“I still fight,” he said.
I frowned at him, but before I could say a word, he kept talking. “Underground shit, not official fighting. I don’t do it often, but sometimes, I don’t know, shit from when I was a kid starts fucking with me and I just need to hit a motherfucker to make it stop. But when I’m with you and for a long time after I get to see you? I don’t feel none of that.” He had been staring down at his empty plate but was now staring at me.
“Set—”
“Thank you for that.”
“For what?”
“For being you.”
“Oh. Well, thank you for being you, Set Mitchell. I…I feel the same way. When we’re together, I don’t feel like a shitty mother or a fool who married an asshole or a woman with the bad luck of her one good husband dying.”
“You ain’t none of that anyway, Kareema. You…you’re perfect.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Set. I’m glad you think so.”
“You’re welcome, baby, and I don’t think shit. I know it.”
All I could do was lean in and kiss him.
And he kissed me right back.
*****
Set
I watched her get in that TSA line and wanted to fucking scream. Okay, so the truth is that my six-foot-one, two hundred and fifty-pound, muscled-up ass wanted to cry, because she was leaving me to face my got-damn demons alone. I was tired of facing that shit alone.
I needed a lot of stuff—counseling, therapy, group therapy. Hell, I probably needed shock therapy, but more than any of that, I needed to tell Kareema how I felt and what I wanted—her. I just wanted her. That was it. I wasn’t fucked up about anything else. Yeah, I had my son and we got along well enough. We weren’t super close, because I was scared I’d be the kind of father my pops was, so I kept a safe distance from him while still trying to show him I loved him. I didn’t think he hated me, but I also didn’t think he’d award me father of the year and I was okay with that. What haunted me was the idea of being without Kareema. What if she got tired of my ass and found someone with the balls to commit to her even though she said she didn’t want that? Hell, I’d probably still be tongue-tied and rather than telling her how I felt about her, I’d most likely do some stupid shit like kill the nigga to get him out of my way and still not tell her how I felt, because I was just fucked all the way up. But more than being fucked up, I was scared, petrified that I’d tell her I loved her and she’d fucking laugh at me. But I knew she wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t cruel, but I just wasn’t sure how she’d react. Would she love me back?
Hell, no. Why would she love my screwed-up ass? I doubted if my own damn mama loved me. I couldn’t expect Kareema to love me, could I?
I loved her, though. I loved the shit out of her.
I really did.
11
Kareema
A week after I returned home from Las Vegas, I found myself sitting in my office, which had taken on the characteristics of a jail cell to me. Owning my own daycare center was never a dream for me. My business was born out of necessity. Shawn’s sorry ass couldn’t keep a job and we had bills to pay. Our broke asses stayed with my mom the first few months of our marriage, but then she died from an aneurysm that my young, clueless ass probably caused, and shit just went from bad to worse. I didn’t have time to mourn her. As her only child, I had to plan her funeral, and after she was buried, I had to figure out how to keep the lights on and feed my newborn daughter. Since I had no education other than a high school diploma, I started keeping kids. Before I knew it, I had a good little gig going on and finally woke up and got rid of Shawn before Tori was old enough to go to school. My business grew enough for me to have the garage in the house I’d inherited from my mom converted into a small daycare, and now, more than twenty years later, Kinder Kuties was a thriving business with ten classrooms housed in a renovated community center complete with a playground and indoor basketball court, and I was responsible for all of it. I’d always been responsible for every damn thing except when I was with Vincent. At least he paid the utilities and bought me gifts. Did I really love him? Not in the way a wife was supposed to love her husband, because after Shawn, I vowed to never marry for love again. I was convinced no good came of love. Vincent felt more like a friend I shared a home with and occasionally had some decent sex with, but I was thankful for that. It was better than the good sex and frustration I’d had with Shawn.
Anyway, I still lived in my mom’s house, had no mortgage, drove a nice car, and made a great living. By all definitions of the word, I was successful, but truth be told, at that moment, I wished I was perched on a weight bench getting heated about one of Set’s clients being too damn friendly with him. I was over being alone.
I let my eyes drop to my phone, to the text he’d sent just minutes earlier: I miss you.
In response, I sent back: I miss you too.
*****
“What do you mean you’re not coming to work today? Tori, you don’t sound sick,” I said, as I gripped my forehead.
“I’m not sick, but I think me and Monté broke up last night.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, and I know it’s because Yolanda been in his ear! She can’t stand to see us happy just because she’s got a baby with him! I’m not coming back to work until you fire her!” my only child screamed into the phone.
“First of all, you better lower your voice and recognize who the hell you’re talking to right now. Second, that negro ain’t shit. He doesn’t even have a damn job, and it makes no sense for you to lose yours over him!”
“Lose mine?! So you’re firing me? Really, Mama? You’re choosing her over me?”
“No, girl! I’m choosing my business over some foolishness! You are an adult, Tori, and you have a child to take care of. I gave you a damn job so you can do just that. You owe it to yourself and him to put on your big girl panties and bring your ass to work. Now!”
I hung up and called a couple of retired teachers I kept on standby as potential substitutes, because I knew my daughter well enough to know she actually wasn’t coming to work. Luckily, I was able to get one of them to come in, and I had to watch Tori’s class along with her assistant until the sub arrived. Then I closed myself up in my office and rubbed my now throbbing head and closed my eyes. I was digging in my purse for pain reliever when my cell rang—Set.
I sat there and stared at my phone, because Set never called me. He was a text person. So the phone had stopped ringing before I got over the shock and picked it up. I called him back and damn near cried when I heard that sexy growl of his. “Hello? Kareema?”
“Yeah. Hey, Set.”
“Hey. I, uh…how you doing?”
“Okay. You?”
“I don’t know. Look, my dad always said only simps talk about feelings and shit, but it’s some stuff I need to say to you.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” I said, tears filling my eyes at the apparent vulnerability in his voice.
“A’ight, so look—”
My office door flew open, slamming against the wall and making me yelp.
“The fuck was that?!” Set yelled in my ear.
“Shawn?!” I squeaked. “Why the hell did you just bust in my office?” I looked around him to see Damiana, my receptionist, looking bewildered and knew he’d stormed right past her and busted in on me. I also knew this was about our spoiled-ass daughter.
“Get off the damn phone,” Shawn barked, stalking over to me and snatching it from my ear. I watched as he threw it against a wall and my blood began to boil.
“Damiana, call the police!” I ordered and watched as she scurried back to her desk.
Shawn slammed my office door shut and stared down at where I hadn’t moved from my chair, shaking his head at me. “You know what? I always knew you were slow, but I thought I could trust you to take care of Tori. I thought you was a halfway decent mother, but you just keep fucking with her over some raggedy bitch you got working here, got her coming to my house cryin
g and shit, and you know I can’t stand to see her cry.”
“You know your daughter lies, right? Oh yeah…you don’t, do you? You two only started having a relationship when she got grown and started forcing herself into your life, making it impossible for you to keep ignoring her. Now you wanna play big bad daddy to a grown ass woman who keeps running to you like she’s five because I won’t let her have her way? Get the hell out of here before the police arrive. I know you’ve got to have warrants. So go home to your latest benefactor and tell Tori if she wants her job, she needs to bring her ass to work!”
He glared at me before muttering, “This ain’t over,” and snatching my door open. He’d been gone for about ten minutes before I thought to locate my phone and was thankful that the expensive-ass case I had it in had protected it. I tried to call Set back but got no answer, so I turned the police away when they arrived and spent the rest of the day holed up in my office trying not to cry.
Set
“There he is! I told you his ass be hanging over here.”
I couldn’t answer my brother or look at him. I had tunnel vision like a motherfucker.
“Set, you sure about this? You look like you about to kill the nigga. Maybe you should calm down first. You just hopped off a plane.”
“Naw, Jah. This can’t wait. That motherfuck—you coming or what?”
“I ain’t letting your ass go over there alone.”
“A’ight, let’s go then.”
I jumped out the driver’s seat of my rental and with my baby brother on my heels, walked across the street to the Bauman Courts. I’d spent a lot of time shooting hoops and getting in fights there back in the day. Now it seemed that the only folks hanging out there were grown niggas who didn’t have shit to do. This nigga was sitting on the trunk of a car, probably his woman’s car, and I stepped right up to the crowd of him and four other fools, my eyes glued to this motherfucker who kept putting way too much bass in his voice when he talked to Kareema.
“Aw, shit! It’s two of the Mitchell boys! I’d know y’all chinky-eyed muhfuckas anywhere! What’s up, fellas?” Shawn Thomas said, holding a fist out to me.
I didn’t say a word or bump his ashy-ass fist. I just glared at him.
“Aye, y’all other niggas need to step. Set need to handle some business with Thomas,” Jah’s huge ass said.
With no questions asked, the other dudes scrambled to leave.
“I ain’t got no business with neither one of y’all so I’ma just leave, too,” Shawn said, eyes on the ground and hands raised.
I shook my head. “Nah, nigga…you stay here. We got some shit to clear up.”
“Some shit to clear up? What shit?” He looked like he was ready to climb over the roof of the car, anything to get away from me and Jah.
“Shit like why you think you can fuck with Kareema the way you been fucking with her.”
“Kareema? What the fuck? What she got to do with anything? The hell are you talking about?!”
“I’m talking about me being on the phone with her earlier today and you busting in her office on her.”
“On the phone with her? You fucking Kareema?”
“Stay the fuck away from her, Thomas, or I’ma make good on the ass-kicking I promised you back in the day,” I said, ignoring his stupid-ass question. Obviously, I was fucking her.
I’d turned to leave when I heard the familiar sound of a bone cracking and turned to see Shawn Thomas slide from the trunk of the car onto the ground, blood oozing from his nose.
“Shit, I hurt my damn hand hitting that Cro-Magnon head-ass nigga,” Jah said.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Damn, Jah. I didn’t tell you to hit him. That’s Kareema’s daughter’s father, man.”
Jah shrugged. “He been fucking with your girl. I know how you feel about her. So you don’t owe me nothing.”
This damn fool…
12
Kareema
“Set?! What are you doing here?” I shrieked.
“I sent him a DM letting him know about your car,” Trish said, making me regret calling her for a ride when I left work late to find all four of my tires slashed. Not that I wasn’t glad to see Set and—
“Jah Mitchell? Wow!” I shouted upon seeing Set’s big little brother step into my living room behind him.
“‘Sup, Kareema,” Jah greeted me with a wide grin. He moved to hug me, but Set blocked him and muttered, “Hell naw, nigga. Back your big ass up.”
Jah raised his hands. “My bad, man. Just being friendly.”
“I ain’t see no message,” Set said. “What happened to her car?”
As Trish gleefully told all my damn business to Set like I’d declared him my man to her rather than a frequent fuck buddy, I resumed the posture I’d taken before he entered my house, slumped on the sofa with my head in my hands.
I jumped when I felt someone sit next to me and opened my eyes to see that it was Set with so much concern in his eyes that I had to cry.
Pulling me to him, he softly said, “I got you. I’ll fuck up whoever did this. I promise you that. I will fuck them all the way up. On sight. I will put my foot—”
Shaking my head, I looked up at him with a wet face. “You can’t do that. It was my daughter.”
Set
I kept holding her, my eyes sweeping the neat living room of her house before I finally said, “How you know for sure? You saw her?”
“She called in sick today, but I saw her and her supposed-to-be ex-man pulling off the lot at my daycare this evening. Even if it was him and not her, she was there and didn’t stop him. I gave her so much trying to make up for Shawn not being there and I just ruined her and now she hates me.”
“I told you she’s the way she is because of her father, not you. It’s genetics.”
“And I told you I picked the fool to procreate with. It’s definitely on me.”
“You were a kid. Stop being so hard on yourself.”
We both fell silent, and then I realized Jah and Tricia were still in the room, both of them staring at us.
“Damn, this is sweet, seeing Set all in love and shit. I mean, I already knew you were all in for her the way you got my ass driving by here checking on her house at night like a damn security guard. Then you flew your ass here today to—”
“Jah, I’m good. You can go on home. I’ll get at you in the morning,” I said, interrupting my brother.
“Nigga, you drove. My car at the crib,” he replied.
“I can run him home for you, Set. I need to be heading to my place anyway. That’s if you’re good, Kareema. I can stay if you need me to, but it looks like you’re in good hands,” Tricia said.
“I’m fine. Thanks for the ride home. I’ll call you tomorrow,” Kareema told her friend.
“Sounds like a plan, then. Shit, I remember you, too, but you done thickened up, ain’t you? I like them braids you got,” Jah said, trying to shoot his shot at Tricia.
In response, Tricia rolled her eyes. “I got a man, and if I didn’t have one, I wouldn’t let your giant ass break my pussy.”
As Jah followed her out the door, he rubbed his hands together. “So you heard about me, huh?” he asked, and then he started doing some frat call.
Tricia’s distant voice replied, “Boy, get your ass on in this car,” as Jah shut the front door behind them. Then I watched Kareema lift from the couch to lock it.
Turning to look at me, she asked, “You’ve been having your brother watch my house? Why?”
I sighed. Jah and his big-ass mouth. With a shrug, I replied, “I’ont know. Because this city is fucked up. Every other day somebody getting shot. I was…I was worried about you.”
“You told him about us?”
“Yeah.”
“Set—”
“We can talk more later. I know you got to be tired, and that flight kicked my ass. You got an alarm system, or are you coming to a hotel with me?”
She frowned. “You’re not staying here?”
“Well, I don’t feel like leaving and I…I want you to stay.
“A’ight. Then I’ll stay.”
13
Kareema
“Set?” My voice penetrated the darkness. I wasn’t sure if he was awake but figured he was.
“Yeah, baby?” he responded, making my pussy purr. I almost forgot what I wanted to ask.
“How long has your brother been checking on me?”
There was a moment of silence before he said, “Um…about a year, I think. At least I been paying him to do it that long.”
“Paying him?”
“Yeah…”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had him doing that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought it would make you feel uncomfortable.”
“Oh…”
“Does it? I mean, I ain’t on no stalker shit.”
“I know. I’m…thank you for looking out for me.”
“It’s nothing, baby.”
“Why’d you come here if it wasn’t because of Tricia’s message?”
He groaned, “Kareema, go to sleep. I ain’t tryna do all this talking right now.”
I didn’t respond, and I guess that was response enough, because he sighed, and said, “Because a motherfucker busted in your office while I was talking to you on the got-damn phone and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“What were you trying to tell me on the phone?”
“I ain’t ready to talk about that no more. Your ex fucked up the moment.”
“Set—”
“Baby, go to sleep.”
“I can’t. You love me, Set?”
Silence.
“Do you?”
“Do you love me, Kareema?”
Silence from me.
“Do you?” he parroted me.
I sighed and thought fuck it. “Yes.”
“You do?” he asked, his voice somewhere in the rafters.
Set: A Novella (Them Boys Book 1) Page 5
