Page 44 of Love Sanctioned

“Damn your hair is combed out, you don’t look pale, and you look like something. Tell me my pep talk worked without telling me that it worked.” He grinned.

I shook my head, sliding into the booth across from him.

“Hmph. It did something.” I shrugged.

“Ginny, get my sister a glass of Chardonnay.”

“No thank you. I’m not drinking for a while. Sparkling water is fine, Ginny.” I sat back against the royal blue velour back padding and looked at him.

“You’re not drinking.” He cut his eyes from the papers in front of himself to me. They held questions.

“Nope, when was the last time you saw me drink?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t you do some type of thirty-day bullshit? Thought that was over.” His attention was back on the papers.

“It is, but currently I can’t because I’m pregnant.”

His face scrunched up and he tilted his head forward. The papers no longer had his attention. I had all of it. “Run that by me again? I think I’m hearing shit and I’ve been trying to go through this zoning paperwork for the last few hours.”

I reached into my purse and pulled out the sonogram then handed it to him.

He studied it for a while, expression unreadable. “You told him?”

“Nope. Not into using a baby to keep a nigga, especially one who doesn’t wanna be kept.” I shrugged.

“But this is his kid. It changes everything.”

“Not for me. I gotta do what’s best for me and this baby. Potentially putting it in a situation similar to what we grew up in is not what’s best.”

His eyes were still on the sonogram. “I’m not following.”

“I love him. God knows I do, but he told me to stay away from him and keep my distance. Our father killed his uncle, now I’m not a street person, but I’ve thought about this over and over. He broke me because he didn’t trust me enough to think I would choose him.”

Kolton set the sonogram down and granted me his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that. You’d choose a fork over our father.”

He chuckled. “Hm, you’re right about that, but I’m me and you’re you. We got different hearts, sis.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I can sit here and tell you honestly I would have chosen Posydiann over our father in a heartbeat. However, I wasn’t given the choice, so I have to do what’s best for myself and this baby.”

Kolton shook his head. “I don’t like this, but you’re my sister and I’ma support you regardless.” He then extended my sonogram back to me.

I accepted it and put it into my purse. Maybe I’d go home and frame it or some corny mess like that.

“What baby?” I heard a familiar voice and looked up from the table. Of course Amethyst was standing there with a puzzled expression on her face.

“Pause, what are you doing here?” I cut my eyes from her to my grinning brother.

“I’m here to meet with him about the interior designs of his lounge with the expansion. Now don’t change the subject. What baby, Karsyn ‘I go missing on my friends’ Curr?”

I laughed. “The one I’m carrying. But I cannot get into that right now. How about I schedule a catchup session with you and Patience very soon.”

She pursed her lips. “As soon as this weekend because I feel like I missed some things. And I need to get caught up.”

“Yep, sounds like this weekend it is, Purp, because your little pretty ass is on the clock.”

Amethyst waved him off.