She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, though. Carolyn knew that Trinity wouldn’t be able to keep the secret.”
Everything made sense now. “Where is he?”
Sasha handed me another envelope. “The address is in here. He’s in Michigan. Ann Arbor, to be exact.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I wouldn’t joke about this.”
What the hell was I supposed to do? How would I tell my parents? My siblings?And Demi. Something Tristan said came to mind, about people not knowing my shit, about Demi not knowing who I really was. “Does Tristan know?”
Sasha gaped at me. “You know I wouldn’t say anything to him. He knows nothing about that part of my life.”
“Are you sure about that? My brother is many things, but he’s not stupid.”
She let out a slow, measured breath. “No, he doesn’t know.”
“You wouldn’t know if he did anyway,” I muttered, standing. “I don’t have to tell you how fucked up this is, but I’ll handle it.”
Sasha called my name, but I was already out the door, on my way to figure my shit out. Carolyn had died, but she’d left me a little surprise. A son.I have a thirteen-year-old son.
I drove around for an hour,torn between going to Demi’s and telling her everything, and hopping on the first flight to Detroit. Instead of doing either of those things, I ended up in X’s driveway. I’d been sitting out there for close to an hour before the front door opened and X jogged out to my truck.
He climbed into the passenger seat. “What’s up?” He gave me dap. “You’ve been sitting out here for too long. Zara told me to come and tell you to bring yo’ ass inside and fry her some chicken.”
I snickered. “Tell her I’m sorry. But I’m not in a cooking mood.”
I stared at the garage. My bruh had moved from Midtown to the suburbs. He’d traded the luxury condo with stunning views for a mini-mansion with a three-car garage, a sunroom, and a deck for outside gatherings. And he was happy.
“Are you going to tell me what happened,” X asked, “or just sit here and risk some nosy neighbor calling the police on your ass?”
“Carolyn died last night.”
Groaning, X said, “Wow. That’s… That’s tough.”
In the immediate aftermath of the affair, X had cleared his schedule, traveled with me to Paris, and stayed with me for a month. In that time, I’d shared mostly everything with him. From the beginning, he’d encouraged me to leave the past behind me and start fresh.
I rested my head on the armrest. “We went through a lot of shit together.”
“Bruh, I understand that this might be a blow, but Carolyn wasn’t a good part of your life. It’s easy to romanticize the past when someone dies. But that relationship, and the subsequent fallout… It fucked you up. You weren’t even the same person when you were with her. It definitely could’ve been worse had you not left when you did.”
“I know. I told Demi about it,” I admitted.
“Everything?”
“Yeah. She reacted how you would think she would.”
“I hope she told you to let it go,” he said. “I’ve been trying to tell you for years.”
“She absolutely did.”
“And you’re listening, right?”
“I was, until…” I shook my head. “I have a son.”
He frowned. “Wait… What? With Carolyn? Wasn’t she like forty-something years old when you were messing with her?”
I glanced at him and nodded. “Which was why her getting pregnant at that age had never even crossed my mind.”
