by Nicety
Something told me that he wasn’t there to make sure I left Myking any kind of message. He was here to take my life. My eyes looked over at my purse on the wooden coffee table, which held my phone. I felt like I had to call for help. I had to at least try if nothing else. I crawled slowly hoping to be able to make it there and be able to use it before he killed me.
“Where are you going?” Officer Cawcowski pulled my legs back towards him noticing as I moved like an inchworm across the floor. “You’ve gotta lay there and be still like a good girl now. I’ve gotta tell you a bedtime story about a girl named Damita and what happens when a man like Myking meets a man like me.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I cringed asking through my pain.
“Oh. Well, I’m so glad you finally asked the right question now. My name is Angelo Cawcowski, Atlanta Police.”
“Atlanta?” It was then that my thoughts shifted to the damn badge he flashed. I didn’t even pay attention to the city on the badge. I didn’t even pay attention to the fact that the damn thing wasn’t navy blue. How could I have been so damn stupid to have blown off something so important?
“Yeah, daisy plum. It was right there smack dab on my badge and your ass barely even looked at it. Too fixed up on your own bullshit, I see. Now once upon a time… Oh wait. I can’t tell you the bedtime story yet ‘cause you aren’t in your jammies yet. Let’s get you changed.” He reached down tugging at my heels to take them off.
“No!” I screamed at the top of my lungs kicking, punching and shouting to get him up off of me.
My heel was sharp enough to penetrate the softest objects even skin. I tried like hell to do so, aiming for his chest. He kept grabbing at my head, pulling and tugging on my hair before slapping me left and right. His hands were so heavy when they met with my face forcing me to become dizzy and lethargic. Still I kept kicking and swinging though. I wasn’t giving up without a fight. Then something heavy as fuck hit my head and my head hit the floor. My eyes were dreary. I couldn’t keep them open no matter how hard I tried.
Chapter 18
30 Minutes Later
Myking
Bruh I see, girls everywhere
Titties, ass, hands in the air
It's a party over here
Shake it for the man of the year
Uh ma-man of the year
Ma-man of the bounce
Bruh I see, girls everywhere
Titties, ass, hands in the air
It's a party over here
Shake it for the man of the year
Uh ma-man of the year
Ma-man of the bounce…
“Man, I’m done playing with this nigga Tee. He’s gon’ learn this time that I’m not that dude that he wants to fuck with.” I hit the blunt hard as fuck bobbing my head to that Schoolboy Q., not even paying attention to the fact that the blunt was almost gone.
I hadn’t even passed it to Tee the entire time I had it. It was one of those moments where I needed a whole blunt to myself. Staring down at it, it was senseless for me to even try to pass it to him and insult him like that. Reaching into the center console of the truck, I dug my hand down snatching out a quarter bag and two blunts tossing it his way.
“Aye, roll that shit up and dome that shit nigga. That’s you kid,” I said continuing to hit the rest of the blunt in my hand.
“Shit, I’ll take it but I’m all good. I got some shit back at the crib and I knew you were upset and shit so gon’ and kill that. But thank you though.” Tee slid the green and blunts in his jeans pocket. “But real talk though, that nigga need to get what’s coming to him though.”
“Shit, it should’ve been fucking happen. But it’s all good though ‘cause it’s gon’ happen. Shit the wheels are already in motion killa. And in a few weeks, we’ll be richer than we already are pimpin’. Believe that,” I laughed.
“Real talk. It’s been a long time coming and definitely ready to be done with that nigga man. He’s worthless as hell man. Maybe if he didn’t treat everybody around him like shit this wouldn’t have happened to his dumb ass.”
“Right. Right,” I replied as two phones fell from my lap.
“Yeah, that whack ass nigga came at me like niggas be taking care of other niggas’ kids and shit. I guess that fool knows about me and Sunset now.” Tee shrugged. “It was about time he found out about that shit anyway. You feel me. Sunset needs a real nigga in her life to tame that ass and that dumb ass nigga wasn’t it.”
Throwing him a side eye, I put the blunt out in the ashtray. He needed to know that he had a set of kids out here who now needed their father to step up to the plate and handle business. When Sunset first got pregnant he wasn’t ready to be a father. He was too gung-ho, unable to control his self and keep his head level headed enough to take care of a family. He needed to get a grip on handling business and stack his paper hard.
He would’ve focused so much time on the streets that he wouldn’t have had time to be the man he needed to be for her and the kids. Sunset wasn’t a bad woman. She just needed the right person on her team showing her that there was more to life than what Jeremiah could offer her. Now that Tee and I were well established and he was in a different frame of mind, he could go to her as a man and be able to offer her more than just support for the family. There was no doubt in my mind that he was ready. I just hoped that he was man enough to except why I hid it and had her hide it from him as well.
Leaning forward, I dug my hand down to the floor to pick the phones up that fell earlier. Once I brought them up I tossed mine in the cup holder while I fiddled through the other one. My fingers flicked through the gallery at all of the pictures and videos until I came across something that I couldn’t resist looking at.
I scrolled on but ultimately found myself scrolling back to the one thing I tried to avoid. The shit kept fucking with me. I struggled with pushing the play button on it allowing my finger to get it over with it, finally able to see what I really didn’t want to again. But the more I watched the video on Jeremiah’s phone, the more I started to believe that what Bianca was telling me was the truth.
After the fight, I purposely snatched his phone up so I could look in it and search to see if there was a different version of the video than the one he sent me. I found it, tucked away in his Cloud. He had deleted it from his phone but not the cloud with his dumb ass. The video was at least two minutes and thirty seconds long in his phone. But the video he had sent to my phone was only about twenty seconds. He had edited the video to only send me the bullshit he wanted me to see.
Watching the entire unedited video on his phone made me realize he was willing to go through great lengths just to fuck up what Bianca and I had. That’s exactly why his world was about to blow up right before his conniving eyes. He was a chump, a fake, a phony, a pussy, and a crab. I whooped his ass and I would do it again because that’s what you did to stupid ass marks like him. Nearing the end of the video, I knew Bianca was telling the truth. I still felt like she should’ve known better as to who was kissing her but she did what she was supposed to do as a woman regardless and for that I respected her.
I snatched my phone with the quickness and dialed her number faster than I could think of. Repeatedly I dialed her number and each time it went to the voicemail after only four rings. She was probably mad as hell at me for walking out on her without giving her a chance to explain. I had some issues to work out in that aspect. It was just that I couldn’t think about her still having feelings for him when I could give her more than what he could of what she needed and more.
I hated women who didn’t know their worth because they let a dumb ass man destroy their strong confident side. Bianca refused to allow him to break her even though that motherfucker tried hard as hell. But my baby was telling the truth. Seeing the truth in Jeremiah’s phone, I knew that I owed my baby an apology that topped all apologies. It couldn’t be basic. It had to be creative and original, something that would sweep her completely off of her feet.
&
nbsp; “Aye bro, I’m gonna have to get at you a little later. I’ve gotta go holla at this girl man.” I held out my hand to shake it up with Tee.
“Oh yeah? Damn that was fast as hell. So y’all straight now?” Tee asked turning to me as he took a fresh pack of Kool 100’s from his jeans. He patted the bottom of the pack repeatedly to get the tobacco to pack together in each cigarette.
“Naw, not yet. But we will be though. As soon as I get back to the crib, we’re gonna be all good,” I sighed mutely. “Shit she’s so mad that she ain’t even answering the phone for me and shit but I got her though. All this shit will be squashed by the morning.”
“Oh okay then. Bet, well hit me tomorrow fam—“
“Hold up bro. There’s some shit that’s been weighing heavy on me for a minute and shit. I don’t know how you’re gonna take this shit but it’s better you find out from me than from someone who don’t fuck with you like that. You feel me?” I stopped him before he exited the truck.
“Oh that’s wassup. Shit, gon’ and shoot, Myking. You know we keep it real around here. So what’s good?” Tee focused his eyes on me giving me his undivided attention. I knew then that the shit I had to say to him might hit him like a ton of bricks. I could only hope that he took it to a higher place and appreciated why the information was held back rather than spaz out on me.
Chapter 19
Minutes Later Across Town
Sunset
“Damn, why you can’t call nobody back?”
“Girl, it ain’t like we fucking or something. Why are you jocking me?” Myking spat through the phone roughly.
“Because I’ve been waiting on your call and shit. You’ve got me paranoid as hell with this shit. So is you gonna kill me or what?”
“Naw, I ain’t gonna kill you this time but I should kick your ass one time for the principal of the shit. You were paid to do one job. You had one job Sunset and you could barely do that.”
“Hey. Let me tell you something okay. I did more than my job in this shit. If anything I put in more work because I had to endure all that nigga’s bullshit for so many damn years—“
“Aye we all did—“
“No, y’all ain’t go through it like I went through it. I was beaten, broken, and depressed because of this nigga. A nigga you hooked me up with.” My head shook from side to side just thinking about all of the shit that I had to go through with Jeremiah.
“But you got what you got out of the deal though. It ain’t like you ain’t reap none of the rewards of this shit,” Myking blustered sounding like he was driving on the road.
“Okay and speaking of that, I didn’t get everything that was owed to me and you know for a fact that I didn’t.” Taking another gulp of my homemade margarita, I thought about everything that we talked about. “You said that I would be financially free in three years. You said that I wouldn’t need or want for anything and I could quit my job and move up out the hood. So where is that shit you promised me? Huh? I’m ready to take my babies and start living life.”
The phone grew hushed. Obviously I had triggered a nerve. But as I took yet another gulp of my margarita, I gradually stopped caring. He needed to quit beating around the bush and deliver what he promised me years ago. I’ve been hanging on a whim for so long that it almost seemed like I would never get the shit. The game was over. The truth was out in the air so now it was time for him to pay up.
“Sunset, if nothing else I’m a man of my word. When I tell your ass that I’m gonna do something then that’s what it is. You ain’t gotta keep questioning me about it. That’s that shit that pisses me off.” Myking’s voice cultivated darkness by the minute as if he was already to that breaking point with me.
“I’m just saying, I’m gonna need you to deliver on that shit because I didn’t spend years fucking up Jeremiah’s life for nothing. I’ve done my part. Now it’s time for you to handle yours.” The margarita was definitely running through me. “Pay up.”
“I ain’t gonna tell you but one more time not to test me, Sunset. You’ll be set once everything is squared away. Once I get what’s mine, you’ll get what’s yours.”
Before I could argue him up and down about giving it to me now so that I could be done with his ass and these games, there was a subtle knock at the door. It was as if the person on the other side didn’t really want to knock but did it anyway. Sliding over to the door, I peeked out the peephole to catch a glimpse of who was on the other side.
This fool knew better than to show up on my doorstep unannounced. I told him I hated that shit and that he should never do it. What was so hard about picking up the phone to ask to come over rather than just popping up? I had a right mind to leave his ass out there but I knew he would never go away especially if he had heard me yapping away on the phone.
“Aye let me call you back,” I said to Myking on the phone before turning my back to the door for a brief moment regrettably opening it. “What are you doing here?”
“I need a reason to stop by and see how you’re doing?” Tee waltzed through the door casing the place like he was about to rob it.
“But you never come here. You’ve never been here. I always come to you.” I folded my arms shooting him a dead look trying to figure out what he was on. “I figured that was our arrangement.”
“Yeah well shit changes.”
Tee walked around the living room like he was expecting for someone to jump out of hiding or something. He circled the living room twice before heading to the hall looking down it at each of the bedrooms, seemingly he was checking to see if they were empty. I sucked my teeth mad that this nigga just came in investigating shit like he ran this household. He was starting to scare me with the shit. Last time I checked, there was only one name on the lease and it wasn’t his.
“Um, can I help you find something?” I asked rowdily making sure that he heard me.
“Naw, I just wanted to make sure there weren’t any fuck boys left over in my temporary crib.” He returned back to the living room leaning against the wall.
“Huh? Excuse me? I think you’ve got the game twisted bruh.”
“Naw, you do Sunset. Let’s get something straight. From here on out, you belong to me now. No more checking for that whack ass nigga or being concerned with what he’s doing.” Tee stuffed his hands in his pocket stalking me with his eyes.
“I’m-I’m sorry. I’m confused as hell. How the fuck are you just gonna come up in here and try to demand some shit in my—“
“I know about the kids, Sunset. I know they aren’t Jeremiah’s. I know they are mine and I’m man enough to put all that bullshit behind us and start fresh with me in their lives. I refuse to let them grow up knowing I’m their daddy and they don’t even know who I am.” Tee moved closer calming his tone with every step.
“Tee, Who told you that shit? Was it Myking? Boy, you know that fool be lying and shit—“
“Sunset. Come on now. Don’t play me like I’m some simp when you know better.”
Looking up into his eyes, I knew there was nothing else I could say to deter him from trying to make a family with us. Actually, his response to the news shocked the shit out of me. I wasn’t prepared for him to say nothing like that. I thought if anything he was gonna ask for a blood test before he claimed any of the kids. He leaned his head down to me trailing sweet pecks on my forehead as he grabbed my cheeks snuggly.
“This should’ve been me and you from jump in the first place. But Myking explained everything. He told me why he told you to do what you did and it’s cool cause that’s my boy and we working together on this shit. But I’m here now and all that shit is dead. So you’re either gonna be with me or you’re not. Either way, I’m forever in your life because I’m taking care of my kids.” His lips touched mine and I was in heaven.
Gripping my backside firmly with his hands, we fell into a deep passionate kiss. It was so intense that I almost forgot the craziness of the whole situation and focused only on he and I. Tee had grown in the f
ew short years we had been fucking around it seemed. He had matured in a way that I cared not to pay attention to, I guess. The way he touched me felt different, even the way he spoke to me. It was like he was thinking on some long term shit and I… I was stuck wondering if I would ever be able to give him the love that he desired since I’ve kept my feelings for him under lock and key for so long.
My knees felt weak as he took me pulling me closer to his body. I had to admit, I loved it when a man took charge and control of me. Tee was just the type of man I wanted to shut me up when I was being petty, to make my toes curl in bed, and to be the greatest man my kids had ever known. I didn’t used to think so but I was judging whom he used to be, not who he was today. I was done living in the past. If I was ever going to move forward, now was the time to do so.
I felt a fire ignite deep within me. It was so hot. I leaned my head on his shoulder and looked up into his face. As I tried to gauge his feelings, I was able to consider his gorgeous eyes, beautiful lips, and well-groomed beard. It reinforced his masculinity and strengthened his manliness.
With half-opened eyelids, I dropped my gaze, and then slowly looked back up at him shooting him a slick smile. I reached running my fingers over his low fade. Slowly, I leaned my face closer to his and softly brushed my lips to his in a gentle kiss. I half-expected Tee to push me away, but he didn’t. Further testing his willingness I added a flirtatious tiny hint of tongue to my kiss.
Tee rearranged himself and his lips seized mine with a demanding heat. He kissed me as though he were trying to merge his soul with mine. It was the kind of kiss that lived only in my most erotic fantasies. Our tongues wrestled like they were in a ring ready to battle it out for the win.
