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“I’m pr—I’mpregnant!” she half-yelled, half-whispered, cutting herself off halfway through the word. “Dumbass.”
Wait…what?
“Pregnant?” I muttered back… confused. Because, “How…?”
“Loren reversed my tubal. There was barely enough tissue left, but she managed. But we still didn’t know if we’dactuallybe able to get pregnant. But…”
Excited wasn’t even the word.
I was too deep in my own head to pick up on it before, but I could tell now that she was practically bursting at the seams with joy.
Understandably so.
When the Belrose syndicate got their hands on you, to bring you intoThe Garden, what they turned you into was all you were ever supposed to be. Only ever a tool, a weapon to be used for their purposes.
This freedom we had now?
This was a marvel, honestly.
“So you’ve been bussin’ it down, huh?” I teased, making her laugh.
“Don’t do that!”
“What? We all grown around here.” I chuckled. “It’s no secret for any of us how babies get made.”
“Stop!” she fussed.
“It’s a good thing, right?” I asked and a broad, unsuppressed smile spread across her face.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “The best. I haven’t told Cree yet, since I just found out today, but… I know he’s going to be excited too.”
I hadn’t yet met the man Alicia referred to as her “partner”, but if they’d gone through surgery to make it happen, plus all the other difficulties and uncertainties involved… there was clear purpose. This was no mistake or accident for them. I had to imagine he would be thrilled about the results of their attempts.
Hell, evenIfelt the warmth of happiness deep in my chest about the news and I was only tangentially involved in her life, hanging in the peripheral.
This was… major.
“Congratulations,” I told her, approaching gingerly to pull her into a hug. My legs and shit were still sore from my encounter with thesupposedlyretiredRoses, so I wasn’t quite as agile as usual.
Which was how I missed all the indications she was about to snatch me by the shirt, glaring in my face.
“Thank you,” she said, sweetly, completely contradictory to the fact that she had me hemmed up. “Remember,say nothingabout this. Got it?”
I laughed, pushing her off me, gently. “Damn. I’m a gossipy nigga, that’s what you think?”
“Just in case.” She shrugged, then finally turned to open the lock. “Everybody talking, having a good time, the conversation might come up.”
“Wait,” I said, stopping just on the other side of the door as it automatically closed behind us. “When you said family dinner, you meant…familydinner,” I realized, fully taking in my surroundings. For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to me until right then that she was taking me, for the first time, to where she actuallylived, which may have been the same building, but was completely separate from the other part of the compound.
“Yeah.” She nodded, motioning for me to come along. “You’ll put some fire under those feet if you want a plate.”
My eyebrows went up. “Oh, it’s like that?”
“Pen, anotherRose, well, aPetal,is here. She… went through a lot. But she’s here with us now and she’s in college and she’s here with her boyfriend from the football team tonight and he eats like it,” she went on, leading me toward the smell of food. “And of course Dacia is here, my sister.”
“The one Isaiah married, right?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I don’t think you’ve ever met her.”
