I was irritated with myself for being unable to control myself. Yeah, Lyrius was fine, but this wasn’t just some random woman. This was Lyrius . . . the same woman who had made me feel something real, got me shot, and then disappeared on me. The same woman who had just dropped a whole child in my lap. Achild who looked enough like me to have my chest tight every time I looked at him.
“KO!” Jaylen’s voice echoed again. “Nigga, if you don’t get your big forehead ass down here and open this damn window?—”
I hit the third floor where his voice was coming from and stepped right into a pool of water.
“Shit!” I shouted as the cold water covered my sneakers as soon as I stepped down into it. I glanced around. There was water all over the floor. It wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous yet, but it was enough. Enough to tell me the first and second floors were probably fucked. Enough to make me get why I heard my brother from a window on the third floor instead of a damn door.
“KO!”
“I’m coming, nigga!” I finally yelled back, following the sound of his voice through the hallway, stepping through the water until I got to the busted window near the end. The glass was already gone, and one of the boards I’d nailed up was barely hanging on. I shook my head at Jaylen standing in the window frame before making my way over to him. I didn’t even finish pulling the remaining boards off the window before Jaylen started stepping through like it was a regular Tuesday morning. I looked at him, then out the window at the boat that was pulled up on the side of the building.
“What? You look like you see a ghost.” Jaylen grinned.
“You came in a boat?” I shook my head in disbelief. This nigga was really on a boat.
“How the fuck else was I supposed to get yo’ hardheaded ass?” he asked, shoving the rest of the board out of the way and stepping through. “Swim?”
I looked out past him. There was floodwater covering the street, carrying trash, tree limbs, and random shit that had no business floating. A few other boats were moving in the distance,but the devastation was real.Damn, a hurricane really came through this bitch.
“You aight?” Jaylen slapped my chest.
“Yeah.”
“You sure? ’Cause I’ve been yelling for five damn minutes.”
“I heard you.”
“And still took your time.” He looked me over. “What the fuck you had going on up there?”
Before I could answer, I heard movement on the stairs behind me. I glanced back and saw Lyrius coming down a few steps with Dakoda, hand in hand. Both of them were looking toward us. Jaylen followed my eyes and frowned, then his head snapped back to me.
“You in here with a bitch?” he said, loud as hell. “Nigga, I’m out here playing Coast Guard rescue, and you laid up?”
“Man, shut up,” I muttered, shoving him back.
“Wait.” His eyes narrowed when he looked past me again, and I already knew what was coming. “That’s Lyrius?”
“Hey, Jaylen.” She raised her free hand and waved.
“The fuck?” He looked between the two of us. “What she doing here?”
“I’ll catch you up later,” I said. “Right now, I just need you to get us out.”
He kept looking at me like he wanted to ask a hundred more questions, but he just nodded. “Aight,” he said finally. “I gotta hit the bathroom first. Been out here too damn long.”
“You serious?”
“Yes, nigga, I’m serious. I just rescued your ass in floodwater. I gotta piss.”
He stepped past me into the hall muttering to himself, and that was when he finally got a good look at Dakoda. He stopped, looked at the kid, then looked at me, and looked back at Lyrius. The confusion on his face was instant and loud enough all byitself. There was no need to be secretive. I told this nigga all my business anyway.
“Jaylen, you know Lyrius. Lyrius, you know Jaylen. That’s Dakoda.”
Jaylen didn’t say anything, so I said the part that really mattered. “That’s my son.”
His whole face changed, and he looked back at the little boy like he was trying to make sense of what the hell I’d just said. Dakoda blinked at him, sleepy and curious, his face tucked halfway into Lyrius’s thigh.
“Bathroom,” he said. “Then yo’ ass explaining this shit.” Jaylen pointed at me as he took off down the hall.
