I don't know what happened to me that night while I slept, but I woke up fighting off the terrifying feeling that I was falling deep in love with Kenney. Kenney. What the heck, man? I fought that feeling off for a long time, too. We started talking on the phone all the time. Just like we used to. But every time he tried to bring up the subject of "us," I would say that I wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

Because I wasn't ready, I was still too afraid.

And still had too much on my mind.

And he lived in Chicago.

And I didn't want to lose him.

I think it was that last one that actually kept me from...jumping off the cliff. I couldn't imagine life without my Bud, and I never wanted to do anything that could jeopardize what we already had. It would be like trading in a for sure friendship for a maybe this will work ...something else.

I told him that the next time he was in town, too, and his only answer was, "That's ok. I'm afraid, too. Of losing you. Of losing her." He nodded to Samantha, who was at her little table creating the next Mona Lisa. My little artist.

It was the first time that we had had "the talk" in a few months. But this time it felt different. More honest. Not as scary. Maybe because we were finally having it in person.

After a few minutes of silence, Samantha grew tired of her crayons and walked over to the couch, climbing up into Kenney's lap like he was her favorite easy chair, and she had bought him with her own money. We both laughed at her unbearable cuteness.

"She's so crazy about you, Bud."

"Yeah," he cuddled her close and kissed the top of her head.

"I think she remembers you from when I was pregnant. Remember how she acted the first time she heard your voice?"

Kenney looked directly into my eyes. "Yeah, I remember."

He looked a lot more soulful these days. He could still put on a serious stone face when he wanted to, but he let a lot more show than he used to. We weren't around each other enough for me to know exactly when that happened, but I could tell the difference. He had been coming down to visit a lot more, too, since our conversation at my parents' house. He always stayed with his aunt or in a hotel. Never with me. He was right. The temptation was too great, and we didn't need to cross any lines until we were both all in.

I watched how comfortable Samantha was with him and realized that I was dangerously close to putting a hundred on a possible ten. I wanted him so much. I wanted all of him forever. I just wasn't sure if all of him and forever were possible to have at the same time. By that point, though, I honestly hated love, anyway. The whole idea of it. Love...was the worst.

"My dad asked about you the other day." I chose a subject that I knew wouldn't lead to where my mind was going.

"Oh yeah?" Kenney's face brightened.

He thought he and my dad were homies after that day at the rec center. Kenney was so open to love, it was ridiculous. Just that quick he had a new big homie. I mean he called my dad and everything. Mostly just to shoot the breeze, which my dad had always been good for. I called him a lot to do that myself. We talked about Collin sometimes. Sometimes we even talked about Kenney. Apparently he and Kenney bonded over being Michael Jordan's biggest fan, and how the Bulls just wouldn't be the same now that he was gone. Michel Jordan wasn't even playing with the Bulls when he retired again, but Kenney still told my dad that any time he was in Chicago let him know, and he would get tickets so they could check out the new situation for themselves. Tickets.

Guys.

Granted, I was more of a football girl than a basketball girl, but Kenney hadn't even offered me a great Chicago adventure yet, and I had been his true blue for almost ten years.

"I talked to your dad about this mentoring program I'm thinking about doing in Englewood, on the South Side."

"I could see you doing that. Are...you sure you can handle that?"

Even I had heard of Chicago's South Side. I looked down at Samantha and thought about how long it had taken Kenney to get close to her. If he was that worried about something happening to her, those kids in Englewood – who sometimes made it home and sometimes didn't – might break his heart for good.

"Yeah, I'm good."

He patted Sammie's back as she turned over and wriggled herself upward until her head was tucked snug under Kenney's chin. That was becoming her new favorite spot. I chuckled. Her head was getting too big to fit under there. He kissed the top of her head.

"So, your dad...he was always a good guy?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "For as long as I've known him, anyway. He never even raised his voice at us or anything. He's real calm most of the time. Knows how to talk to people and bring them back down to earth. He's a lot like Drama, I guess. My mom is more like you, though." I chuckled at the truth.

Kenney nodded and smiled. "I could see that." Then, more reflectively he added, "My dad was real calm, too. Never stressed about a whole lot...from what I can remember."

I involuntarily raised an eyebrow. In all the years that I'd known him, Kenney had never once mentioned his father.

"What?"

"Oh...nothing." I quickly looked away. "You've just never talked about your dad before."

"I know."

"Why not?"

He shrugged. "I just blocked all that out, I guess."

I nodded. "I know what you mean." He looked at me and my heart raced when he didn't look away. "What?"

"We should talk more."

"Yes, we should."

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

I laughed uncomfortably and looked uneasily down at the baby. "Um...what do you mean?"

Kenney chuckled. "Not like that." I chuckled, too, relieved. As much as I wanted him, now was definitely not the right time for that. "I mean...I'll tell you my truth if you tell me yours."

"Hmm..." Intriguing proposal.

"A do-over. Let's start from scratch and tell the truth this time." I nodded in agreement. "The whole truth."

"Ok..." That was my new thing, right?

"Hi, I'm Kenney." He reached over the baby and shook my hand.

"Hi Kenney. Can I call you Bud?"

"No, I hate that."

I cracked up. "Do you really?"

"Sometimes."

Wow...I never knew that.

"I'm Natasha."

"Hi Natasha," he smiled charmingly. "Beautiful name for a beautiful girl." He gave me a look that he rarely flashed my way, but I had seen him flash it at a million other girls a million times before. It always made me weak, though, when he directed at me, and this time was no different. "You are...extremely beautiful. And I'm very attracted to you."

My face grew hot. "Thanks. You're pretty cute yourself. I'm extremely attracted to you, too."

"Word?" His dimples went full force. I hadn't seen those in a long time. I missed them.

"Word."

The way he looked at me right then, and didn't look away, took my breath away. Damn, it could have been like this the whole time? I don't know how many times I had watched Kenney pull this on other girls, all the time wishing that he would pull it on me. I mentally kicked myself for wasting my own time and looked away first.

"So...my dad," he continued, "was a lot like your dad. Real good dude. He got into some things, but we all have, right?"

He looked directly at me, waiting to see if I would judge his family, knowing full well that I knew exactly what he meant by some things. He must have asked Jasmine how much she'd told Shayna and me after I let him know that she'd told us "everything."

"Right."

I reached over and rubbed my baby's back, thinking about how I had torn up the closet one day looking for the stash that I thought Collin didn't know about...while I was pregnant. Of course he knew about it, though. Collin would know if two pennies were missing from thirty thousand dollars in change. Thank God I never found anything that day. It never occurred to me then, but Collin must have known about that stash the whole time and moved it when he found out I was pregnant.

Kenney looked nervous. "I'm about to go for broke here, Tashi. Promise you'll show me yours, too."

I looked at him and loved him even more. "I promise."

He took a deep breath. "Well, as you know...I grew up in Houston with my mom and four sisters." He looked at me, his eyes wide open. Literally windows into his soul. I hadn't seen that in a while, either. "But...what I never told you is that...I was mostly raised by my aunt...who was a drug addict." He looked at me and waited for my reaction. I didn't have one. "Which is why I've never done drugs and never smoked wit' y'all foos. I hate that sh...stuff." He patted the baby, who was almost asleep.

I nodded and felt like we were going to a place we had never been before. It was... unnerving. For both of us.

"And...I don't drink because my father, even though he was a really good dude, almost killed my oldest sister in a drunk driving accident. And he did kill himself..." He paused and watched me, waiting for something – I wasn't sure what – then continued. "The sister that was in the accident, my favorite sister...my all-time favorite person...died when I was nine, which I told you about." I nodded. "But what I didn't tell you is that's also around the time that I started selling drugs and stealing cars. We had kind of a ring going..." I nodded again. He watched me closely. "Natasha..."

He got up and put the baby down on the loveseat and covered her up with a blanket. Then he sat back down next to me.

He leaned forward onto his elbows and gave me a direct gaze. "Listen Tashi, my aunt likes to paint a pretty picture of redemption and all that...and I'm sure that's what she did with you and Shayna by the way you're acting like all of this is no big deal, but I was not a good person back then. At all. Even as a kid. I was...not the sweet little boy that was just doing what he was told...which is what you must be thinking to make all of this...ok...in your mind." He continued to look at me until I looked away. "You know me, Tashi. I only ever do what I want to do. I've always been that way." I nodded and he remained silent until I looked back at him. "I was nine years old, stealing cars and selling drugs. And I would sell them to anyone. Anyone. I grew up doing that stuff, Natasha." He looked at me for a really long time. I still wasn't responding the way I guess he thought that I should. I could tell by the way he was looking at me like I didn't understand what he was saying. "I gave them to my aunt...while she was pregnant..."

Now I did bat an eye. Jasmine had left that part out. And suddenly I wondered what else she left out.

"Anytime she asked me. I would give her whatever she asked for. That's just what it was. That's just...how we lived. I knew she was pregnant and shouldn't be doing that shit, but...she was doing it before then anyway, so..." He looked down. "She would get...she would need that stuff, bad. And...I couldn't take how she acted when I wouldn't give it to her. And I didn't want her to have to go out and do some dumb shit trying to get it off of some other dude..." He looked away as his mind drifted to a place that he visibly did not want to go, and then he shook his head irritably and looked back at me. "She damn sure wasn't dumb enough to get high off her husband's supply, so..." he shrugged, "that left me. You know what it is, Tashi."

I nodded. I did. It was easy for me to act like I didn't know since Collin kept me far enough removed from that side of things, but it's not like I had never seen it before.

"I've seen a lot, and I've done a lot of terrible things. But I don't do any of them now. Any of them. I stopped doing all of them way before I met you..." He paused and read the questions on my face. "I've never committed a murder, but I've tried to. And I'm not sorry about it, either. Even now. And your daughter reminds me every time I'm around her that I could do it again if I had to. If someone hurt her...I would kill them."

He let the words drop heavy around us and waited for them to sink in.

"My aunt knows that, too, which is why she wanted me to stay away from you in case you went back to him and put her in danger again. I literally can't take that shit, Tashi. I thought I left the kid that I used to be completely behind me, but you and Sammie remind me that how I used to be is still in me, and will always be a part of me. Aunt Jasmine used to tell me that all the time after we got out, and she would always tell me to watch who I let in. Now that I'm older... and further removed, I can see what she meant. We will both always have to watch who we let in our space. For the rest of our lives. There's no getting around it."

He brushed my hair back behind my ear and ran his fingers down my cheek. "I don't like that side of me, and it scares me how easy it takes over when it comes to either one of you. I would kill for both of you, but I would do it without even thinking twice about it for the baby. She can't defend herself, Tashi, and I wouldn't even think twice for her. I wouldn't." He stated it like it was a fact, and when he looked at me, his eyes widened, and I could see myself in them. He was telling the truth and I knew it. "That's why nobody told me about..." he couldn't even say it.

I nodded and he moved on.

"I've never hurt any little kids. I never would. I've never abused a woman. I've never raped anyone, either, and wouldn't. Ever. I wouldn't do any of that. But I've seen all of those things happen. I've seen the woman who raised me get raped and beaten right in front of me...more than once...by a man who, for all intents and purposes, was my stepfather. He's one of the people who I've tried to have murdered, and the only one who I've tried to kill, myself. Thank God I've never actually done anyone, but I have made that call before. And my orders were always executed. Always. Every time, but one. I pray every night that God will forgive me for the horrible things that I've done, and will remove my sins far away from me, because I don't want any of that stuff coming back on my mom or sisters...or on any kids that any one of us may have. I don't want any of it coming back on us any more than it already has. Because you know it comes back on entire families, Natasha, not just on the one doing dirt."

I nodded. He was right.

"Tashi, I know you've always seen me as kind of a church boy..." I looked away, embarrassed and tried to keep Kenney from seeing my face. I didn't know he knew that. He put his hand lightly under my chin and directed my attention back toward him. "I've always known that's what you thought about me, but now you see why I'm like that. I really don't care who sees me that way." He gave me a look that let me know that he knew that's what Collin thought about him, too. "I never would have made it without God. And angels. Never..."

I nodded. "I know what you mean."

He tilted his head and looked at me for a second, then moved his hand away. "And because of everything that I've seen done to my aunt...who I also never would have made it without..." He swallowed hard. "Even as a little kid, I knew Jasmine was the only reason I had a meal every night and a place to sleep. She always tries to make it sound like she needed me with her, and that's why I never...went home, but I know the truth. My mom just couldn't handle me. I would have been ass out, as soon as my dad died, if it wasn't for Aunt Jasmine. It wasn't my mom's fault that she couldn't deal, that's just what it was." He looked at me, and I nodded because I knew that was the truth, too. "And because of everything that I've seen done to my aunt, I tend to...overreact to those type situations...as you know. Which is why...I can't have that type of stuff around me."

Again, he waited for the words to sink in.

"I love babies. And little kids. And everyone knows that. It's obvious. It's obvious that they gravitate toward me. But what you never knew, and what I probably should have told you before I cut out on you when Sammie was born, was that I couldn't be...it was very hard for me to be around your child until I was able to...revisit some things. And get some old feelings under control. After I found out that she was a little girl, I was just...I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it." He shook his head and looked down like he was so disappointed in himself. "I couldn't watch you take her back to him. Because..." he paused for a minute and looked at me like he was waiting for me tease him. "I know you noticed I dropped some tears on the day she was born." He smiled, embarrassed. I didn't smile back. "You probably thought I was a little bitch for that."

I was shocked. "Are you serious right now?"

"Yeah."

"No. I wouldn't. I never thought that. I didn't know what to think, but that never crossed my mind."

"Natasha, I don't want you to think that I'm a man who would run out on a woman and child in need. I'm not. Especially if that woman is you. I just knew that there was no way that I could protect her if you went back to him. There was just...no way. And I've been there before. I wasn't running out on you. I just got the message loud and clear that you weren't mine, and that you didn't want my help." He paused and watched me again. "Did I read that wrong?"

"No, you were right."

I couldn't look at him. I was so ashamed of so many things that happened that day. I felt so stupid for all of it. All of it. And that's the vibe that my baby was born into. No wonder she was so high strung when she was young. She cooled out along the way, but as a newborn she used to cry all the time. I was surprised that Sammie took to strangers the way that she did. I hoped she wouldn't grow up like me. All heart and too defensive for her own good.