“It hurts. God it hurts so fucking bad,” I whined.
“So… talk to me.” Ledge prodded.
“I don’t want to,” I whined. “Ivy, are you okay? Is she really okay?” I couldn’t trust a thing right now, and the fear of what was happening to my baby was enough to drive me insane.
“She’s fine, Harbor.” His words were sharp, forcing me to check his expression.
Ledge was the kind of nigga you had to look in the eye when he spoke. He could tell you anything with a straight face, but the way his dark, whiskey-brown eyes worked, they revealed much more. I felt him narrowing them at me questioningly. His brows drew together like he was having an inner struggle.
“You really care about them, don’t you?” he asked, and the question left me unguarded.
Our eyes locked across the front seat.
“More than anything else in this world,” I answered.
His inquiry was vague, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. Knowledge nodded, like he was finally accepting something. He, like Frequency, seemed to be a pretty simple man when it came to taking some shit at face value. They didn’t dwell on it or apologize for it; it just was. If they felt how they felt and their point of view changed, that was it.
“So... do you know what you’re having yet?” Ledge questioned after a moment of silence.
It was obvious that he was trying to distract me. Grimacing, I tried shifting in the seat because I was growing uncomfortable.
“No. We decided not to know. We’ve only had a couple of ultrasounds. Ivy wants to do a gender reveal,” I explained.
“That shit don’t make no sense to me. Just another excuse for a woman to have a damn party.” He sucked his teeth and shookhis head. “Then you either super mad it’s not what you want or emotional as fuck if you get what you want. A bunch of female shit. I ain’t coming.”
“You weren’t invited,” I grumbled.
If it was possible, he was irritating me even more.
“Aye, I just saved your fucking life. A nigga better be on the list.” He turned his nose up and bent both brows at me defensively.
For the first time, his dark, slanted eyes weren’t filled with contempt when he took me in. He was actually being sarcastic.
“You just said?—”
“I know what I said. I say all kinds of shit all the fucking time, and I only mean half of it! I’m not some foul ass nigga though. I got my own shit too. Shit Idon’t talk about or can’t come back from.” His voice trailed off, but there was this softness to it that I’d never heard before.
It was vulnerability, and it threw me off. I wasn’t used to whoever the fuck this was.
“What is wrong with you?” I sneered at him. “Are you high?”
“I’m just saying?—”
“Get a fucking grip, Ledge. Now ain’t the time for... whatever this is.” I waved a hand at him and tried to give my attention to anything other than the fucking episode he was having. He stared across the seat at me with the craziest look as if he couldn’t believe I had spoken to him this way. He probably hadn’t had very many people address him that way in his life.
“Daddy’s not answering the phone. Something is wrong,” Ivy concluded from her seat.
My anxiety was climbing to ten.Where the fuck was he?This wasn’t like him, and it had me worried that something had actually happened to him.
“Let’s just get you to the hospital. I’ll track down Free and have Chevy come up here and sit with you.” Ledge listed off as he kept switching lanes through traffic.
Sounded reasonable to me, but it didn’t stop the concern from nagging me all the way to Mercy Hospital. When we arrived, Ledge’s phone rang, and he dug around to find it in his pocket.
“Shit,” he muttered, studying the display.
I watched him put the phone to his ear as security walked toward us since we were in a lane that was for drop-offs only.
“Chev—”
