Page 88 of The Lockdown Mann

“I missed your mouth,” I tease.

“Aww. Now I have my feelings hurt. I think you’re just mad because I beat you today.”

“Not gonna happen next time.”

He leans in, pressing his lips to mine again. “How’s T?”

“She’s good. Sleeping. I don’t know if I can come to your place later. It depends on how she’s feeling. If she’s sick, I want to be with her.”

He nods immediately. “I get it. She’s your kid. I love that she comes first for you.”

“You’re important to me, too. I want to make sure you know that. I want to tell Ree about us. It doesn’t feel right that she doesn’t know it’s you. It might make things a little awkward for a while, but—”

Des quiets me with his mouth, kissing me deeper than I did to him just a moment before, so deep I feel it down to my toes. His kiss says so much, words I’ve felt but haven’t been able to tell him, and—

“Oakley?”

The sound of Sanaa saying my name makes me rip my mouth away from Des’s, stumbling backward as though I took an unexpected hit on the field.

I can’t speak, can’t breathe. The look of devastation in her eyes is fiery and sharp. She’s hurt, broken, just like I worried she would be.

“Sanaa, I can explain.”

She holds her shaking hand up at me, tears in her eyes. Tears because of me.

I’ve never been the man who makes someone I love cry, but I’ve done that today because I’ve been selfish, irresponsible. Because I’ve been lying.

She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out before she turns and walks back to the sliding glass door to my family.

“Fuck…fuck.” I rub a hand over my head.

“I’m sorry. Fuck, baby, I’m so sorry,” Des says, but his voice sounds distant, more distant than it should, considering he’s only a couple of feet away from me.

“I have to go,” I say.

“I can go with you. Maybe it’ll help.”

“No. I—”

“I don’t want you to have to deal with it alone,” he tells me, and I squeeze my eyes shut, unsurprised by his sweetness, but somehow hurt by it too.

“I can’t, Des. It’s not you. I swear. I just…need to deal with this alone.”

The pain in his eyes is clear; so is the fact that he doesn’t want to leave me, that he feels guilty about leaving me, but I know this is the right thing to do. I can’t have this conversation with Des right now. It has to be between my family.

“Yeah…yeah, okay. Let me know how it goes, all right?”

“I will.”

He looks like he’s going to say something else, but he doesn’t. I wait until I hear the front door open and close before I head to the back patio, wondering if I just ruined everything.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Oakley

My heart is in my throat, stomach in my feet, as I walk outside.

Sanaa is crying, Evander hugging her, angry brown eyes laser-focused on me. “What the hell happened in there?” he asks in a booming voice we rarely hear from Evander. He’s a calm man, level, doesn’t ever get too angry, but I practically see steam coming off his skin right now.