Be with Me (Strickland Sisters Book 3)

by Alexandria House

  “Did you—Nick, you’re—are you—”

  “Pregnant. About two months now.” She stared at me, obviously waiting for a reaction.

  “I thought-I thought you were going to wait until you were ready.”

  “I am ready. I decided I was ready after I realized you wanted a baby, so I stopped taking my pills. I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure it would happen, but it did happen. Are you…are you okay with this?” she asked timidly, a word I’d rarely associated with her.

  I stared at her for a second before saying, “I love you so much. I’ve always loved you so much, to the point that the shit is actually painful sometimes. It’s probably unhealthy to love a person the way I love you, and now…now? Nick, I…” My voice broke and I took a deep breath, placing my hand on her flat stomach. “Thank you for this, baby. Thank you so much.”

  She reached over and hugged me again as my mind raced.

  I pulled away from her. “Are you—is everything okay?”

  She smiled and nodded. “Everything is perfect, according to the doctor I saw.”

  “Good—Wait. No more rough sex, then, right? How you let me do all that shit last night?!”

  “The doctor says everything will be fine as long as we don’t go overboard.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Now take me home and do some more of what you did last night.”

  I grinned. “I love the shit out of you, Nicole Strickland. You know that?”

  “Mm-hmm, and I love the fuck out of you, Damon Davis.”

  As I started the car, I asked, “Hey, if it’s a boy, can we name him T’Challa?”

  “Hell, no.”

  35

  Two years later…

  “I’m so glad you could join us today. I know you’re a busy man. I can see you have your hands full right now,” the interviewer said, with a bright smile spread across her face.

  Damon grinned and nodded as he bounced his namesake—who was a carbon copy of me—in his lap. “Yeah, he’s a little attached to me, aren’t you, big boy?”

  Damon Jr. smiled up at his daddy and giggled while clumsily clapping his chubby little hands.

  “Well,” Gail, the interviewer, continued, “let’s talk about how you juggle all the roles you play in your life. You’re Karyn McNooner’s right hand man, creator and author of two successful comic strips along with your partner, Theo Winters, you’re gearing up for the premiere of the Nick and Dame animated series on Netflix, the Foreign Son animated film was a wild success, and I hear you’re launching your own comic site, and all of that on top of being a husband and a father. How do you manage it all?”

  Damon shrugged. “What can I say? I’m just that guy, you know?”

  Gail threw her head back and laughed hard, too hard. She was obviously attracted to Damon, but shit, most women were. Now I fully understood what Angie went through with Ryan, only on a much larger scale. Damon was world famous now—and rich. Hallelujah! His Fake for Bae days were far behind him. I’d learned to take it all in stride and to stop pulling my clown suit out all the time, because if I didn’t know anything else, I knew that man loved me and that his devotion to me was exclusive despite me being, well…me.

  “There goes that swag that makes the ladies swoon. The same swag that’s made you tons of women’s man crush every day,” Gail said.

  He chuckled, his eyes sweeping over to me. I just raised an eyebrow from my seat across the small room in the studio.

  Yeah, bruh, bring it down a notch.

  “Nah, I’m all right, but I’m not all that,” he said, attempting to sound humble.

  Gail laughed again. “Wow, and he’s humble. My, my, my.”

  Okay, this bitch was laying it on a little too thick. I might’ve been hesitant to pull my clown suit out, but she could still get her ass kicked. Properly.

  Damon shook his head. “But in all seriousness, to answer your question, I love what I do, so I don’t mind staying busy. Work is really effortless for me, and as far as balancing it with my personal life, my beautiful wife keeps me in check there. She’s my muse, my support system, my boss, my baby mama, my everything. Without her, none of what I’ve been able to accomplish would’ve been remotely possible. And she runs her own social media management business, too.”

  “She sounds like Superwoman.”

  He smiled. “More like Wonder Woman.”

  There I sat with a big, goofy-ass grin on my face, thinking about all the coochie I was going to give him after we got home, during naptime of course.

  “Awww, and I hear Nick and Dame is based on your relationship with her? You’ve known each other since elementary school?”

  Damon nodded. “Yep. I met my soul mate in second grade.”

  “Sounds like a beautiful love story.”

  “It is, in an unconventional way.”

  The interview continued for another twenty minutes before it ended and we were freed up to leave. I was glad, because I could tell Junior was getting restless and about to turn it out. This was one of the things I still disliked, him working so much and so hard, but I recognized that he enjoyed it, and he made every effort to spend as much time with his family as he could, to the point of insisting I attend every interview and event within reason with him. He even worked from home most days with Karyn’s approval and was an awesome father, not to mention the best husband and provider I could ask for.

  “Wanna trade?” he asked, as he leaned in to kiss me while standing our son on the floor.

  “Yes!” I quickly handed a sleeping Jason to him and grabbed Junior’s hand. “Thank you.”

  He kissed Jason’s forehead as he put him on his shoulder. A tiny replica of Damon, Jason was a little taller and heavier than his fraternal twin brother, and when he slept, his dead weight was almost too much for me to handle.

  “You ready for this trip?” Damon asked, as we left the studio.

  “Can’t wait!”

  “All right, let’s hit it, baby.”

  *****

  “There they are!” Daddy gushed, rushing toward us. Although he took the time to hug me and Damon, I knew he was referring to Junior and Jason, who were his “little buddies” along with Little Zo and Renee’s youngest baby boy, Clarence.

  Renee appeared in the living room with a grin on her face, her huge belly announcing her presence first. Another boy. I swear, Zo kept her ass pregnant! “Hey, you two! I can’t believe you left that big house in LA to come see us,” she said.

  “Aw, now, it’s still a tent compared to the Higgs estate,” Damon said, as he pulled her into a hug.

  Renee gave him a smirk. “Whatever. So, how was your flight?”

  “Good,” I answered, as I hugged her and rubbed her stomach.

  “Well, we’re all in the kitchen, tryna let Daddy have his quality time with his boys.”

  We followed her into the kitchen, where Zo, Angie, Ryan, and their little bundle of joy all sat around the table. I bum-rushed Angie, snatching Little Ryan from her. He was definitely appropriately named with his little Ryan-looking self.

  I smiled down at him. “Oh, he’s getting so big! He’s like two months now, right?”

  Angie nodded. “Yep. He’ll be on ‘little buddy’ status with Daddy in a minute. You know how Daddy does it.”

  I nodded. Daddy was a trip with his grandsons. As I sat beside Angie and nuzzled the baby’s little neck, I asked Ryan, “She still refusing to give you more babies?”

  Ryan gave me a smirk, then looked at his wife. “Yeah, your sister is petty as hell.”

  Angie’s neck snapped toward her husband. “Petty?! I gained fifty damn pounds! I’m still struggling to get rid of twenty-five of them, my feet swelled up, my nose was gigantic, and all I wanted to do was screw and eat all the time. No, sir. I’m done.”

  Ryan tilted his head to the side. “So, you didn’t like the screwing part? That’s what you’re telling me?”

  Angie rolled her eyes.

  I laughed. “I feel
you, Angie. I’m glad I had a two-for-one, and hell, Renee is having enough kids for all three of us.”

  “Yeah, but this is it. I’m too old to keep popping babies out. Zo’s getting a vasectomy,” said Renee.

  Silence from Zo.

  “Right, Zo?” Renee urged.

  “Uh…”

  “We agreed, baby!”

  “I know, but…”

  Renee threw her hands up and fell into a chair. “Fine! I’m getting my tubes tied, then.”

  “No, I told you I don’t want you getting cut on,” Zo insisted.

  “I’ma get on the pill, then.”

  “They could cause blood clots,” Zo said.

  “Well, we gotta do something! I’ll get on the shot.”

  “Hell, no to that, too. I read somewhere where that can make you dry and not wanna fuck. Screw that.”

  “A hysterectomy,” Renee countered.

  “Shit, no!”

  “It’s my body, Zo.”

  “Since when?”

  She sighed. “Condoms.”

  Zo raised an eyebrow. “You’re allergic.”

  “Maybe not. We can try to be sure.”

  “Nope.”

  Renee blew out a frustrated breath. “Weren’t you the one who said we were done having kids after Little Zo?”

  “And weren’t you the one who said you’d have another baby in a heartbeat? Shit, I’m just giving you what you want.”

  “Well, three is enough, so…no more sex, since we can’t agree on a method of birth control.”

  Zo stared at her for a second, then gave her a smirk. “Yeah, right.”

  She glared at him. “I cannot stand your ass sometimes.”

  “I know. But you love me.”

  “And?”

  I chuckled. Those two had this same argument the last time we were home. I knew there would be no end to it.

  Glancing toward the counter at the food in foil pans I’d smelled upon entering the kitchen, I asked, “You cooked, Angie?”

  She nodded. “Yep. All his favorites. Glad we decided to do this here. I was able to heat everything up at the same time since Zo and Renee have two ovens.”

  “Table already set?” I queried.

  “Mama’s setting it now,” Renee answered.

  “I can’t believe none of those boys have come running in here,” Angie observed.

  “They love their granddaddy,” said Renee.

  “Humph, and he sure loves them,” I added.

  We laughed and talked, got caught up on each other’s lives, and thirty minutes later, Mama summoned everyone to the dining room. We took our seats, and after Mama lit the candles on the cake, we began singing happy birthday to my daddy, who sat at the head of the table.

  When he started crying, Zo asked, “What’s wrong, Pops?”

  Daddy smiled as the tears continued to race down his face. He looked around the table where he was surrounded by his family—his daughters, sons-in-law, grandsons, and his wife—and he said, “Nothing, son. Everything is right. Everything is just right.”

  And it was.

  It really was.

  36

  About seventeen months earlier...

  “You can do it, baby! Can’t you? I think you can! Shit! I gotta calm down! You ain’t even pushing ye—what the fuck is that?!” I grabbed my head and tried to control my breathing. “What are you doing to her?!”

  The doctor stopped in her tracks, holding some long plastic hook-looking thing in her hand. “I’m going to break her bag of waters.”

  “Her what?! She got—Nick, you got a bag of waters?! Where? What the hell is a bag of waters?!”

  “She’s breaking my water, baby. Damon, you gotta calm down. You’re making me nervous as hell right now,” Nicky said. She was lying there like this was some normal shit. She was past her due date, and they had induced her labor. This shit was really happening. She was about to have a baby, my baby. Two babies!

  Two!

  Shit!

  I stood there and watched the clear liquid gush from between Nicky’s legs onto the towel underneath her.

  “Oooooh, fuck!” I yelled.

  Shit just got real.

  The doctor shook her head.

  “Dame, you wanna wait in the lobby?” Nicky asked calmly.

  Hell, yeah! “Nah, why?”

  “Because you seem to be losing your damn mind up in here.”

  I am! “I’m good, baby. I wanna be here for you.”

  The doctor left, and I took the seat next to the bed, stuck my thumb in my mouth, and started nibbling on it.

  “Dame?”

  I looked over at Nicky. “Yeah, baby?” I replied, thumb still in my mouth.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I snatched my thumb from my mouth and nodded my head. “Yeah. I guess I just didn’t know what to expect. I read all that stuff you gave me, but damn. This is crazy. They up in here breaking bags of water and shit. The doctor keeps sticking her hand up you every other minute. I mean, the fuck?”

  “If you can’t handle it, I won’t be mad. I know it’s a lot.”

  That’s a damn lie. If I leave this room, I’ll never live it down.

  “No. You’re always there for me. I’ma be here for you. I can take it. You okay? You hurting?”

  “Yeah, the contractions hurt, but not that bad. I’ve wanted this for a long time; I can handle it. You call our families?”

  “Yeah, everyone’s on their way.”

  She sighed. “Good.”

  She jerked a little and at the same time, the machine that was supposed to be monitoring the babies’ heartbeats made a loud sound.

  I jumped up. “What is it?! What was that?! Why you looking like that?! Shit! What’s happening?!”

  “Nothing. One or both of them kicked…really hard.”

  “Oh…”

  “Damon—”

  I fell back in my seat, started bouncing my knee and gnawing on my other thumbnail. “I’m good, Nick. I’m good.”

  “Okay…”

  After six hours of me damn near shitting on myself, it was finally time for Nicky to push. I stood there and held her hand. She had requested a mirror be placed overhead so she could see the babies as she pushed them out, which meant I could see it, too.

  I. Could. See. It. Too.

  Got. Damn.

  That was something I was definitely not ready for.

  “Come on, baby!” I yelled, as she strained, her face tight as she groaned with each push. “You can do it!” I coached, my knees knocking against each other. I had no doubt she’d make it like a trooper. I wasn’t so sure about myself, though.

  Junior was the first to be born. I managed to hold it together even when I saw his hairy little head begin to poke out. I watched the doctor pull on him, finally tugging him from Nicky’s body. That’s when I felt the tears on my face. I bent over to kiss her, was in the middle of thanking her when I felt my knees give completely out on me and my big ass hit the floor.

  Yeah, I fucking fainted.

  I didn’t get to witness Jason’s delivery, because I was still knocked out. And I looked dazed in all the pictures of me holding them right after they were born.

  Ryan and Zo ragged on my ass for a year for passing out. But whatever. It was still one of the happiest days of my life, second only to that day in the second grade when I first met Nicole Strickland. Nothing will ever beat that.

  I loved that crazy-ass woman, the mother of my sons—forever.

  And ever…

  And ever.

  Thank you sooooo much for reading the Strickland Sisters series! I loved writing these stories and spending time with these characters. Shoot, I actually miss them!

  I appreciate the overwhelming support from readers, and hope you will enjoy my next project. Stay tuned!

  XOXO,

  Alex

  A southern girl at heart, Alexandria House has an affinity for a good banana pudding, Neo Soul music, and tall black men in
suits. When this fashionista is not shopping, she’s writing steamy stories about real black love.

  Connect with Alexandria!

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  Also by Alexandria House:

  The Strickland Sisters Series:

  Stay with Me

  Believe in Me

  The Love After Series:

  Higher Love

  Made to Love

  Real Love