Page 14 of Pretty

“Just like a nigga to kick his boy when he’s already down,” I remarked.

Jason shrugged. “I’m just keeping it a buck like I always have. You’ve always been a hardheaded nigga, so it wasn’t no surprise that you didn’t listen. That’s what you get for trying to make a ho into a housewife.”

“Man, fuck you,” I muttered.

“What you gon’ do now?” Matt asked.

“I mean, ain’t shit else to do. I got proof, and I’ve sent it to her. We haven’t spoken, but I have no doubt she’ll pop her ass up with some sad-ass sob story,” I replied.

“You think it’s that other nigga’s baby? Her other baby daddy?” Jason asked.

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“Nigga, you lying. Old sap ass. You know that shit hurt. You was proud to call that boy your kid, even when we all knew he wasn’t.”

“I was proud because I thought he was mine. My daddy always taught me to be a standup man.”

“Repeat that shit again, Drew. ’Cause I remember Coach Lan always teaching us to be standup men, not a nigga that fall for anything. You fell for that bullshit because you wanted to,” Jason declared.

“I don’t think so. You don’t know what it’s like out there, Jay. Shit ain’t easy. People think we got it made because we got money, cars, and women throwing pussy at us everywhere we turn our head, but that life gets old really quick. If you live it to the fullest like big homie did, you’ll definitely get burned out,” Matt countered.

“So what you saying? He was tired of living the fast life and ready to settle down, so he made the first hood chick his live-in wife?” Jason asked.

“I mean . . .” Matt shrugged with his arms stretched out in front of him with his palms turned upward.

“What made you decide to finally go through with it, Drew?” Jason asked.

“A conversation I had with Miss Darlene, Kendra’s mom, a few weeks ago. You know Mama, Coach, and Dani had all been urging me to get a DNA test, but I didn’t want to be that guy who skipped out on my responsibilities and looked for an easy way out. Being there when she was pregnant and through her labor and delivery caused me to form a bond with the little guy. I didn’t want to know anything other than what my heart was saying, honestly.”

“What did Kendra say when you asked for one?”

“I didn’t ask her. When I tried to find Kendra, she went MIA on me like she usually did whenever she fucked up. She finally called me a couple of days later and told me that Noah was at her mother’s house.

“When I showed up at her mother’s house, she claimed she hadn’t seen Kendra or Noah in a while. She told me that Kendra and I needed to get our act together for the sake of Noah. She said that he needed some stability in his life, and with all the arguing we did, me being on the road, and Kendra leaving whenever she got mad, wasn’t good for the baby.”

“As if you being on the road wasn’t related to your career. As if her trifling, gold-digging ass didn't meet you on the road. She should’ve told her daughter to get a job,” Jason muttered.

When I first met Kendra, she told me she was a social media influencer. The more I got to know her, the more I learned that her career was only in her head. She didn’t have any sponsors or anything. I quickly came to realize that she was hoping that I would open doors for her.

Unfortunately, Kendra had been nothing more than another chick that I was hitting in the beginning, and she had been interchangeable with a few others. I wasn’t the man that went around making a woman believe that I was in love with her or that we were in a relationship when we weren’t. Most of the women I encountered in the NFL only wanted one or two things—money and connections—and they would sacrifice their freedom and bodies to have a baby to get them.

I was upfront with Kendra about what we were, and she had no problems with it until I was ready to move on. I realized too late that she was a head case. When I learned she was pregnant, I decided to change my ways and try to be the man she and my son needed, but Kendra was who she was, and she wasn’t ready to settle down, no matter what she said to me. She chased the demons in her head: fighting women she thought I was messing with, stalking me around town, and starting fights whenever I came off the road because someone smiled too hard at me when I came off the field.

“What did you tell her mama?” Matt asked.

“I told Miss Darlene that I was cool taking care of my son. I just needed Kendra to stop playing games with me about seeing him. She was disappointed when she learned that Kendra had lied to me about my son’s whereabouts. All that lecturing she did, her ass grew quiet for a few moments when I said I needed a DNA test.”

“I bet that bitch’s face froze,” Jason declared.

“Hell yeah. I gave her every reason I had to doubt. Eventually she told me that I was doing the right thing by getting one. She said that any man should ask for one if he and the woman weren’t married. She had even gone so far as to say, sometimes married men needed them too. She firmly believed that women always had confirmation that the child belonged to them, but a single man had no such reassurances without the test.”

“That’s mandatory, especially when you live the lives we did,” Matt affirmed.

“It took another twelve hours before I tracked Kendra and Noah down. When I found them, she was at the park with that other nigga, and her older son was nowhere to be found. She was there with Noah grinning and skinning in that nigga’s face. When I looked at that nigga and Noah, I knew it without a doubt. That was the first time I’d seen them together. I could see how my li’l homie was that nigga’s twin.”

“That’s fucked up, man,” Jason declared, sighing and getting up to get another beer from the refrigerator.

“Did you cuss her monkey ass out?” Matt asked.