23

Angel Reese

It started like any other morning — cereal crumbs on the counter, Arayah in her "I'm Not a Morning Person" pajama shirt, and Encanto already halfway through before 9 a.m.

I was in the kitchen cleaning up when my phone buzzed.Jeanine

I groaned. "Don't tell me I got another media thing."

Her tone was clipped, too measured. "Hey, Angel. Where are you right now?"

I frowned. "At home. Why?"

There was a pause — long enough to make me put the sponge down. "Okay," she said slowly. "I need you to stay off social media today."

That sentence alone made my stomach tighten. "What? Why?"

"Just... trust me."

I laughed dryly. "Jeanine, when you start sentences like that, it's never good."

"I mean it, Angel. Don't check Twitter, don't open Instagram. Just—"

"Jeanine." My voice dropped, sharp. "What's going on?"

There was another pause, then a sigh. "Camron went live this morning."

Everything in me went still.

"Camron... what?"

"He—" she hesitated, then finally said it. "He told his followers he's been trying to get in contact with you for months. That he wants to see his daughter. And now he's asking fans to help him reach you."

My stomach dropped straight to the floor.For a second, I couldn't even breathe.

"He what?"

"I know. I know. It's messy. The video's everywhere, Angel. TikTok, Twitter, even blogs are starting to post it."

"Jeanine, nobody even knows I have a kid!" I snapped, pacing across the kitchen. "I've never posted her! Never even said her name publicly! What the—"

"I'm aware," Jeanine cut in, her voice calm but firm. "That's why I'm telling you to stay quiet. PR's already monitoring it. We can't have you reacting emotionally."

"Emotionally?" I repeated, my tone sharp enough to cut glass. "This man just went online and turned my child into a trending topic!"

Arayah, sitting on the couch with her bowl of Lucky Charms, looked over at me with wide eyes. "Mommy mad?" she whispered.

I forced myself to breathe, lowering my tone. "No, baby. Mommy's okay."

Jeanine was still talking, her voice low but urgent. "Angel, I know you want to respond, but right now we need to focus on containment. He didn't say her name or show a picture, but people are already piecing things together. Someone dug up your old LSU photos, the timeline of your rookie season... it's spreading."

I sank into the chair at the counter, rubbing my temple. "So what — I'm supposed to just let this man run his mouth? Let people speculate about my child?"

"Right now, yes. Until we get control of the story."

I let out a bitter laugh. "There is no story, Jeanine. There's just a dude who disappeared for three years suddenly trying to look like a father on Live."

She didn't argue. She didn't need to — she knew I was right.

"Just give me a few hours," she said. "We'll come up with a plan."

When the call ended, I sat there in silence, the hum of the fridge the only sound in the room. My hands were shaking — not from fear, but from rage.

Because after everything I'd done to keep Arayah safe, out of the spotlight, he had the nerve to drag her into it.

A FaceTime notification lit up my screen — Rickea 💋.

I answered, and her face filled the screen, eyes wide. "Girl, please tell me you didn't see what's going on."

"I just got off the phone with Jeanine."

"Oh my God, Angel..." she shook her head. "He's really out here calling you out on Live like that? Saying you keeping him from his daughter? People are in the comments tagging you and everything."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "He hasn't even called me, Kea. Not once. Not for her birthday, not for Christmas, nothing."

Rickea sighed. "You want me to pull up?"

I smiled faintly despite the storm brewing in my chest. "No. I got it. I just need to figure out what to do before I lose my mind."

We hung up, and I finally — stupidly — opened Twitter.

His name was trending.#AngelReeseBabyDaddy, #CamronLive, #BasketballMom??

There were screenshots of his live, fans dissecting every word.Someone had already posted a grainy picture of me carrying a car seat two years ago, speculating if that was "the hidden baby."

I felt sick.

Then, another text buzzed through — this one from Jackie.

Jackie: You good?Been seeing your name pop up on my feed.

I stared at it for a moment before typing back.

Angel: Not really. My ex decided to use the internet to suddenly care about his kid.

A few seconds later, her FaceTime request came through.When I answered, her face filled the screen — brows furrowed, concern all over her.

"Talk to me," she said softly.

And that's when the wall cracked. I told her everything — the Live, the lies, the fact that I hadn't even told the public I was a mom, because the world was too cruel and too nosy.

Jackie listened the whole time, eyes never leaving mine.When I finally ran out of words, she just said quietly, "You did the right thing, Angel. Protectin' your baby. Don't let nobody make you feel wrong for that."

Her calm steadied me more than I expected.

I nodded, sniffling, trying not to let tears fall. "I just... I didn't want this life for her. All the cameras, the judgment. She deserves to just be a kid."

"And she still can," Jackie said. "We'll make sure of that."

We.

That one word hit harder than anything else she'd said all morning.

I exhaled, finally setting the phone down on the counter beside me.

The internet could talk.The headlines could spin.But one thing wasn't changing — my daughter was mine, and no man, no rumor, no "Live" was about to rewrite that.

The story broke faster than Jeanine could contain it.

Within 24 hours, "Angel Reese baby rumors" was plastered across every gossip account, every WNBA fan page, every messy TikTok timeline.Clips from Camron's Live circulated like wildfire — him sitting in his car, looking all sad and broken, saying things like, "All I want is to be in my daughter's life, man. Angel don't even let me see her."

The comments under it made Angel's stomach churn:

"Angel Reese got a secret baby??""Not him begging for custody on Live 😭""He look like he telling the truth though...""Angel been real quiet 👀"

She hadn't touched her phone all morning. Jeanine had practically begged her to stay offline, but staying quiet was only making her angrier. Every time she saw Arayah run through the house laughing, she thought about the millions of strangers trying to turn that child into a story.

By noon, the practice facility was buzzing. Teammates whispered when she walked in — heads down, pretending they weren't talking about her. Dearica gave her a soft smile and a hug. "You good?"

Angel forced a tight nod. "I'm straight."

But she wasn't.Not even close.

After practice, Jeanine called again — her tone urgent."Angel, please don't engage with him online. The more noise we make, the more the blogs eat it up."

Angel's laugh was hollow. "He went live about my kid, Jeanine. What else am I supposed to do? Sit back while he acts like I'm the bad guy?"

"I get it. But we can't control the internet—"

"Then I'll control him," she snapped, hanging up.

Angel sat in her parked truck outside her condo, hands gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white. Her reflection stared back at her in the rearview mirror — eyes cold, jaw tight, every ounce of calm she had burned away.

When she finally found his contact, her thumb hovered for half a second before pressing Call.

He answered on the third ring."Yo."

She exhaled through her nose. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Camron?"

He chuckled like she was being dramatic. "Damn, you could start with hello."

"Don't play with me right now," she snapped. "You went live? You told the world about my child? You asked fans to reach out to me like we're characters in a damn movie?"

"Angel, I just wanna see my kid. You been keeping her from me—"

"Keeping her from you?" She laughed, dark and bitter. "You walked out when I was seven months pregnant. Seven. Months. You left me to finish the pregnancy alone, Camron. You didn't show up to the hospital. You didn't sign the birth certificate. You didn't send a text, a dollar, or a damn prayer for three years."

He sighed, muttering, "You don't gotta make it sound like I ain't care—"

"You didn't!" she shouted. "You didn't care then, and you don't care now. You just care that people are starting to notice I'm doing better without you. That I'm happy. That our daughter doesn't even know your name."

That part hit him — silence stretched over the line.

Angel didn't stop. "You think going Live makes you a father? Begging your followers to 'help you reach out' like this is some PR stunt? Nah. What you did was selfish. You didn't think about me, or her. You thought about clicks."

"Angel, I'm tryin' to do right—"

"Too late for that," she cut in, her voice shaking but firm. "You don't get to rewrite history because the internet's watching now. You don't get to talk about being a dad when you haven't earned it."

She took a slow breath, her anger finally turning into something colder — final."Don't ever contact me again unless it's through a lawyer. You wanna see her? Fine. Petition for it in front of a judge, at a courthouse. Not on Live, not in my DMs, not in the comments under some blog post. You had your chance to be a father, and you walked out. I'm not giving you another one."

"Angel—"

She ended the call before he could finish.

For a moment, she sat there in silence, chest heaving. Then she looked down at her lock screen — a picture of Arayah asleep on her chest, both of them smiling in that way only mothers and daughters could.

Her voice came out quiet but firm."No one's ever gonna take that from us."

She started the truck, eyes fixed ahead. The internet could talk all it wanted — but she wasn't explaining herself to a soul.

Excuse all errors Ajah