Arranged Hearts

O3

Kaleb

"Thanks for your help yesterday. I really appreciated it." I said as I passed off KJ to Adrianne.

"That was nothing. Thank me when I really do something special." She said as she played with the baby as if he was really real.

"You know he’s not real right? I joked as she mugged me.

"You know if we don’t keep him happy we’ll fail right." She said as she bucked at me causing me to fall out laughing.

"Don’t laugh at me when I’m being serious Kaleb Isaac James." She said bucking at me again.

"Oooh, I’m so sorry Adrianne Danielle Banks." I said as I laughed again.

"You know what, my son and I are leaving. Good day sir!" She said as she began to walk off until I caught her free hand.

"No, you not gone leave me that easy. Let’s get away from here." I whispered into her ear causing her to shake under my touch.

"What you mean? I have to be in the front office this period."  She said as she nervously looked around the corner. Typical Adrianne…

"If you’re going to be my wife, you have to learn to be my ride or die. Sometimes it’s good to be bad." I said as I grabbed her hand and led her to my car. She made sure to strap the baby in safely before getting in.

"So you know my mama just had a baby. I’m a big brother now." I said cheesing.

"Really? What did she have?" Adrianne said as she grinned at me. Her smile was so wide and her cheeks were so high they made her look Chinese.

"She had a boy and I faintly remember someone saying she wanted five boys." I hinted as I kept my eyes on the road. I could feel her eyes burning a hole into the side of my face.

"You’re up to something Dudi. What do you want?" She said calling me by my childhood nickname.

 ”Well, I need your help, my mama leaving today and she won’t be back until next week. She got some time of business stuff going on and she leaving me with the baby. I don’t know what to do with no baby.” I said sadly as she laughed at me.

"How old is the baby? I’m pretty sure you’ve had enough time to get practice on how to interact with babies." She said wiping her eyes. I didn’t think it was that funny.

"He’s 10 months. Every time I try to interact with this dude he cries and I give him back to my mama. I can’t deal with the crying." I said

"Well, you better get used to it. I’ll help you though." She said scrolling through her phone.

 ”Good, let’s pick him up right now.” I said as I swerved real wide to turn around.

"I hope you don’t do that when he’s in the car." She said as she continued to scroll on her phone.

"What you mean girl? I can drive." I stated proudly as I turned to see her rolling her eyes.

"You driving real reckless. I don’t even feel comfortable with my child in the back seat.

 ”Chill, it’s not that serious. That thing is just a project.” I said with a slight attitude. She was looking too much into this.

 ”You’re missing the whole point. This project is really to help us understand what’s it goint to be like when we’re out and on our own. Grow up, Kaleb.” She said as she kept her eyes on me.

"Whatever." I said smacking my lips.

"When you get your brother, take me back to the school." She said folding her arms.

"Hell nah, I’m not driving all the way back there. You better get to walking." She looked at me like I had two heads before getting out of my car and slamming my door. I watched her walk until I couldn’t see her anymore.

About 10 minutes later, I picked up my brother from daycare an proceeded to go home. It didn’t take him long to figure out KJ wasn’t real. He touched him and bussed out crying which called caused KJ’s robotic cry to rang through the house.

Shit…

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Brandon

It was only the second day of practice and coach was already getting in our asses. He had us run the whole field 7 times and to cool off we had to do bear crawls. Lord knows I’m tired, but I ain’t gone let these niggas know it. I’m trying to show that I can handle all this shit.

"Singer boy, you sure you can hang with the big boys?" Nico, the quarterback, said.

"What big boys? From where I’m standing all of y’all are either my size or smaller." I stated smartly. How you gone try to play me when you under me? I’m taller and bigger than this dude.

"Just know that the position you want… has already been filled." Nico said as him and his boys walked back to the field. I felt a little salty, but I wasn’t about to trip on somebody who was mad because I was coming to take his spot.

As coach let up, we started to run some drills. I don’t know if it was because I was salty or because I was just on point because I was caching all the passes ad my throws were always straight shooters. I looked over to Nico to see him steaming mad. Maybe if he would just worry about his game he wouldn’t have to think twice about this “singer boy” taking his spot.

As practice was coming to and end, I heard a loud crying noise. The noise got louder and louder as I got closer to the bench. I scanned over the bleachers to see the head coach holding a baby carrier in his hands.

"I hope this doesn’t belong to any of you boys." Coach Barnes said as he showed off the carrier.

"It’s mine, Coach." I said as I ran over to get it.

"You’re lucky I like you because I don’t like distractions in my practice." He said as the bell sounded off letting them know that practice was over.

"Alright, men. Make sure we don’t have no problems tomorrow, so we can get on to a REAL practice." Coach said as he walked away like this practice as a breeze.

I sat down on the bench as I took my son and fed him a bottle.

"I wonder what I’m going to name you." I thought out loud to myself. As I rocked the baby, it stopped crying and closed it’s robotic eyes.

"Let’s hope you stay like that all the way home." I said as I put it back into it’s carrier.

"Who said you’re taking him home?" I heard a female voice say as I turned around. I saw an angry Jaelen walking towards me.

"I did. I told you you’re not getting it back until you know how to work with others." I told her as I walked passed her not giving her the time of day.

"You’re really not being fair right now. Don’t think you can do whatever you want just because you’re B. Smyth." In the midst of all she was saying, that stood out the most.

"Unfair? Unfair is when you’re just meeting somebody for the first time and they want to act like an ass. Even when I returned your notes to you, you had an attitude. You just let me know what I did to you, so I can apologize and be out your life. I can even tell Mr. Combs to switch partners if that’s what you want." I said heatedly. I’ve never snapped so quick a day in my life, but something about what she said really ticked me off.

Not even waiting for her response, I left the baby carrier with her as I went to my car and drove off.