“What does that even mean, Mama?” I ask. “Old enough to know what?”

“What girls are for,” Keith drawls.

“Focus, fam,” I say, trying to keep my voice light when my heart is Titanic in my chest, overburdened and sinking. “Less talk about my love life and more about this damn biography. Piers got me a number for the author, this Serena Washington, so I’ll try to find her today.”

“Yeah, like I was saying,” Keith interjects. “I knew a Serena Washington. She was Mrs. Washington’s niece. Lived across town, but bussed in one year. She was in my class.”

“That would be quite a coincidence,” Kayla says. “Though Washington isn’t exactly a unique name.”

“If there’s a connection,” I say, standing and grabbing my purse, “I’ll find it.”

I stride to the door, but Mama stops me there with a hand on my arm.

“Tru,” she says. “I love you, and I’m glad to have you home.”

I’m taken aback for a moment and look from her hand on my arm to the sincerity in her eyes.

“Yeah, I forgot how good it is to have you around,” Keith says, his cocky grin softened around the edges into a sweet smile.

We all look to Kayla, silent and watching us.

“What?” She smirks. “Tru’s been a pain in the ass all my life.”

The obvious humor behind her insult spurs us all to laugh again, and I realize how much I needed things to be right with them with so much going wrong.

“Love you guys.” I split a grateful smile between them all. “Zee, is there an office I can use to make some calls?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Empty office at the end of the hall.”

I walk down the corridor and close the office door behind me with a decisive click, leaning against it, almost afraid to call Ezra. Number one, what’s happening under his roof will affect the rest of my life, and I have no control over it. Having no control makes me feel like one of those blow-up wavy, flailing things you see advertising tires and used cars. Number two, the only thing I hate more than feeling out of control is feeling weak. And Ezra is my weakness.

There’s no way I’m moving forward if that baby is his. The worst thing for my state of mind embarking on one of the most important campaigns of my life would be battling menopause…while someone else is pregnant with my boyfriend’s baby. When I’m away from him, when I don’t see him or hear his voice, or feel him, I know that’s what’s best. But he makes me weak. Will he make me stupid, too? Will wanting him mean accepting something I know for me is wholly unacceptable?

I dial.