Hey Baby

I Love You? I Love You Not

I felt the baby kick for the first time a couple days after Lincoln's invitation to live with him. I was carrying a box out to his car and had leaned to set it in the trunk and ended up dropping it when I felt a sudden jolt from my stomach. I immediately glanced down, thinking that maybe something had hit me from the outside, but it happened again seconds later, and this time because I was paying attention, it was even stronger. I gasped, grasping the taillight of Link's car and touching my free hand to my stomach, stuck somewhere in between fear and shock over what I was feeling.

"Are you okay?" Lincoln, poking his head out from where he was organizing Monae's boxes in the back seat, was eying me as if I'd sprouted another head.

"It kicked." I whispered, interrupted by a vibration. It was a notification for an email from my doctor's office, likely the results for the gender and if the baby had any abnormalities. I clicked on the link, and once I'd seen everything was okay, I scrolled to the bottom for the gender. "Correction, she kicked."

Mona happened to be approaching as I spoke, and both she and Lincoln stared at me in surprise. "It's a girl?"

"Yes." I whispered.

She tried to contain her happiness, but gave up when she started to quite literally vibrate with excitement. "I knew it! She's gonna be Auntie Nae Nae's little mini."

Lincoln sent my best friend a quick, judgmental glance before he flashed the smallest of smiles, that of course didn't meet his eyes, and said, "Congratulations."

*

Hundreds of magazines and movies didn't do Lincoln's penthouse any justice. It seemed to go on endlessly. Just the kitchen was the size of the master bedroom at my parents' house. The thousand-dollar furniture sparsely decorated the living room, but I had no doubt there was at least five grand just in this room alone. There was a black leather wrap around couch with cup holders and of course reclined so that one could enjoy the giant flatscreen mounted to the wall opposite of it while they set their wine on the beautiful glass coffee table. All the room, as Lincoln had explained, were vacant and had about as much furniture as the living room. The room he'd led me to was the biggest, but had nothing more than a King sized bed with no bedding and a dresser opposite of it.

"You can tell a man lives here." Monae commented now, looking down to the laminate floor. "We seriously need to get a nice rug for under this couch and it could seriously use some life. Maybe some plants? Ooh, and some paintings!"

"Way to show your gratitude." Lincoln said with an eye roll as he offered Monae a glass of wine. "I find it very homey here, thank you very much."

"Of course you do, you're a basic ass white boy." she said with a snort. I tried to cover my mouth before a laugh could escape me, but it wasn't any use. Lincoln didn't look at all impressed with us ganging up on him, and decided to change the subject as quickly as possible.

"I was thinking I could drive you to the furniture store whenever your off work again, let you pick out your own stuff. I know nothing about chicks, obviously," he shot Monae a glare, she winked, "or babies. So I thought I'd leave that all up to you."

Monae had to nudge me after a few minutes as I'd lost myself in Lincoln's eyes. "Yeah, that'd be great. I should have my check on Friday."

"I'm paying for everything." he insisted. "Like I said, it's the least I can do for you doing this."

"Sugar. Daddy." Monae taunted as she stood, setting the glass on the table. "I'm exhausted. I'm going to crash early tonight. Love you, Ari. You too, baby girl." She kissed my cheek then rubbed my stomach before she slipped off the couch and flipped Lincoln off. He watched her head down the long, dimly lit hallway to the room at the end of it she'd claimed first thing this morning.