Page 89 of Surrogate For My Best Friend’s Man 2

Brittany giggled. “Mommy!”

“What? That toast was probably black.”

She went back to coloring like everything was okay again. I watched her and felt something twist inside me. I could be done with Deuce as a husband. I could hate his ass tomorrow. But I wasn’t going to use Brittany to punish him. That wasn’t fair to either one of them.

Two nights later, my phone rang while Brittany and I were at my mama’s house watching TV. I looked down and the county jail number popped up.

“Is that Daddy?” Brittany asked.

I looked at her. “I don’t know.”

She sat straight up. “Answer it!”

“Hold on.” I accepted the call and after the recording finished, Deuce came on.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

He paused. “Lisha?”

“Yeah.”

“You answered.”

“Don’t make it a thing.”

“Aight.”

I could hear the smile in his voice anyway. I looked at Brittany and she was damn near bouncing beside me. “Somebody wants to talk to you.”

There was a pause. “Who?”

I rolled my eyes. “Who do you think?”

I handed Brittany the phone. “DADDY!”

Deuce’s voice came through loud enough for me to hear. “There’s my baby!”

Brittany started grinning so hard her whole face changed. “Daddy, where have you been?”

That question wiped the smile off my face. I got up and walked toward the kitchen to give them a little privacy, but I could still hear Brittany talking.

“I miss you, when are you coming home? Guess what?” Brittany didn’t wait for him to answer. “I made a picture at school and mine got put in the hallway, and Grandma burned the toast.”

From the kitchen, I yelled, “Tell him it was black!”

My mama shouted from the other room. “Alisha, shut up!”

Brittany busted out laughing, I heard Deuce laughing through the phone too. For a few minutes, the house felt normal, and I missed normal. Eventually, Brittany came into the kitchen holding the phone. “Daddy wanna talk to you.”

Of course he did. I grabbed the phone. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Letting me talk to my baby.”