Page 19 of Merc

“I know that. I was scared for you. If anything would have happened to you because of me…” My eyes watered and head shook at the thought. “I don’t want you doing this for me anymore. It was different before I knew you had a son.”

Merc smiled softly as he pushed my locs out of my face. He kissed my forehead, each eye, my nose, then my lips.

“This is what I wanted to avoid, Neo.”

His voice was low, tone calm and even.

“Some things can’t be avoided, Mercury. And me liking and caring about you is one.”

He returned his lips to mine briefly before pulling away and getting out of the bed. “We don’t need to be doin’ this. You in a whole relationship, and I’ve never been a cheater. I don’t intend to be the man you cheat with either.”

Shit.

I’d forgotten all about Steven.

Running my fingers through my locs, I swallowed hard.

“I’m not a cheater either. I… just got caught up in the moment. It won’t happen again.”

With a nod, he took a step back from the bed. “I just wanted to let you know I was good. Bully said you were worried.”

Avoiding his eyes, I clenched the sheets and nodded. “Gatlin?”

“We have his cousin. We’re using him as bait. He’ll pop out soon.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

He left, and it wasn’t until I was alone that I felt like I could breathe again. Cursing under my breath, I held back tears. I couldn’t believe I’d kissed him. I had never done something like that before in my life. Even with the issues Steven and I were having, he didn’t deserve that. I’d have to go see him and try to figure out where we going to go from here. With the history we had, our chemistry had been dull lately. Add to that the lack of effort and I was finally ready to end our relationship.

My thoughts were all over the place, and when I realized I wouldn’t be getting to sleep anytime soon, I started to scroll on social media. I got on my store’s TikTok page to add a few clips of me and Merc playing at the store. It took a little effort, but I was able to blur his face out before uploading the clips. While I didn’t care about people knowing we knew each other, until I talked to Steven, I didn’t feel comfortable showcasing another man on my page, even if it was for creative content.

As I scrolled the For You Page, my heart immediately dropped when a video of Steven, Asia, and China came up. I took note of the name because, as far as I knew, neither of them had a TikTok page. I could tell by the decorations that it was for Valentine’s Day, so I clicked on the video. The caption was:

When your baby daddy makes Valentine’s Day special for you and his daughter.

They were at Asia’s home, and it was decorated with banners, streamers, roses, and balloons. She recorded Steven gifting them both several gifts before the clip changed and showed them at a restaurant. After dinner, another clip showed them on a horse and carriage ride. It ended with Steven kissing China goodnight and tucking her in bed, then Asia told him to tuck her in bed. The last clip was of them in her bed and his hand sliding up her naked leg.

My eyes blurred as I went from one video to another. She had several of them together. Almost every time he told me he was going to spend time with China, he was spending time with Asia too. I couldn’t understand for the life of me why none of these videos had come up before. Noticing the location, Asia put her neighborhood specifically, so that could have been why. If she was close to Rey, that was why she was on my feed. It didn’t explain why she wasn’t coming up on my personal page.

I switched accounts, and my intuition told me to go and look at the pages that had been blocked on my account. Scoffing, I hopped out of bed when I noticed her page had been blocked and his. I wasn’t sure when Steven had done that, but it made me question if he’d done it on my other social media pages too. It didn’t matter at this point. I’d seen all I needed to see. This man was in a damn relationship with his baby mama. The baby mama he swore nothing was going on with. This was exactly why I never wanted to deal with a man who had children, but Steven swore he was different and that things between him and Asia didn’t go beyond their child.

How could I have been so fucking stupid?

After reserving an Uber, I tossed on a hoodie and some sweatpants, determined to go see Steven. He was going to have to make this shit make sense because I couldn’t understand what could possibly make him think it was okay to play in my face like this.

As soon as the Uber arrived, I dotted out of the house, ignoring Rey calling my name.

A part of me wanted to call Steven, but the other part of me told me to pull up. I didn’t want him to get a hint that something was wrong because of my tone, and there was no way I’d be able to fake the funk with him right now.

When I arrived, I asked the Uber driver to wait for me. I didn’t know Rey’s address, so it would be easier to have him to just take me back. I let myself inside of the home I shared with Steven, and immediately, the sound of Asia’s laughter filled my ears. My anger only intensified at the thought of him playing house with them while I was away for my safety. No wonder he hadn’t been calling and texting to make sure I was good. He was taking full advantage of my absence by having his baby mama here.

I found them in the living room cuddled up, watching a movie. At the sight of me, Steven quickly pushed Asia off him and stood.

“Neo… Bae… hey. What are you doing here?”

I had all these words I wanted to say, but seeing them together left me speechless. Before I could stop myself, I was punching Steven in his nose.

“How could you!” I yelled as my eyes watered, but not from sadness… from anger. “Not only do you cheat on me, but you do it with this bitch? If you wanted to be a family with her, why didn’t you just say that shit? You know how many niggas have tried to get at me that I rejected to be faithful to your ass, and you do this to me?”

---