by Belleza
“I can pay Asahd!” she protested. I extended my card to the cashier who had no issue taking my card and smiled hard.
“Girl, let him pay! I wish I had a man with a black card fighting to pay for my shit. You have any brothers for me?”
“I do, but you’re not their type.”
Camille’s elbow went flying into my stomach and I just laughed because the cashier now had a smug look on her face. It was her fault for being thirsty and I was telling the truth. My brothers and I weren’t checking for no broad, especially for a chicken head who panties needed to be rung out over a black card. It wasn’t that deep, which is why I was locked down by Camille. She was as real and as cheap as it gets. The cashier’s feelings probably were hurt, but we ain’t have to hear no stupid ass comment after that.
“You know that wasn’t nice,” Camille told me after I got in the car from putting our bags in the trunk.
“I don’t give a fuck. It was the truth. You wanted me to throw the oop to Zayne and have Keira come down there? What wasn’t nice was the way she was all in my shit and it was clear as day you’re my lady.”
“So that’s why you was on me?”
“Yeah,” I replied quickly because we both knew that was a lie. I was like a needy child when it came to my girl if I wasn’t bossing her ass around.
“I wasn’t paying her any mind.”
“So, you good with women checking for me?”
“Am I supposed to be upset about that? What matters the most is that you know who you belong to. You’re crazy but you ain’t stupid.,” she told me with all the confidence in the world.
“You got it,” I replied with a head nod. I couldn’t even argue with her because she had every right to feel the way she did. I made sure she was secure in our relationship. The trust was there without a doubt because I was on that fuck shit with her.
Deciding on Fridays in the area to go eat, we drove the short distance and got seated right away. The trip to the table I spotted a familiar face I didn’t think I was ever going to see again especially in a damn Fridays. I kept it pushing and placed my drink order along with Camille’s. The entire time I felt her eyes on me and as expected, when Camille got up to use the bathroom she walked right over.
“I know you couldn’t have possibly ignored me,” she said approaching the booth.
“I did actually. What’s up though?”
I turned my beer up and placed it back down on the table before giving Nina my undivided attention.
There was no denying that she looked good. Nina wasn’t that kind of chick that stepped out looking like anything. To her, she was runway ready which is why I never entertained the thought of locking her down. There was no way I was claiming a girl who outfits consisted of body suits and sheer parts leaving little to the imagination.
Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed her company, but that was as far as it went. She was a cry baby because she wanted to be wifey, but there was no way in hell I was wifing that.
“Shit, I’m trying to find out. I moved to New York and find out my ex is getting married and having a baby. Is that correct?”
“You saw me, and I walked up in here with Camille, and I’m sure while you was burning a hole through my face you saw she was very much pregnant.”
She sucked her teeth and placed her hands on her shapely hips. “All that? This is why we could never be together? You always gotta make shit difficult.”
“How?! You came over here questioning me about nothing that got a goddamn thing to do with you.”
“That’s because you act like I was nothing to you!” she exclaimed causing scene and I gritted my teeth to refrain from snapping her neck. I kinda liked her ass when she looked out with the Burge situation and moved away, now, not so much.
“You were something to me, you just wasn’t nothing important.”
“Don’t forget I helped you!”
“And you got paid for your services. So again, why are we having a conversation? You acting all secretive and shit waiting till my fiancée leaves to have this stupid ass discussion.”
“You know Camille will catch a fit if she knew you were communicating with me,” she sneered.
“Actually, I wouldn’t. Hello, Nina.”
She spun around and was face to face with Camille who looked so pleasant while Nina had the I eat ass face.
“Hi,” Nina replied dryly and turned back towards me. “It was nice seeing you again. Congratulations with everything.”
Nina stepped around Camille and took her place at the bar with her guy friend she abandoned to get the hell on my nerves.
“She doesn’t seem too happy,” Camille joked taking a sip of the sprite she ordered.
“Yeah, yeah. Fuck that bitch, just make sure that’s ya last soda,” I informed her, and she shot me the bird happily drinking away.
JOHAN
Walking further into the house, I stopped in my tracks when I saw the counter top that was covered in products from slim fast. Eyeing it, I went to the fridge, got a bottle of water, and then inspected each product wondering what was going through Natavia’s mind that she felt she needed the shit. Out of all the ways to lose weight, she thought putting money in a company's pocket was the answer.
“Natavia!” I called out to her.
“I’m upstairs.”
I went up the stairs and saw her standing in front of the mirror wrapping something around her waist. My eyebrows rose in surprise as I approached her.
“First, I see them fake ass shakes and now this. What is this shit for.”
“It’s a waist trainer. It helps to define my waist.”
“And that along with the shakes and bars on the counter will help you do what?”
Natavia sucked her teeth and tried to walk away from the mirror. I kept her in front of me and held her face in my hands kissing her lips.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m trying to get right. Nothing is wrong with that?” she shrugged.
“There’s so many ways to get right besides constricting your air flow and filling yourself up with fake food.”
“It’s a start.”
“A continuation to keeping you the way you are. Why do you think you have to change your anyway?”
Natavia turned towards the mirror and we both stared at her reflection. There wasn’t a part of her I didn’t love. For her to tell me that she wanted to get rid of it was a huge concern for me.
“I can stand to shed a few pounds, lose my stomach.” She lifted her arm and moved it. “I have a lot of problem areas.”
“Problem?”
“You don’t get it,” she sighed turning to face me and poking my firm abs. “Your body barely has any fat. I’m tired of looking like this.”
“I love you just the way you are though. I don’t think it’s necessary, however, if you want to lose weight we will do it the right way.”
“We?” she questioned.
“Yes, we. I’m not letting you do this alone. Let’s go make this trip to the market and get some food we can prep tonight and get the physical work done tomorrow.”
“I have work in the morning.”
“You’ll need the entire day off,” I responded giving her a quick peck. “Take that shit off your stomach and let’s go.”
***
With my Beats in my ears and my feet pounding the ground, I raced up the street and stopped once I did a quick glance to the right of me and noticed Natavia was nowhere near me. I slowed down to a light jog and spun around seeing that she was feet away barely walking.
I jogged back to her and she looked at me with her pretty face in a scowl.
“I’m ready to go Johan,” she panted.
“Nah… we came up with a plan and we have to stick to it,” I coached her flipping my wrist and seeing that we were already thirty minutes into the mile we were supposed to run. I can run this in about thirteen minutes and we were just hitting the halfway mark.
“I can’t do this,” she wh
ined placing her hands on her knees, so she could breathe. A big mistake people tend to do when they needed to pull air into their lungs.
Taking her hands, I told her to stand up and lift her arms above her head that way air could circulate better through her lungs.
“We’re going to finish this, Tave. We not about to give up when we just started. It’s only beginning. The beginning is never easy, but with time this will be a piece of cake.”
“Come on now with the preaching, let’s just go back to car. My lungs burn. My feet are killing me, and I am hungry. This is the worst way to lose weight.”
“It’s the best and only way everyone should go about it. If we going to do this, we’re going to do it right. We don’t gotta run, but we can walk the rest of the mile.”
Natavia only gave me a menacing scowl that didn’t move. I was only supporting her in doing what she wanted to do. If I was able to have it my way, we both would have been in the bed holding onto each other.
She snatched away and continued to walk, and I caught up with her.
“You haven’t really told me why you wanted to do this. The whole wanting a change doesn’t make sense at all. Have you been this size your entire life?”
“Always, sometimes bigger depending on what I have going on. If I’m depressed I lose a few pounds, but then I turn to food to comfort me and I blow up even more. It’s like a never-ending cycle.”
“I can understand that part,” I replied looking over at her.
The weather was about 48 degrees, it wasn’t too cold to be the middle of winter, but it was cold enough. I’m sure she was freezing but my body was cooling down from all the running I did.
“I told you I was like the black sheep in my family. I was the baby out of four girls and the one with an unknown father. My mother disliked me with a passion because I was a reminder of her mistake. Nothing I did was right and me being a bigger child added on to her hate for me.”
“Ya mom couldn’t have hated you.”
“Listen… she hated me. I came to terms with that a long time ago and honestly, I’m ok with it. She just showed me that I was able to go through life without her.”
As we walked, Natavia explained her childhood and it had me in my feelings that she had to experience that kind of emotional despair. I’m sure when people heard the shit about my mom but I always had my brothers. Even with me being the oldest there were things I lacked and they looked out for me whereas Natavia’s sisters turned a blind eye and treated her like the maid of the house.
It was no wonder why she took all that shit from Jeremy’s father. Feeling like you had nobody either have you build up a wall or vulnerable and she clung to him like he was the air she breathed.
Natavia had so much to tell me, she didn’t realize that we walked the rest of the entire mile without complaints or worry.
“We’re done,” I informed her.
“That wasn’t too bad.”
“It wasn’t at all. So how are you feeling now?”
“Physically or mentally?”
“Mentally,” I answered.
“Honestly, my heart hurts more than anything. I’m sure my feet will be sore in the morning, but it trumps the constant nagging pain I’ve ignored. Now, I can’t hide it anymore.”
Natavia burst out into tears, and I brought her into me, so she could get it all out. I couldn’t even be upset that she admitted she’s been down when I tried to bring nothing but happiness and peace in her life. I was smart enough to know that what she was feeling had nothing to do with her current situation, but more so her past that she hasn’t accepted although she easily said she didn’t care or shrugged it off. Everything you went through in life mattered. It shapes who you are currently whether in a good or bad way.
“Where’s ya mom? I feel like we need to go talk to her.”
“Ha!” she faked laughed wiping away at her tears. “She’s somewhere in South Philly probably with a beer on the side of her helping raise my sisters’ daughters. Can you believe it? Out of all of us this fat daughter of hers is the only successful one. Even before opening up the catering company, I was still struggling and doing better than all of them.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t be beating yourself over your family. You’re living Tave, and I’m sure they want you to be just as miserable as them.”
“I’m too nice to wish bad on anyone. They’re not my worries though, it’s Jeremy. I don’t know if I was tripping or not, but he called me a fat bitch.”
“He called you WHAT?!”
Natavia’s eyes stretched wide when she saw my reaction to what I said.
“Wait, I’m not 100% sure if he said that or not. It was the day his father was at the school.”
“Well we gonna fucking find out. I’m not having that shit. Tabitha wasn’t disrespected by the boys and you aren’t going to be either.”
Natavia dropped her head in defeat moving it from side to side. “It’s not your sons that’s the issue. It’s my own child. I know his dad being around is going to be terrible.”
“If you don’t want him around he don’t gotta be. He was gonna for the past decade and some change. You don’t need him,” I explained lifting her face back up and she smiled.
“I swear you’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” she mumbled, and I pressed my lips against hers. If only she knew how she made a difficult time in my life better. I was the lucky one.
***
When we got back home we ate a breakfast of fruit, eggs and a small portion of oatmeal before we retired to our bed room and lounged around. It didn’t take long for Natavia to fall into a deep sleep with everything she had on her mind and the early morning workout.
I took another shower and got dressed to go get the boys from school. I didn’t necessarily have to, but I was hoping Jerry showed up so we can have a conversation. The man has yet to really be around Jeremy and he was causing a disturbance in my household.
I parked my car in the lot and walked over to the side door where they let their children out that caught the buses home. Oddly enough, many parents were out there waiting for their children. I spotted Jerry right away and I picked up on the shocked expression that washed over his face. To me it looked like he was thinking about walking off, so I approached him.
“I just want to see my kid,” he told me holding his hands up in mock surrender.
“I don’t have a problem with that. The issue is you coming up here intimidating my woman. If you want to be a man and see Jeremy that’s cool, but I’m about to tell you how this is going to go.”
Jerry dropped his hands down and took a step back crossing them over his chest.
“I’m not about to take no orders from another man telling me how to care for my son.”
“Stay away from my family,” I retorted shooting an icy cold glare his way. I gave him his chance and he denied it, there wasn’t going to be no other way around this. I meant every word I said.
The doors opened, and he walked away quickly. Satisfied he didn’t make it more difficult than what it needed to be I faced forward and waited for my sons. When they heard my voice, they raced over to me. After I dapped them up we walked over to my truck and got inside. We didn’t have practice today, so I figured today was a good day for a break. I took them to Dave and Busters and I got us all game cards with enough credits to last us a few hours. It was a weekday therefore the entire arcade was nearly empty. We played every game switching who we were going against until we all agreed we were hungry and got a table.
It was never a dull moment with my sons. I used to want a little girl at one point but now having four young men to raise I was
“How was school?”
“It was cool,” Joey shrugged and Jace and Jared both said it was regular.
Jeremy was the only one quiet playing with his straw in his cup of fruit punch. That caught my attention because normally he’ll be the one with a story.
“What’s up with you, Jeremy?”
> He shrugged his shoulder and then adjusted himself in his seat. “School was alright, but my dad told me he was going to come up to the school to see me and he wasn’t there,” he pouted, and I felt bad knowing in a way I chased his pop away.
“He was there Jeremy, but something came up.”
“Really?!” He piped up right away. “So why isn’t he responding to my text messages?”
Jeremy slid me his phone showing me the thread of his phone. He was texting Jerry most of the day which shouldn’t have been happening since he was in school, but from what it looked like they both wanted to be around each other.
Maybe I was coming off a little too aggressive.
“I’ll have your mom call him and see when is a good time for you to spend time with him. You shouldn’t be texting him in school though.”
Jeremy sighed and pocketed his phone. “I know man, but my mom’s making it hard for him to be a dad towards me. He told me she kept him away all this time and I will like to finally be around him.”
I gritted my teeth hearing what that man possibly implanted in his head. Yes, there were two sides to every story, but I believed everything Natavia told me about him.
“That’s not for you to worry about. Focus on school and your mother and I will deal with your father. From here on out no back talking and cursing,” I implied without letting him know that his mother thought he called her a fat bitch. Shit, I hope he didn’t because it made me want to ring his neck.
Jeremy agreed, and we continued enjoying our evening. I pushed the thought about allowing Jerry to actually be in his life wasn’t a top priority. Once my household was in order and everyone was back to normal then I’ll entertain the idea, but I was sure he wasn’t up to no good.
NATAVIA
