Kayla lets you know the hottest in celebrity gossip when you leave the hospital with a skip in your step and new ultrasound photos. All she (and your family) can talk about lately is how your baby shower was simultaneously beautiful and tense with that way you apparently radiated some sort of fierce aura the rest of the event. All you felt was hunger when N'Jadaka drove off, and Kaya had finally moved and put your mind at ease so you devoured half the dessert table and still didn't feel full.
They say you looked mean as hell as you ate, but when don't you?
Kayla continues to sing songs of theshaderoom and other gossip sites detailing the snapchat rampage B went on after she'd left your baby shower, screaming and cussing and threatening to beat 'this bitch's ass' to all her followers. You're not bothered, and you suppose that she knows it too, so you regard your friends' uneasiness with a reminder of who's baby you're carrying.
"Okay but you already say he's not with you all the time," she goes. "Chicks like this will either set you up or-"
"Or die screaming," you mutter, fiddling with the radio stations in your truck. "I'm not worried about her and neither should you. Erik will take care of it."
The apprehension still doesn't leave her voice, even after you invite her over for lunch. Sydney is working, taking half of your workload for the week.
She says, "You sound real okay with all this. You think he'd do something to her?"
You do and you don't. N'Jadaka has already screwed up and gotten rid of someone for you too publicly, made it too personal. The second time you aren't so sure what he's capable of doing to someone who's only ever had tantrums thrown your way. He really can't put his hands on her; they'd eat him alive and you'd never see him again save for behind paneled bulletproof glass. T'Challa and the Queen Mother wouldn't be happy, and if they got hold of him he'd probably have to kiss California goodbye; for diplomacy's sake at the very least. You don't like the thought.
So now you're worried as you rapidly approach home, rubbing your stomach idly for comfort as you wait in the elevator that moves too quickly for your taste. It's shiny and reeks of luxury, just like N'Jadaka's sports car that's sitting pretty in the spot marked for your apartment but it doesn't mean anything. He could totally be somewhere with one of his boys , all of which you don't think you trust anymore because of Damian.
Kaya is kicking you again, hard, and you wince with every step as your sandals squeak against the freshly waxed hallway floor. You pass the pothead posse's apartment, full of loud guys that don't seem to do anything but smoke gasoline-smelling weed all day; and the old woman who is constantly bugging N'Jadaka to carry her heavy things whenever she can catch him. More than once you've gotten up from naps to answer the door because she got disoriented and forgot which one was hers. You half expect to see her at your door, cussing out the small numbers on the plaque, but the hall is silent. It's quieter still once you unlock the door, and with a cautious voice you call for N'Jadaka.
King greets you instead, running to you like he hasn't seen you in years, and you have to swiftly catch his paws as he tries to put them on your stomach like he so often did before you had someone living in it.
"N?" you call again, scratching behind King's ears. "If you're in here, and you left King's water bowl this empty I'm-"
"-What?" he interrupts, sauntering into the open with no shirt on and a pair of low-hanging sweatpants. His usual at-home staple, yet it shocks you every time. That fury, all that fire from yesterday has smoldered a bit and you have to pretend that you aren't uneasy by the thoughts of his hands wringing B's neck in the middle of the night. Or tossing her body into the river like in the movies.
