Page 27 of The Love Dealer

Beautiful, intelligent, creative, nurturing, giving, kind, fun, loyal… everything I wanted and needed. Everything I would one day have…

eleven

Bre

I couldn’t even makeit into the house good before Nick was questioning me. Apparently, someone he knew was at the casino when me and Zo went and they sent him pictures of us together. He’d been stewing and brewing, waiting to confront me. While I wanted to take his feelings into consideration, I didn’t care about what he was talking about. We were both single, and I wanted to see my baby.

“If you want, we can talk about this later, but I’m going to see my baby,” I told him as I dropped my bags at the door of my bedroom.

“She ain’t here. I took her to my brother’s house so we could talk without having to worry about her.”

Scoffing, I crossed my arms over my chest. “I can’t believe you. You knew how excited I was to get home to my baby, and you took her to your brother’s house?”

“So you spent all this time with that nigga? I thought we agreed we would work on us?”

“No, you said you wanted to work on us. I told you it was over,” I clarified.

“But you said we could talk about it when you got back.”

“Exactly! Talk. I didn’t agree or promise anything beyond that.”

“You been fucking with that nigga all this time, haven’t you? I told you I felt like something was going on between y’all and you told me I was crazy.”

Rolling my eyes, my head tilted as I released an irritated breath. “Look, nothing happened between me and Zo before this weekend. Besides, I’m single. What I do and who I do it with is not your concern.”

He licked the corner of his mouth before swallowing hard. “So you don’t want to be with me anymore?”

“No. We tried, and it didn’t work. Let’s just focus on co-parenting.”

His head bobbed once and mouth twisted to the side. “If that’s the case, you gon’ have to find your own place.”

“Oh, I planned to do that, anyway. Trinity and I are moving back to Memphis.” His mouth dropped and head flung back, but I continued quickly before he could speak. “She’s not in school, so we can be flexible with her schedule. I’m thinking two weeks with me, then two weeks with you. By the time she’s in school, if we are still living in separate states, we can let her live wherever has the best school district. The other parent can have weekends, summers, and holidays.”

“You sound like you had this all planned out.”

I shrugged and looked away. “I felt like you would try to put me out when I told you I didn’t want us to get back together. Plus, I felt like myself again back home in Memphis. That’s where I need to be.” My eyes returned to him.

“Can you just get an apartment here? I don’t want to co-parent in two different states, Bre.”

“Then come back to Memphis. Both of our families are there, and we need help. Your family hasn’t seen Trin but three times since she was born. Yes, they could travel here to see her more, but that’s a lot. All she knows is us. She deserves a full family on both sides that will love her.” His shoulders slouched softly. “She deserves to be around other babies and kids her age. And I deserve to be happy too. I want to go back to work, and I’m going to need help doing so. Now unless you’re ready to be a full-time daddy and have her while I work…”

“Fine,” he agreed quietly. “After this weekend, I know I’m not ready to have her twenty-four-seven. I meant it when I apologized and commended you for that. So whatever you need.”

I smiled, feeling like I could lower my defenses a little.

“I know you came to Dallas for your job, but I think you are valuable enough for them to pay you what they are paying you here in Memphis. Check into that. I’m not in any way trying to keep her from you. I just want to do what’s best for all of us.”

“Yeah, but I like it here. I really do. I can admit that it wasn’t fair of me to uproot you and then not try to make this a good move for you. It was selfish of me to do that. I knew it would be easy for me to make friends and have a social life, and I honestly felt like you’d be content with just Trin. I take full responsibility for that. If you want to go back to Memphis, I support you. And I’m cool with us doing the two-week thing. That will help me get used to having her consistently too.”

“Okay, good. If you decide to put her in daycare here or get a babysitter instead of relying on your brother, just give me enough notice to come back and choose with you so I’ll know she’s safe and well taken care of.”

Nick walked over to me and pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry, Bre.”

I smiled and held him back. “It’s cool. We had a rocky start, but we’re good now. And like I said, you’re good with her. I just want us to have a fair load, you know?”

He nodded as he released me. “Do you want to come with me to pick her up? Maybe we can grab something to eat or go for a walk or something.”

“I would like that, but no funny business.”

---