Page 49 of After the Knockout
I turned toward the door. Honestly, I was already over this conversation. Dakoda had somewhere to be, and I wasn’t about to be late for his first school event because Cherry popped up unannounced.
“Cherry,” I called her name. “If you not gon’ talk business, this conversation is done.” Whatever she and I had done behind closed doors didn’t change who she was in this equation. My damn publicist. Nothing more. Cherry stared at me for a minute before blowing out a deep breath.
“Fine.” She straightened her blazer. “You want business?”
“That’s why you’re here, ain’t it?”
“You’re headlining a championship fight in five weeks, and you’re over here playing house.”
“My son starts kindergarten on Monday.”
“And?”
“And that matters more to me right now.”
“This girl and this kid cannot suddenly become more important than your entire career.” She stared at me for a second like she genuinely couldn’t process what she was hearing.
“That kid is my damn son, Cherry.”
“Do you even know if that’s your damn son, KO? Did you get a DNA test?”
The apartment got quiet after that because I wasn’t about to dignify that with an answer.
“You know what? Fine. Cool. Be Daddy of the Year.” She shook her head. “But when sponsors pull out, and the media starts asking questions, don’t blame me.”
“Jaylen will send you the updated training and press schedule tomorrow,” I said, and her face twisted immediately.
“You giving Jaylen control over scheduling now?”
“For the next few weeks? Yeah.”
“All this over a woman and child you ain’t even know existed.” Cherry shook her head slowly, like I’d completely lost my damn mind.
“You done?”
“I’m just saying,” she muttered. “I don’t understand why you are here, KO. You can be a father without moving in with them. This is a disaster waiting to happen.”
I didn’t pay her any attention, just grabbed the keys off the counter. “We got somewhere to be.”
“KO—”
“Let’s go.” I walked toward the door and pulled it open. Cherry stared at me for a second before letting out a frustrated breath as I waited for her to bring her ass on. After a few seconds, she finally stepped through the doorway, and I followed behind her and locked the apartment door. The second I turned around, my eyes found Lyrius. She was crouched beside Dakoda, pretending to fix the straps on his dinosaur backpack, but thesecond she realized I was looking at her, she stood up too fast and smoothed her hands down the front of her dress.
“I’ll see you Monday, KO.” My attention shifted back to Cherry, who had already fixed her expression and put that polished publicist smile back on like she hadn’t just shown her ass.
“Yeah, Monday,” I replied as Cherry slid her sunglasses back on and headed toward the stairwell, switching past Lyrius with a smirk. The second she disappeared around the corner, Dakoda looked up at me.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Is that your girlfriend?”
I almost choked. “Nah, little man,” I replied. “She works for me.”
“She mean.”
A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “She ain’t mean. She just talk too much.”
