“I mean, we can step off whenever you want to. It’s just me and my girl and a guy that she knows. But if you don’t feel comfortable…”

“I don’t,” I told her. There was no sense in prolonging the issue. Once you get to a certain age in the dating game, you already know what you can stand. I would have been counting down to the minute I made my exit.

She said, “Well…you just wanna pick me up then?”

She was game, but that still didn’t settle where we would go.

“How hungry are you?” I asked her.

“Very.”

“For seafood, Chinese food, soul food, or what?”

“All of it,” she answered with another laugh.

“Okay. We meet at the Hard Rock Cafe; I’ll call you once I’m in the area.”

“In what, like, thirty minutes or so?”

“Precisely,” I told her. All I needed to do was change clothes and toss on some cologne, a lightweight scent. I didn’t want to come off too strong, but I did want to smell good.

I hung up the phone and was already excited. I could take her just about anywhere for dinner, but where would we go afterward for dessert? I was all about the dessert.

Once I changed my phones started going crazy with calls again.

I read the phone numbers from the IDs, and none of them were business-related. My mom called me back, and Danni called. Danni I wouldn’t call back until much later, but I could fill in my mother on information regarding my sister before I went out.

I called my mother and said, “Juanita’s going to go through with the pregnancy, Mom, and there’s nothing I could say to stop her.”

“Absolutely nothing?” my mother asked me.

“That’s the deal,” I told her. “So you’re just gonna have to hold her to her word. If she thinks she can raise this child by herself, then let her try. And she is a grown woman, Mom. So let’s treat her like one.”

“Mmm, mmm, mmmph,” my mother grunted. “She’s gonna put me in an early grave.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“Not exactly, but I did tell her I’m too old to be helping to raise any new babies.”

Did that include babies from either one of us? I was curious.

“What if I had one?” I was going back to what Juanita had told me about Andrea carrying my seed.

My mother said, “That’s different. It’s always different on the mother’s side. But on the father’s side, his mother is not as involved with the child, if at all.”

She had a point. I repeated, “Okay, well, that’s the deal. Juanita’s not having an abortion.”

I was ready to end the conversation and hit the town with Nicole from Baltimore.

“So, where are you on your way to tonight?” my mother asked me.

“Out,” I answered, and that was all I planned to say. I had talked to my mother enough for one day. I was only calling her back to fill her in with the verdict on my sister.