Page 18 of Raising Love
“Someone they made on purpose,” she added. “They want to give that little person to us.”
“I know.” I sighed. “I know.”
“Now, I don’t know why the fuck Kendra would want me to raise her child if something happened to her and Tyrell,” she continued. “A part of me wants to believe she just never thought it could happen and went with me thinking I’d never have to raise her baby. I don’t know. Maybe she saw something in me that I don’t see?”
I sat back in my seat, running my hands down my face. “Yeah, I don’t know why Tyrell would even agree to something like this. I don’t know if it was Kendra’s idea or Tyrell’s. I just… I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.” Ivy shrugged. “But it was her last wish. Their last wish. So…” Ivy sniffed back her tears, lifting the restaurant’s table napkin to dab her eyes. “If she wants me to raise this baby as my own…” She squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled deeply, stifling another cry. “Fuck it. I’m gonna do it.”
I locked eyes with her across the table.
“I’m calling Mr. Grant tomorrow and telling him to move forward on the paperwork for guardianship.” She forced a nod. “And if I have to do it alone, that will be fine?—”
“Nah, Ivy,” I said. “I can’t let you do that.” I shook my head. “I won’t.”
We stared at each other for a few beats before the weight of my words set in.
My elbows rested on the table, my head in my hand as I tried as hard as I could but failed to hold back the loud growl of frustration that echoed around us.
“Shh,” Ivy shushed again, her eyes darting around the restaurant. “Keep it down.”
This had all been so fucking much. I felt it every damn day in my chest and my stomach, from the moment I opened my eyes after the little sleep I could manage. It had become a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. But I couldn’t let Ivy do this shit alone.
She had just as much going for her as I did. I’d seen how hard she worked to get where she was in sports journalism—watched her make sacrifices, burn the midnight oil, and break through in a male-dominated field while still being unapologetically herself. She’d put in the work, and she was still willing to do this… to raise a baby.
Oh my God, we’re about to raise a baby.
“I don’t want you to do this alone,” I said, lifting my head out of my hands. “Tyrell would kick my ass if I did.”
Ivy scoffed a laugh.
We sat in silence for a few moments before Ivy spoke again. “Do you know what this reminds me of?”
“What?”
“Our first date,” she replied. “Do you remember it? The one they talked us into going on and abandoned us?—”
“To go hook up in the damn car,” I finished for her. “My fucking car.”
Ivy laughed, and I couldn’t help but laugh too.
“I could not stand you that night,” she said, shaking her head. “You were so obnoxious with your Ivy League this and Ivy League that.”
“You were mad uptight,” I reminded her. “At the restaurant, asking them to make the water the right amount of hot to sanitize your damn utensils.”
“They kept bringing tepid ass water, which wouldn’t have done shit,” she argued. “Do you know how many people eat with these things on any given day?” She peeked down at her utensils and hiked a lip at it in disgust.
I snorted. “I knew then we weren’t fit for each other but that you were cool enough to hang with.”
She smiled. “Same.”
I never stopped thinking she was beautiful, though. Even as she sat there, not her usual made-up self, with her hair in the messiest bun I’d ever seen her wear and her barest skin showing in public. Even wearing grief, the sadness evident in her face and the slump of her shoulders, Ivy was so damn gorgeous.
Too bad we were so incompatible.
“That night, they were ridiculously drunk, flaunting their fake IDs and underage-drinking bravado,” Ivy recalled, her smile growing wider. “I swear she drank more that night than any other night since she and I became friends.”
“I knew Tyrell before freshman year in college, and I can say he never drank that much either.”
