Page 45 of His Best Man's Baby

She yawned. “Okay.” Before she even got the words out, she began to drift off, but for the second time someone knocked at the door. Tae looked at Jax, and he shrugged. At least the person wasn’t banging like they’d lost their mind. Jax had muffled her screams, so it couldn’t be because she’d been too loud. The doorbell rang. She sat up. “I’ll get it.”

“No. You’re resting.”

She slid to the end of the bed. “Go clean up, Jax. I’m fine.”

After locating her second favorite robe, one thinner and less comfy than the terry cloth, she headed to the front door. She yawned again before she reached it, putting a hand up to her mouth. Exhaustion came over her so she wasn’t thinking straight when she pulled open the door without first checking the peephole. The woman standing with her back turned made Tae curse herself for her stupidity.

Janita spun to face her. “Sis, I’m here for a loan. I’m not even hearing your excus—” Her eyes bugged as she took in Tae’s belly. “What the hell? Are you pregnant?”

Tae readjusted her robe. “Fat.”

She spun away from the door and headed into the living room, her sister tumbling after her. The door slammed, making Tae wince.

“Don’t you lie to me. You’re knocked up! Who’s the fucker that did it? Does Ma know? Wait, of course not or she would have told me. I’m calling her.”

“Janita!” Tae faced her sister, frustrated and worried to see her whipping out her cell phone, a phone that seemed to be in perfect working order with no sign of cracks as Janita had been texting her about for months now. “I’ll tell her my news myself.”

Janita smirked. “When your baby is in college?”

“What do you care?”

Her sister paused in the act of dialin

g and placed a hand over her chest. “I’m your sister. If I’m hurt because you didn’t tell me, what do you think Ma will feel?”

Tae folded her arms over her chest. “You’re not hurt. You’re calculating how much you’ll lose by me having another mouth to feed.”

“Can you blame me? You’ve always been there for me, Tae, and now I see why you left me hanging all these months.”

“So selfish of me to have my own life and responsibilities.”

Janita rolled her eyes. “You always claimed you didn’t want kids. I should have known it was a lie. You thought you were better than us.”

“You know what, Janita, I’m sick of the attitude. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Tae.”

She turned and glared at Jax. “Don’t dare to tell me to calm down.”

“You should.” He strode up and glanced meaningfully at her belly. “Nothing is worth our son’s life. No one is.”

Janita sneered. “Another white man? Damn, don’t you like your own kind anymore?”

Tae clenched her hands into fists and released them over and over. She wanted to wrap her fingers around her sister’s throat and wring her neck until she shut up. “Who I date isn’t your business, and you claim not to have any money, but here you are in Charlotte. Jersey is a long way away.”

“I took a bus, okay? Besides, that’s not the point.” She hesitated, and Tae was taken aback when her sister burst out crying. “I left Terry!”

Both Tae and Jax stood there in shock for a few minutes, staring at Janita and not knowing what to do. Tae knew her sister, and she would not leave her moneymaker unless she had another lined up. She did like drama and to be the center of attention, but Tae didn’t want to jump to conclusions unless Janita really was hurting. She loved her. She just couldn’t stand her for long periods.

Tae rubbed her side, and when Jax glanced at her, she dropped her hand and approached her sister to try to get her to stop with the loud hiccupping sobs. Is she five, for goodness sakes?

The doorbell rang, and Tae groaned. Not another person. Janita wasn’t so loud the neighbors needed to get involved. Jax beat her to the door and opened it. Tae blinked at finding Terrence, Janita’s husband standing there. Had all of New Jersey traveled south? She peered over her brother-in-law’s shoulder but saw no one else in the hall.

“Is Janita here?” Terrence demanded, like he didn’t see her making a scene in the middle of the living room.

Janita whirled around, pausing in her performance—or preparing for a new scene in it. “What are you doing here, Terry?”

The new drama unfolding before Tae as her sister and brother-in-law argued and then made up then back to arguing drove Tae to the brink. Jax seemed ready to throttle the couple and throw her over his shoulder to force her into the bedroom. She shouted at him that she was fine and so was the baby. The nightmare only escalated. Then the front door opened again. With an expression of serenity, Daniel took in the scene and no doubt came to his own conclusions.

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