Page 51 of Lyric Squared

“All you cooking a nigga is some eggs?” I laughed, knowing it would piss her off even more.

“You better be lucky you getting that with all this mess coming from your mouth.”

“Wow. Okay.” I nodded, knowing that she was in her feelings and wouldn’t be giving me shit but some eggs. I was just praying she added the cheese.

“You’re going to have to do more than get her little coochie wet to make her forgive you for what you did, Keanu. I imagine you’ve figured that out too and that’s why you’re over here looking like you just lost your best friend.”

“I kind of did. If this goes south, I’ll lose three of them at once.”

“It doesn’t have to go south, but you’re going to have to do a lot of making up to make it right. Didn’t you say she has someone?”

“You know I did,” I replied, catching her drift.

“Aw, yeah. You have plenty of work to do.”

“She told me after we’d spent the night together that she was going to agree to be his girlfriend.”

“And what happened next?”

“I gave her something to remember me by, and then I bounced when she got in the shower to wash my scent off her body.”

“You left? You didn’t try to talk her out of it?”

“Nah. Lyric is mine, Nanny. She knows there’s no escaping me. Whether it’s today or tomorrow that she gives in, I don’t care. As long as she does. I’ve waited this long. What’s waiting another month or two.”

“Hmmm. I’m glad you’re so confident, but it might just be longer than that.”

“Can’t be.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because around that time she’ll be sick every morning and will have missed her period at least once.”

“Get out, Keanu!” she yelled, pointing toward her door.

“Nanny, I need my eggs.”

“Nigga, you don’t deserve eggs,” she claimed.

“I thought you said you wanted a baby from me before you leave this earth.”

“I ain’t finna leave it, yet. I’ve got time.”

“Tomorrow isn’t promised,” I reasoned.

“To me it is. God said he’d give me ninety-eight years, and I believe him. I’ll see your kids have kids, son. Why’d you do such a dumb thing like that?”

“I wouldn’t call it dumb, but you have your opinion just like I have mine.”

“It’s not dumb,” she toned it down a bit. “I just want you to do the right thing by this girl and whatever situation you two might’ve put yourselves in last night. This isn’t just anybody, Keanu. This is Lyric. You still have Laike and Luca and their parents to consider.”

“I’m willing to go to them today and run down my intentions, but she ain’t ready to be with a nigga.”

“She’s scared!”

“We’re both about to do something that neither of us have ever done before. I have my fears, too.”

“But have you messed up in love before? So much so that it harmed the ones you love, too?”