Page 107 of Surrogate For My Best Friend’s Man 2

“Exactly.”

“But don’t get too comfortable.”

I stopped chewing. Grandma settled back in her chair. “Deuce being wrong don’t make you right.”

“I never said I was right.”

“You ain’t gotta say it, everytime you blame him for everything, that’s what you’re trying to convince yourself of. Right is right and wrong is wrong. Deuce was wrong, Kim was wrong and baby, you were wrong too.”

I looked down at my plate. Grandma wasn’t yelling, she didn’t need to. “You knew who Kim was, you knew Deuce was married. You knew what Alisha meant to you and you knew what Malik believed.”

That last part hurt. “I know.”

“I believe Deuce used your love for him against you.”

My eyes came back to hers. “He did.”

“I know.” Grandma nodded. “But you still had a choice.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that, because she was right Deuce had manipulated me. He’d made everything sound urgent. Made me feel like helping him was the difference between saving him and watching his whole life fall apart. And after I got pregnant, I kept choosing the lie every time I had an opportunity to tell the truth. That part belonged to me.

“You've been saving that boy from himself since y’all were little,” Grandma said. “Maybe if everybody stopped catching Deuce every time he fell, he’d learn to watch where the hell he was walking.”

“He is still my brother.”

“And he’ll still be your brother while he’s suffering the consequences of his own bullshit.” Grandma had a way of making complicated shit sound like common sense.

I picked at my food. “He said Malik wasn’t my husband like that makes what happened less important.”

“That was ignorant.” Grandma replied.

“I wanted to reach through that glass.”

“You would’ve got arrested, and I ain’t putting the commissary on two books.”

I looked at her. “You wouldn’t put money on mine?”

“Depends what you did.”

“Grandma.”

“I got bills.”

I shook my head. She was ridiculous, but she was right about Deuce. He couldn’t understand why losing Malik had broken something in me because Deuce treated relationships like people were interchangeable. He thought I’d find somebody else like that fixed anything or like I could replace trust.

I told Grandma about Kim calling too and that irritated her almost as much as it irritated me. “She really believes her and Deuce are gonna be together once these babies get here.” I let her know.

Grandma stared at me. “The same Deuce sitting in the county trying to save his marriage?”

“Yep.” I answered.

“Bless her heart.”

I knew exactly what that meant coming from Grandma. “She’s crazy but that ain’t for me to diagnose.” She paused. “But I wouldn’t leave her alone with scissors.”

“Grandma!”

“What? I said I ain’t diagnosing nobody.”