Page 3 of Nothing Without You

I giggled as I elbowed him in his ribs because I knew he was dead ass serious. “No, Keegan. I got this handled.” I glanced down at KJ and finally offered him a genuine smile as I pinched his cheek. “Hey, kiddo. How are you this morning?”

KJ tapped his chin thoughtfully, and I bit back a laugh. He was his damn daddy’s son. KJ always thought before he spoke, much unlike Liam who said everything that came to his little mind.

“Sleepy.”

I nodded in mock seriousness. “Same, kiddo. Same.”

“And Mommy wouldn’t let me bring my superhero mask.” Liam had finally stopped feeling sorry for himself for getting in trouble and inserted himself into the conversation, as if we had been talking about superhero masks all along.

I felt my cheeks grow warm as I glanced at Keegan. “Liam, I told you that wasn’t a superhero mask,” I said through gritted teeth.

Liam ignored me and kept talking to KJ, thankfully not about superhero masks.

Keegan gazed down at me with a stern expression. “What else goin’ on wit’ you? You seem off today.”

The elevator stopped, and I grabbed Liam’s hand firmly as I guided him toward the day care. “Just a tough morning.”

“Who I gotta see about that?” Keegan asked.

He was always so willing to step in and save the day when it came to me. Many times, I wondered what it would be like to have Keegan as my man. I hadn’t dated since Damien and I broke up over three years ago. Keegan made it easy to think dating again might not be so bad, but I never crossed that boundary. God knew I needed this job, and if anything went bad between us, I didn’t want to stress about my income.

Before I could respond, my phone vibrated in my purse. I dug around in my bag for my cell as I said, “Just a second,” to Keegan. When I found it, we had just made it to the day care check-in desk when I answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Ms. Chyna? I need you to come home,” the voice said in a heavy accent.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at who called me since I was too distracted before I answered. My heart dropped when I realized it was my landlord, Mr. Chang.

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked, but I somehow knew it wasn’t good. Mr. Chang wasn’t the best landlord. He was really frugal and didn’t really bother with maintenance requests. As a matter of fact, the only time he was seen or heard of was on the first of each month when he collected rent, so the fact that he called me right now didn’t sit right with me.

“Mr. Ronnie call and say water come out of your front door. All over floor.”

“What? I just left home, and everything was fine.”

“I have permission to go inside?” Mr. Chang asked, completely ignoring what I had just said.

“Huh? Uh, . . . sure, I guess.” I glanced at Keegan, who split his gaze between checking KJ into day care and me. “I-I’m on my way.”

I hung up the phone with fresh tears swimming in my eyes.

“What’s wrong? That fuck-ass baby daddy called?” Keegan asked.

“Fuck ass!” Liam shouted.

I cut my eyes at him and popped him on the top of his head. “Don’t say that.”

“Ouch.” Liam rubbed his head as he peered up at me through furrowed brows, looking just like his damn daddy with that expression.

“My bad. I forget these two are like parrots,” Keegan said.

“It don’t matter. I need to let Taylor know I’ll be in late. My landlord just called and said something about water coming out of my house?” I said it more like a question, because I was still unsure about what the hell was even going on.

“Take the day off, Chyna Doll. I’ll talk to Taylor,” he said.

I shook my head as I glanced down at Liam. “I have to keep Liam here, so I might as well come back.” I shrugged.

“I’ll drop him off after work,” he replied.

“No, Kee. I can’t have you do that.” I knew he wasn’t about to take no for an answer. This wasn’t the first time he had come to my rescue. As single parents, we kind of had each other’s backs from the beginning. If he ever needed me to watch KJ, I would without even thinking twice about it. If I needed to leave work early for an appointment or something, Keegan would bring Liam home after work for me, so I didn’t know why I was acting like this wasn’t our norm. Judging by the look on his face, he didn’t either.