“It doesn’t matter what it resolves. Kennedy wasn’t thinking about a resolution. The girl doesn’t even believe in abortion. She did that shit out of a broken heart. Finding out that Ria is pregnant, which may very well be a lie, crushed her.”

Chaz was confused. “What you mean, it may be a lie?”

Let it go, Shorty told herself as she turned her back and reached into the cabinet. “Nothing.” She grabbed a box of thin spaghetti and opened it.

“Yo, you can’t say shit like that then back down. Now tell me what’s up.”

Shorty was very hesitant about telling her brother what she knew, or at least what she thought she knew. She broke the bundle of spaghetti in two and dropped it all into a pot of boiling water. Turning to face Chaz, she simply peered at him for a few seconds. “I heard something a couple of weeks ago. At the time I chopped it up to some he said/she said mess.”

“What was said?” Chaz interrupted anxiously.

“Lamisha’s cousin, Twin, saw Ria at a club out in Vegas. Twin told Lamisha that Ria’s stomach was flat as a board. Not only did she not look pregnant, but she was drunk and dropping it like it was hot all night.”

“Impossible,” Chaz scoffed. “You’ve seen Ria—you know how big her stomach is.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I knew, until I saw her today.”

“What happened today?”

“I finished my shopping sooner than I expected, so I dropped by Ria’s to pick up the girls an hour and a half early. When I rang the bell, she answered the intercom but didn’t buzz me in. Then it took her like five minutes to come down and open the door. When she finally came down, she was sweating, acting nervous, and her stomach looked very lopsided.”

“Lopsided?” Chaz frowned.

“Very lopsided,” Shorty exclaimed with a raised brow. “She damn near pushed the girls out the house with their bags, then tried to shut the door. I stuck my arm out to keep her from closing it. I was like, Is everything okay? She said yeah, so I started asking her questions about the baby. I asked her did she know if it was a girl or a boy. She said she hadn’t had an ultrasound yet.”

“Hold up,” Chaz cut in. “Ria said she didn’t have an ultrasound?”

“That’s exactly what she said.”

Chaz’s suspicions grew immediately. “This is some real live bullshit. Ria text me two or three weeks ago saying she was having a boy.”