All of Me

XVII

"What you think?" Shakur asked Amaru and Arman as he showed them the engagement ring he bought to propose to Mya. They were currently at Big Mama's house while Mya and Heather took the boys to the Children Museum.

"Damn, nigga." Arman said.

"Right." Amaru chimed in. "You trying to break her finger?"

"Hell yeah—permanently." Shakur chuckled. "I'm gonna propose on her birthday and I need to come up with a plan. I want everybody there."

Mya's birthday was January 31st. She usually didn't plan her birthday because she wasn't used to celebrating it growing up so Heather and Shakur would take turns doing the planning.

Mya had an extremely rough childhood. Her father was not around and her mother was addicted to drugs. Her mother had custody of Mya for only three months until she entered foster care. She was adopted, but her the woman who adopted her passed away when she was five, then she was in foster care again. Mya lived in eight homes and she was sexually assaulted in six of those eight homes. Once she graduated from high school and turned eighteen, she went straight to Nashville and attended Fisk University.

Shakur was a sophomore and he was well known due to being the star basketball player for the Bulldogs. Shakur spotted Mya sitting alone in the cafe and he thought she had the sweetest face, but she looked sad. He ended up ripping a piece of paper from his notebook and wrote "you're golden, baby girl." He folded the paper and dropped it off at her table as he walked by. Mya read the note and smiled to herself.

Since that day, Shakur would find Mya in the cafe everyday in the same spot and he continued to drop little notes off to her. After a month, Mya found the courage to approach him—in front of some of his teammates. She thanked him for his kindness and he ended up asking her out. That following weekend, they went out on a date and have been inseparable since then. They fell in love with each other and Mya now has a stable family and she found her best friend Heather that year as well. She still has the notes to this day stashed in her college memory box.

"What if we threw her a surprise dinner here because I'm still on bed rest. Then when she says yes, you can fly her out the country the day after." Arman suggested.

Shakur smirked and nodded. "Boy, you smart as hell. I gotta figure out where I'm gonna take her today because her birthday is in two damn weeks and I gotta make sure she takes off while I make this shit discreet."

"Heather can handle that. Just don't tell her you plan on proposing. Her ass is liking a chihuahua when it comes to exciting news—just starts pissing everywhere." Amaru said.

Arman laughed. "Stop talking about the homie like that."

-

"Did you have fun?" Heather asked Killian as she took a sleeping Micah out of his car seat.

"Yes, I did. Thank you, mommy—I mean Ms. McDaniel." Killian stammered. "I—I didn't mean to call you mommy. I'm sorry."

Heather gave him a reassuring smile. "You don't need to apologize. It's okay. Let's go inside. Your daddy is waiting on us."

They all went inside and Heather put Micah to bed as Killian greeted his father who was watching tv in the living room before going to bed himself. Heather took a shower and changed into lounging clothes before joining Amaru in the living room.

The two of them cuddled with each other on the couch and Amaru began to play in Heather's hair. He loved her natural hair—especially when it was curly. Heather didn't mind him playing in her hair because he gave the best scalp massages.

"So, Killian slipped up and called me mommy when we were getting out of the car. I think he thought he was going to get in trouble because he apologized." Heather said, breaking their comfortable silence.