Page 106 of Surrogate For My Best Friend’s Man 2

Deuce stared through the glass. “And when that happens, don’t act surprised.” I hung up the phone.

“Shante.” Deuce yelled.

I stopped, a small part of me hoped he’d finally say it. That he was sorry and that he shouldn’t have asked me to do this. That he understood what it had cost me, but instead some dumb shit came out his mouth. “You sure Alisha ain't acting different?”

I closed my eyes for two seconds because this nigga was hopeless. When I opened them, he was still sitting there waiting on an answer. “You know what, Deuce? I hope she leaves your ass.” And I hung up.

Once I made it outside, I stopped beside my car and dug through my purse for my phone. No missed calls from Alisha or Malik. It was time to figure out how to tell my best friend that the babies she’d been buying clothes for weren’t mine and Malik’s. Time to explain why I’d lied and try to somehow make her understand why I’d agreed to do something so fucked up in the first place.

I should’ve gone home after leaving the jail. Instead, I found myself headed toward Grandma’s house. I didn’t feel like being alone. That apartment had become depressing as hell since Malik left. Every time I walked through the door, I noticed something else missing. A lamp, a picture, a damn kitchen utensil. That nigga had packed like he was evacuating before a hurricane.

I pulled into Grandma’s driveway and sat there for a minute before getting out. Her curtains moved, grandma stayed watching that damn window. By the time I made it to the porch, the door was already opening. “What are you sitting in my driveway for?”

“Hello to you too, Grandma.”

“I saw you sitting out there.”

“I just pulled up.”

“You were out there long enough for me to wonder if you were coming in or casing the place.”

I walked past her. “Who casing this old house?”

“Somebody who wanna die.” That was Grandma Lorraine, seventy one years old and still convinced she could beat everybody’s ass. I headed toward the living room.

“Take them shoes off.”

“Grandma.”

She looked at my stomach, then back at me.

“Never mind keep ‘em on, I ain’t picking your big ass up off my floor.”

“Why I gotta be big?” I asked.

“Because you are.”

I rolled my eyes and sat down. Grandma disappeared toward the kitchen. “You want something to eat?”

“No.” She came back carrying a plate anyway. “I said I wasn’t hungry.”

“And I didn’t ask twice.”

Fried chicken, macaroni, greens, and cornbread. I picked up my fork and started eating.

“Where you been?” she asked.

“To see Deuce.”

Her face immediately tightened. “Lord, what that fool done said now?”

That opened the floodgates and I told her everything. How I’d gone down there because I needed Deuce to understand what this whole situation had cost me. I had sacrificed my body, my peace, and damn near everything else because my brother convinced me this surrogacy would somehow help him. And after all of that Deuce was sitting in the county anyway. “I did all this shit for nothing.”

Grandma shook her head. “You did it for the wrong reasons, that's different.”

Then I told her the part that really pissed me off. After everything I’d said to Deuce, all that nigga wanted to know was whether Alisha knew.

Grandma closed her eyes. “That boy has been selfish since birth.”