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Three months pregnant and my nipples hurt like betrayal.
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I was tired. Not just regular tired—bone-tired, soul-tired. The kind that made you want to crawl in bed and sleep ‘til the baby turned eighteen. My feet were swollen, my stomach had just started to round out, and the smell of espresso was suddenly making me nauseous in my own damn café.
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That’s when I heard it—the pipe burst.
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Not a drip, not a leak—an angry-ass explosion of water gushing from behind the wall like the building was bleeding. The customers screamed. My employee Keke jumped back from the espresso machine, damn near slipping on the tile.
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I damn near cried right there in front of everybody.
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“Amina!” my twin sister Amaya called from behind the counter, already dialing someone. “I told you that wall sounded funny last week. I’m callin’ that handyman I used last month for my salon. He fine, but he cheap—so don’t get distracted.”
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I gave her a look. “I’m pregnant. And mourning.”
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She shrugged. “Not blind though.”
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Forty minutes later
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He walked in wearing navy blue Dickies, a white tee soaked in heat, and a toolbelt that somehow made him look like he fixed more than just waterlines. Tattoos crawled down both arms, and a scar cut across his left eyebrow like a comma in his story.
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“You Amina?” he asked, voice smooth and low.
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“Yeah. You Nas?”
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“That’s me.”
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We locked eyes for a second too long, but I blamed the hormones.
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He got to work fast. Quiet. Efficient. Didn’t ask questions. Didn’t flirt. Just pulled out his tools and went to war with the busted pipe like it owed him money.
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I sat down in the back, fanning myself with a paper menu, belly kicking like the baby was doing praise dance in there. The sound of running water triggered something in my chest.
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Flashback – A year ago , Las Vegas
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It was supposed to be a girls’ trip. A wild, reckless, turn-your-phone-off-and-act-out kinda weekend. Me, Amaya, and our girls stayed at The Palms, drank too much, danced too hard, and somewhere around 3 AM—I met him.
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Davon.
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Sharp suit, that smooth, confident energy of a man who’d seen things, done things, and didn’t have to brag about none of it. We talked at the bar. Laughed too loud. Drank too much. Danced like the music was inside us. I remember the way he looked at me—like I was already his.
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And then… nothing.
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Blackout. Lights out. No memory.
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Until I woke up the next morning in a king-sized suite with a ring on my finger, a marriage license on the nightstand, and a man snoring next to me who kissed my shoulder like this wasn’t a mistake.
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“What the hell did we do?” I whispered.
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Davon rolled over and smiled like sin. “Something real.”
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And I believed him.
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God help me, I really believed him.
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Back to Present – Café
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The waterline finally shut up, and Nas stood up wiping sweat off his forehead.
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“All good,” he said. “You just need to let that wall dry out before you close it back up. I’ll send you an invoice tomorrow.”
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I nodded, trying not to stare too hard at the way his shirt clung to his chest. “Thank you.”
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He looked at me for a beat. “You okay? You look kinda… somewhere else.”
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I rubbed my belly and forced a smile. “I guess I am.”
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He didn’t press. Just nodded once and walked out.
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But something about his presence stuck in the room long after he left.
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And I couldn’t shake the feeling that life was about to get messy
