Page 280 of Kentrell

Shit… I could show Zoe everything. The returned wires. The missed calls that damn near tripled the two I actually answered from him. I could show her the fuckin’ setup I had lined up for Malcolm. Let her see I ain’t never mean for none of this to play out like it did.

If anything… I only entertained that first sit down with Malcolm just to get close to her. Everything after that? That wasall me. Every kiss. Every smile. Every night I laid next to her wishing like hell I was a better man for her.

But even with all that… would she believe me? Would I… believe me? If I was her?

My chest pulled tight again… like somebody reached inside and twisted it with both hands. I grabbed it… rubbing slow over my sternum like that shit could help.

Then my phone went off. Loud. Disrespectful. Same number. No name. Just like before.

I stared at it for half a breath… then snatched it up.

“What?”

Silence. Then a breath. Then?—

“Kentrell.”

That voice.

I froze. All that heat in my chest cooled in an instant. My stomach dropped like I took a shot to the gut. I sat down on the edge of the bed, clutching the phone like it might disappear… like she might disappear.

“…Ma?”

“You sound like hell,” she said soft, low. “And I know hell, baby.”

I shut my eyes. Swallowed the knot climbing up my throat. She ain’t say nothing else. Just let the silence stretch, let it sit between us, heavy and slow… cradling me in a way nobody else could.

I dropped my head into my free hand. My voice cracked before I even got it out. “I lost her, Ma…” And just like that… I broke. A little more than before. Like I ain’t already been breaking in pieces since Zoe walked out that door.

We sat in that silence for a minute. One of them ugly ones. Not peaceful… just heavy. Thick enough to choke on. I could hear her breathing on the other end… slow… measured… like shewas trying to figure out how to say whatever was chewing her up inside.

Then she broke it. “I’m on a timer, baby.”

That snapped me back.

“Shit—my fault. Wussup?” I sat up straighter, tried to shake the weight off my chest… tried to sound less down. But I can’t fake this shit. I wouldn’t be right ‘til I had my shorty back.

“I need to see you.”

BEEP

Incoming call. Malcolm.

Seeing his name flash across my screen lit a fire behind my eyes. The whole reason I was in this mess… staring down the barrel of a life without Zoe. I lost my girl. Fucked up her trust. And I was probably never getting her back.

All because this clown couldn’t handle the idea of his daddy stepping out and making a baby. His ego so damn fragile he tried to rewrite reality. Thought he could play God with people’s lives. Now? I was about to show him the devil himself.

“Kentrell?”

“Yeah, I’m still here,” I said, ignoring the hell outta that call. “You need to see me now?”

“Yes!” she answered too quick, like it’d been sitting on the tip of her tongue all day.

“And you can’t tell me over the phone?”

“Boy, if I thought I could, I would’ve been did it by now—Kentrell, please. I need to see you,” she pressed, and that’s when I heard it… the fear in her voice.

BEEP

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