I hugged my bestie.
“Don’t worry about locking it, LoLo. I’ll lock it from my phone,” my mother called after her. Once we were alone, she added tequila to her sparkling juice, took a big gulp, then stared me down. “Tell me everything.”
So, I did, including the part about Kaynaan wanting me, in spite of the pregnancy.
“Do you trust his motives? Do you think?—”
“No. No. Kaynaan’s the sweetest. He’s the one I went out of town with a few weeks ago. He’s so nice, Mom. He treats me like glass.”
“So why the hesitation?”
I gestured to my stomach area. “I’m pregnant by somebody else. I’m pregnant by his teammate. It looks so bad. Like, am I just hopping from player to player? The least I could do was choose a different sport.”
She eyed me. “Is that him talking or you talking?”
“Me,” I admitted. “He would never say anything like that. He always tells me that he doesn’t care about Preston, that’s the baby’s father. He knows I don’t have feelings for Preston.”
“What’s the problem then?”
“I just told you the problem.”
She looked confused. “Is the problem optics? You worried about what it looks like to people outside of you and what’s his name again?”
“Kaynaan.”
“You’re worried about what your situation looks like to people outside you and Kaynaan?”
