“I’m not here to start shit,” she said calmly.
“That’s good. Because if you were, you’d be leaving through a window instead of that door.”
I rubbed my jaw. “Buck.”
He waved me off. “You entertaining this bitch?” He frowned.
Shayna looked at me, eyes a little dimmer now. “I just wanted to say hi, and that I’m proud of you.”
“You done?” Buck asked.
She rolled her eyes at Buck and gave me one last look. “I’m done.”
She left without another word. The door clicked shut, and Buck turned to me with the most disrespectful smirk I’d seen all week.
“You really let that hoe walk in here on some Aaron Hall I miss you type shit?”
“I didn’t know it was her.”
Buck dropped into the chair across from me like this was his house. “You miss that bitch?”
“Nah.”
“Then why you ain’t said shit yet.”
“I’m just… surprised.”
“Well, get over that shit. I need you to ride with me.”
I gave him a blank stare waiting on him to explain.
“Don’t ask no questions, just bring yo’ big bald-headed ass on. I’ll be in the truck.”
When the door shut again, I sat in silence.
Shayna hadn’t said much. She didn’t need to. I hadn’t thought of her in years. But the way she looked at me… like she’d been waiting for something. Maybe closure. Maybe a second chance I wasn’t ever offering. Either way, it didn’t matter. Because the only woman on my mind now was probably at home, barefoot, snapping at the TV, with her belly out.
And I wouldn’t trade that for shit.
4
Chapter Four
Shayna ‘Shay’Turner
I told myself I could handle it. Walk in, speak my truth, and be done with it. But the second Kilo looked at me? Everything I rehearsed disappeared. I hadn’t seen Franklin DeLuca since I was seventeen. Since he broke my heart and I moved away with a secret swelling in my stomach and my parents’ voices ringing in my ears,“You better not tell that boy or his family shit.”
So I didn’t. I had a baby… his baby, and I raised her with the help of my parents until they died last year in a plane crash. I missed them, but without them hovering over me, I was able to move back and finally let my daughter meet her father. I knew he was sentenced to ten years, so I waited until I figured he was home and adjusted before I approached him. I didn’t expectBuck’s ignorant ass to be there, but I should have. He was always with Kilo when they were younger. It made sense for him to be at their family business. I just wish he hadn’t barged in and interrupted us.
I stepped into his office with heart damn near hammering through my chest, and for a split second… he looked at me like he remembered everything. The hallway kisses. That summer. That night. And then Buck came barging in, loud and ignorant like always, and the air turned too thick to speak. I couldn’t take anymore of Buck’s harsh comments or the way that Kilo was looking at me, so I left. The sun had dipped by the time I made it back to the car. Liberty sat in the back seat, scribbling in her notebook.
“You took forever,” she said, not looking up. “What kind of friend did you say that was again?”
My stomach turned. “Just someone I used to know.”
She gave me a side-eye. “This building is huge. He famous or something?”
I laughed lightly to brush her off. “No, baby. Not famous.”
