Page 26 of Raising Love
“Corey?” I whispered next before shaking my head. “I dated a Corey and hated that ninja, so let’s not do that one.”
I smiled down at Baby Love, watching his eyes slowly close as he drifted back to sleep. Holding him felt so right—warm, cuddly, and trusting. I had worried he might sense my inexperience the moment I first held him, but he took to me better than I had hoped. That was what I loved most of all.
Both the baby nurse and the nanny had said that all this sleeping would stop soon, and honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to it. If I could barely handle life while Baby Love was still an infant, what was I going to do when he started sleeping less?
“Hopefully, your Uncle Leo will grow the hell up before you start sleeping less,” I mumbled. “Because I sure could use the help.”
SEVEN
leo
I turned my head to peer through the glass windows of the house. The lights were on, which meant Ivy was up—not surprising.
The woman didn’t sleep. I knew she worked hard, but damn, I hardly ever saw her resting. Especially not after we accepted guardianship of Baby Love.
I scoffed a laugh, leaning my head back against the headrest. We still hadn’t decided on a name. Every day, every time Ivy laid eyes on that baby, she was trying out names like she tried on designer heels at a boutique.
It was funny—and kind of cute.
I sat in my car, my eyes volleying between the house our friends left us and the empty streets of the neighborhood we now called home.
When Tyrell told me about the land and house he bought in a village outside New York City, I thought he was crazy.
“Couldn’t be me,” I said to him as I shook my head for emphasis. “The house, the wife, and the baby? Man.” I blew air out my mouth. “Miss me with all that bullshit. Please.”
“You’re just out here, 30 years old, big as all hell, and scared of love,” Tyrell chuckled beside me. “How sad.”
“You damn right I’m scared.” I leaned forward in my seat to snatch up a shot of Jack. “So scared, my ass needs to take a drink to calm my nerves that’ve been rattled just at the thought. Fuck that.”
Tyrell and I were in the VIP section in the club he had accompanied me out to in Queens for a special appearance I had. It was rare for Tyrell to join me for something like this. Since he and his wife, Kendra, got married, Tyrell didn’t make it out as much. We used to hit up a concert at least once a year, 90s themed, and then the club after, but I was pretty sure that next year, hitting up the concert with him, his wife, and her best friend Ivy and then the club, wasn’t going to happen with this new baby on the way.
But that night, he insisted we chill since we hadn’t seen much of each other since he and his wife announced their pregnancy earlier in the year. The basketball season had just started for me, and I was either training for games or away playing in another state.
“You know,” I started, “you should probably scoot your ass over a little on this couch so I don’t catch what you got.”
Tyrell tossed his head back in a laugh.
“I’m serious, Rell, please.” I shoved him away playfully. “Move over that way.”
Tyrell shoved me back, which made me laugh.
Club music reverberated off the walls around us. It was loud as hell in the club, but for me, this was my natural habitat. I loved everything about the nightlife.
“The wife already gives me life, and this baby is about to do the same,” Tyrell started. “And the house?” He smiled big like a man who just won the lottery. “The house already is feeling like a home I can’t wait to get into permanently.”
It had only been a month, and it still didn’t feel like home… or anything like what Tyrell was looking forward to experiencing.
For one, Greene Gardens was quiet. Sure, it was a new development, a new town, with very few residents calling it home. But it was more than that—it was too quiet. No honking horns, no kids playing on the newly paved sidewalks. No smells of nicotine or street meat sizzling on grills that probably hadn’t been cleaned in months.
It wasn’t New York City. It wasn’t home to me.
Sometimes it felt like I was driving through a movie lot after hours—that’s how quiet and empty it was.
I did this every night I came back—sat in the car long after I arrived.
Most nights, I wasn’t even coming home from a game or practice. Any reason to leave the house, I took it. Club appearances. Grabbing something from my loft in the city. Hell, even just driving to Manhattan to smell smog or catch a whiff of a dirty tailpipe. Any excuse to escape Greene Gardens and delay the reminder that my life had flipped upside down, I took it.
Like now.
