“Uncle Shaddy,” she whispers. I hug and kiss the top of her head before taking in the baby in her arms.
“Which one is this?”
“This is Cody. Dal is holding Cam.”
Dal, on the other side of the bed, turns around to show me Cameron’s face.
They look just alike, both the color of my palm with a head full of black hair. They wanted to be surprised by the sex, so all their clothes and everything is unisex, down to their names.
“I did my big one, huh Dub?” Set says, throwing his arm around me.
“Oh, you off the game?”
He pulls me into a brief headlock before releasing me and going to wash his hands. “I just had to bust Nut real quick, something slight. A nigga had to take a break from these big ass feelings.”
When he comes back, he takes his son from Brina and his dimples look like they’re permanently on his face.
“Cody Rahshad Washington. Gotta nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
He puts my nephew in my arms and my face crumbles. I gently sit down in the seat behind me and take him in more. He’s asleep, only been on this earth for a few days, and is already loved so much.
“Aww. What’s Cammy’s middle name?” Dal asks as she walks to me.
Brina clears her throat. “Rose.”
“A boy and a girl is fucking lit. See, Choc? We gotta have a son now, so Cody won’t be surrounded by all girls.”
“You really gone name him after me?” I look up at Set, who hasn’t taken his eyes off his son.
The years we were beefed out, I threw myself into my music. I don’t know how I survived not fucking with him nor Nut. As soon as my Pops put me and Set together, he was my hero. Couldn’t no one tell me about my big bro, at all. He’s alwaysprotected me, and I thought I was protecting him for once, by not telling him about Brina’s second miscarriage. He’d been off the deep end since she left, and finally seemed to be okay.
Not telling him cost me my brother, and I’m just now starting to get him back.
But to me, it’ll never be the same. Set isn’t the type to forgive, and to him, I chose up on him, for Sincere of all people; one of my closest bros at one time, but someone who none of the others ever liked, and someone who was plotting on Brina.
I never would have thought he’d give his first son my name.
But he just shrugs, and shifts his smile to me. “You the smartest and coolest nigga I know. Names mean shit… gotta start my boy off right.”
“Ima pretend you didn’t just admit you think I’m a lame ass nigga, Dub.” Nut strolls over and shoulder bumps Set, who just laughs him off.
“It’s just fuck Nutty huh? Don’t trip Cody, yo uncle Nut gone raise you right.”
“Got my eyeballs sweating and shit,” I mumble. He takes Cody so I can clean my face off, and try to settle the warring feelings rising in my chest.
A hand starts rubbing my back, and my shoulders drop.
“You know it’s okay to cry right, Shaddy?” Mace whispers.
I turn to face her completely, and fight not to get lost in her eyes. They’re so dark they could be black, like bottomless pools that seem like they have the answers to all my questions.
She lets me stare at her, her hand slowing on my back before it stops completely in the middle. The longer I bore into her, the more her pouty lips part, and when my gaze shifts down, she bites that bottom lip of hers.
She opens her mouth to say something but the door opening steals her attention.
And the air is sucked out of the entire room.
Big pink and blue balloons fall into the room first, but then we get a glimpse at who’s carrying them, and Nut kisses his teeth, drowning out Dal’s sharp intake of breath.
