Page 65 of Devanté
“I’d rather not.” Her stiff words didn’t miss Janet. “This is a favor for your ears only. You act like you need your sister to protect you from me.”
“Oh, no honey. He’s the little brother but he’s the protective one. He knows how to take care of himself.” She shrugged her slender shoulders and one side of her mouth tipped up. “I’m just here unless he needs a girl to beat your ass.”
“I got this, Jay.” I held my hand up but she didn’t move…and I was the protective one?
“Anyway,” Renee said. “Devanté, I need you to watch your son for an hour. That’s all I need.” She didn’t even need to finish her request. No was on my lips faster than my teeth could release my tongue from its cage.
“Nope. Not happening,” I said, shaking my head.
“Seriously? You can’t watch him for an hour? Your parents are here. Don’t you want DJ to get used to them? I don’t know about his aunt though…”
“I’m nobody’s aunt, so you can’t be talking about me,” Janet grunted under her breath but loud enough for Renee to hear.
“Why do y’all think I’m lying about Devanté being the father of my son? Is it because I’m not perfect?”
“That’s not it, Renee,” I said, shaking my head. I pushed my long fingers through the crop of coils on top of my head.
“Then what is it? I’m all fucking ears.” Her voice leaped up a few octaves and the baby stirred in her arms. Annoyance flared my nostrils and made my muscles tight and heavy.
“If you would keep your damn voice down, I’d tell you.” I sighed, looking at her son bundled up. He didn’t ask to be born to Renee. I wondered how he’d be once he grew up. I wondered if his mother would ever admit I wasn’t his father.
“Your timetable doesn’t match. Your son wasn’t a preemie. You just want to pin this baby on me and I hate to be that guy but hey, let’s call a spade a spade.”
“Oh my god! You are so damn arrogant, Devanté!” She was full-on shouting at me. The baby awoke with tiny grunts and cries and I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Now you woke the baby up because you don’t have basic decorum.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault and not yours for acting like your own son doesn’t belong to you?”
Feet shuffled into the foyer and I didn’t need to turn around to know my parents were behind me and Janet. Renee’s brown eyes lifted and a sheepish smile bent her lips.
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. I brought DJ over so Devanté could watch him for an hour.” Her voice was a sugary contrast from a few seconds ago.
“I’m not watching your kid, Renee.”
“Okay, okay…” Mom said, stepping around to stand between me and Renee. “Why would you come over here just to dump the baby on us?” I loved my mother’s mellow personality. I could be fighting a thousand battles but once she heard about them, they becameourbattles. She was where I learned to be kind.
“I need to go to a meeting and finalize a deal. If I can get there on time, I’ll have a job and I won’t have to keep asking you for stuff, Devanté.” She said, dragging the syllables of my name out.
Me and Mom spoke at the same time but said vastly different things.
“Hell no,” I frowned.
“We’ll watch him,” Mom sighed.
“Thank you, Mrs. Morgan.” Renee couldn’t hand off the baby quick enough. A diaper bag and stroller materialized out of nowhere. She hung the bag on my shoulder and shoved the stroller inside with a satisfied smile. I wanted to glare at my mother but I didn’t want her to lay into me.
“Are those your keys?” My father asked quietly gesturing to the sparkly keychain dangling from Renee’s fingers. She glanced down then smiled.
“Yeah. House and car.”
“Mind if I see? These damn things are so shiny.” He held his hand out for the keys and Renee dropped them in his palm. Dad didn’t miss a beat, he took her car key off the ring and handed it to her. “I’ll hold on to your house key so you don’t leave us with the baby. You wanna go home, you have to come here first.” He smiled then went back into the living room.
“Yass, Dad!” Janet pumped her fist in the air then looked Renee from head to toe and went into the living room as well. It was just me and Mom standing there with Renee.
Spiteful, angry words burned my tongue. I held them inside and swallowed them down like hot coals. I knew with everything in my heart that baby wasn’t mine. Renee was doing too damn much and it pissed me off that she wouldn’t take a simple test to prove the truth. Cursing her out wasn’t the way to fix things though.
“Um…okay. I wasn’t going to drop him off and run. I wouldn’t have even come to you if I didn’t need you to watch him, Devanté.”
