Always Wrong - Xyla Turner Page 0,10

either of us finds someone, then I’ll move next door so our co-parenting won’t be impacted.”

“Uh, Jacquez. That sounds a bit far-fetched, but how about we cross that bridge when we get there?” she asked. “I want to take some time to think this through and can we reconvene in three days to discuss details?”

“Yes. I’ll be in Philadelphia, so we can discuss this then. Shall I send over my contract that I drafted, so that you can go through it?” I asked.

“Contract?” she shrieked. “We have a contract?”

“Sheryl, you, I hear, are fierce at the work you do. I know for a fact that you wouldn’t enter into an agreement with anyone without a contract.”

Silence met me on the other end for a long few moments. Then she said, “You would be correct, but there is something about this that I do not want to be a contract, Jacquez. I understand if you need that, but I just can’t bring myself to do that. I give you my word, I am in this, but I am not signing a contract. This is not business. This is my life.”

Bloody fuck.

I took a swig of my beer and shook my head. She had a valid point which I’d failed to see. My mom popped into my head and the notion that she refused to move from New York, but changed her community. It wasn’t business, it was personal.

“Bloody shite,” I cursed. “You’re right. The contract will go in the rubbish. So in three days, I will come to you so we can continue to answer the questions that I know will come up. Also, I would like you to get dual citizenship in London so that our child will have it as well. The way things are happening in the States, we may need to not be there.”

Sheryl laughed and said, “You got a damn point. I’ll get my assistant on it.”

“Oh, we’ll need to have our assistants exchange our information and calendars.”

“Agreed.”

“Now, save my number,” I instructed.

“Sure,” she quipped. “Baby Daddy.”

This caused me to laugh out loud.

“See, you want to conceive our child with a red ass.” I nodded.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she joked with a jovial tone.

“Three days, Sheryl,” I reminded her.

“Three.”

“See you then,” I said before hanging up.

This was going to be interesting.

Chapter Five

Sheryl South

To hear the arrogant man talk about co-parenting with me felt like a multiverse dream. He was willingly giving up his life as a bachelor to have a baby with me. Did he feel guilty? Responsible?

Fuck if I knew.

What I did know was that what he was proposing, I was game for in more ways than I’d originally thought. I had an active life, but for the sake of co-parenting, my priorities needed to shift anyway. Surprisingly, this was okay with me. Even co-habitating in a house together. I did not want to raise a kid by myself. Jacquez seemed to be hell-bent on the child being a boy, and if this was the case, there was no way I'd want to raise a boy by myself. A boy should have his father was my belief. The same way black kids needed to see themselves represented in the media. In all her craziness, my mother did not buy me Barbie Dolls. She refused to expose me to white, blond-haired Barbies. She did buy the Kenya doll. She was a brown girl, just like me with curly hair.

Growing up, the kids used to tease me all the time when I was in middle school all the way to high school. South Sheryl, because our teacher used to call us by our last name and then our first. I hated it so much, but the more I continued to shut them up with my success, the more addicted to it I became. I worked like a crazy woman to shut up all the haters. The people that said I wouldn’t make it, or I’d be pregnant by the time I turned 18. The ones that thought that since I was outgoing, that I was promiscuous. I didn’t lose my virginity until graduate school, but my Aunt Hattie, when she was around, helped to raise me to be fierce and know who I was. My mother’s condition made me grow up quicker than I would have liked. Between the two of them, they encouraged me in their own way to be proud of who I am. I found that it made men feel inferior. Well,