Page 35 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

I left the house and drove to a florist near Nyla’s place.

I ain’t know exactly what to get. I walked in and told the lady behind the counter I needed something that said I was sorry, something that looked like I meant it for real, not generic. I also wanted to get something for baby girl too. We ended up settling on pink and yellow roses mixed with baby’s breath for Tatti. For Nariyah, I picked out one of them tie dye forever roses, the kind that never wilts, never dies out.

I drove to Nyla’s crib going over what I was gonna say the whole way there, running different versions of it through my head. Then I decided I was just gonna let it flow natural when I got there.

Tatti made a nigga move and think different than I ever had before her, and without her around, my mind just wasn’t clear the same way. That was my wife. And no matter how bad she’d pissed me off, I was gonna honor them vows I made in front of God and everybody that mattered to me.

When I pulled up, I got out with them roses in hand, still running through what I wanted to say on the walk to the door.

I knocked, and after a few minutes, Namier opened it up wearing a muscle shirt and some sleep pants like he lived there now.

All I could do was shake my head.

“What you doing here?” Namier said, eyeing them flowers. “And you got flowers too? Oh, you finally coming to get your wife back. Come on in.”

I pushed him in the chest walking past him into the house.

“Nigga, you don’t even live here.”

“I mean, you might as well say I do at this point,” he said, laughing. “Let me go tell Tatti you here. Make yourself comfortable.” He nodded toward the couch and walked off down the hall. He knocked on one of the room doors and waited for Tatti to answer.

I heard him telling her that I was in the front waiting. I stood there in that living room, hands sweating a little around them roses, waiting on her.

She walked out into the front room wearing a sundress, hair pulled up in a messy bun, looking beautiful in that simple way she always managed even when she wasn’t trying. I missed her so bad it was hitting me now, standing there looking at her for the first time in three days. I just wanted to pull her straight into me and never let go. But we needed to talk first, needed to actually work through this before we skipped past it.

I extended the roses toward her. She took them, brought them up to her face, breathed them in slow. Her face was damn near angelic when she sniffed them roses and something rose in my chest. I was proud to have something so beautiful as my wife.

“These are beautiful, Kaseem.”

“You’re beautiful, Tattiana,” I said. “I wanted to come get you, take you home today. But I need to talk to you first. I wanna apologize for how I reacted the other day, the way I shut you out. But I also need you to hear me on something important. It’s never okay for you to keep shit from me. Ever. I’m here to help you carry whatever weight you got, not hurt you over it. You can tell me anything, and I promise you, chances are I can fix it, or at least help you carry it. Don’t ever hide nothing from me again, no matter how you think I might take it when you first tell me. I need to be able to trust you completely for this to actually work between us. That’s if you even still want it to.”

“Yes,” she said fast, tears already building up in her eyes. “I want it more than anything in this world, Kaseem. I regret keeping secrets from you, all of it. I didn’t want to lose you when you’re the best man I’ve ever met in my life. I was scared. I know that ain’t no real excuse, and I promise you, I promise, I won’t ever keep nothing else from you again.” She paused, biting her lip. “So I gotta tell you something else right now.”

I grabbed the back of my own neck, bracing myself. Here we go again. What secret could this possibly be?

“Please, Tatti,” I said, shaking my head. “Please mannn.”

“The other day when we went shopping,” she said, “I felt sick out of nowhere. Then again yesterday morning. I’m never the type to throw up, ever, so at first I figured it was just a stomach bug going around. After talking to both my girls, I took a test last night, had one delivered from CVS since I ain’t want Nyla asking questions yet. It came back positive.” She looked up at me, eyes scared, searching my face for a reaction. “I saved the other one in the box so we can take it together, if you want. But Kaseem. I’m pregnant.”

It was really happening.

I was having a kid. A daughter, and that was just some shit that I knew. I felt it the moment she said pregnant. This was the exact shit we used to lay up in bed talking about, dreaming on together, but I ain’t never fully prepared myself for the actual moment it became real.

I grabbed her and lifted her clean off that floor, kissing her face all over, laughing and kissing at the same time.

“You for real?” I asked, setting her back down but not letting go.

“Yessss,” she said, crying now, laughing through it.

I pulled her into a hug tight enough I probably squeezed the air out her for a second, and even through all that excitement flooding my chest, I had to ask her something serious before we moved past it.

“I know this a bad time to ask,” I said, “but I gotta know. How would you feel, knowing you may never get closure from Demon? Knowing you may never get the chance to speak to him again, ever?”

“I already got all the closure I needed the day he set me up and left town without looking back,” she said, no hesitation in her voice at all. “That’s not something I ever cared about chasing after. He brought more pain into my life than peace, Kaseem, and I never once intended for my daughter to know him, or for me to ever cross paths with him again. I wouldn’t care one bit what happened to that man.”

I kissed her lips then, no more words needed between us on that.

A few minutes later, Nariyah came walking into that front room dressed in the same colors as her mother, and I could tell right off they’d done that on purpose, coordinated outfits and everything.