Down With the King of the South

by Diamond Johnson

  As much as I liked Shae, and as attracted to her as I was, I wouldn’t dare make a move. She was vulnerable than a motha fucka right now, more than likely at her lowest, so I’ll be a corny ass nigga to take advantage of her like that. I wanted her back to her normal self before I even thought about kissing her. I had no need to sleep as I sat at the foot of her bed and watched her sleep. I wanted to turn the TV on, but I didn’t want to wake her up with it, so I let the sounds of her breathing and her snores be the only sound in the room.

  Almost twenty minutes later, the alarm in the house went off. I went back to feeling like that little boy from the projects again because someone was always breaking into our shit. Our tiny ass apartment didn’t even have anything worth stealing, but that didn’t stop niggas from kicking our door in when I was at school, and my parents were working. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times that I’ve gotten home with my parents to either find our glass shattered from them getting inside the house that way or our front door hanging off the hinges.

  I shot up from the bed and pulled my gun from the waist of my pants. I’d left the light on in the foyer of the house, so when I saw that it was Mahogany staggering her ass in, I put the gun down.

  “Nigga, you scared the fuck out of me! I was too busy running my mouth on the phone, that I didn’t even see your car in the driveway. Where is Shae?” she asked, removing her hand from her chest.

  It was obvious that I’d scared her like she said I did when she saw me.

  “In the back sleeping,” I let her know.

  “Pleasseee tell me you fucked her. Please!” her high ass joked.

  I may not have fucked Shae, but it was obvious her ass had just finished fuckin’. That much was clear from the way her hair was all wild, the fingerprints on her neck, and her underwear that were sticking out of her purse. Her whole vibe screamed, I just got fucked.

  “Nah, I’m not on that with her. At least right now I’m not,” I said.

  “What the hell happened to your face?” she asked.

  “The same thing that happened to you when she beat you in that bathroom the other day,” I called out.

  She laughed while sticking her middle finger up at me. We walked into the kitchen, and I took a seat at the dining room table while she stood with her back posted up on the fridge.

  “What’s the plan between you and Shae? She likes you. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have opened the door for you or let you stay over here for that matter while she sleeps,” she said.

  “My plan right now is to be her peace, get her back eating, so she can physically get back to how she was before all of this happened. I plan to motivate her ass by putting inspiring shit in her head so she can know that at the end of the day, this shit will one day get better. I want to get her out this dark ass house too because when she’s in here, that’s when her emotions are shot through. This is where she and Vonte spent the majority of their time, so she’s automatically going to hurt a little bit more while she’s here because this is home. Vonte was her home. I gotta let her know how strong she really is because I don’t even think she knows it yet. Yeah, it’s been bumpy like a motha fucka, but put another broad in her position, and I bet you they fold,” I honestly said.

  “You’re right about that because I would have been folded,” she let me know.

  “What’s up with you and my cousin? Y’all talking about marriage yet?” I asked with a sly smirk on my face.

  I knew damn well marriage wasn’t the topic of discussion for either one of them.

  “Nothing is up with us at the moment. I’m just enjoying him. You know him better than I do, so just out of curiosity, have you ever seen him settle down with anyone? We don’t have those type of conversations when we get around each other, and certain things I don’t want to know the answer to. I guess I’m too afraid of finding out the answer,” she said.

  “Jabari has always been wild. When I say always, I mean always. He used to come to Miami for the summers, and at thirteen years old, I caught this nigga in the stairwell of the projects that we used to stay in fuckin’ two bitches. I can’t get that shit out of my head to this day. I ain’t never in my life heard this man even express shit about wanting to get married, have kids, none of that shit.

  “At the same time, I ain’t never see the nigga chase after no woman either. I see the chase that he has in his eyes for you. He won’t tell you, but I’ll tell you that the nigga damn near begged for me to have Jashae bring you that night when we all went to watch the fight. I know Jabari is feeling you, but that’s one stubborn motha fucka right there, so good luck on that one. I know you probably feeling him too, but just like him, your selfish ass won’t admit it either. Y’all were made for each other, though. Two crazy ass people will make such a perfect couple,” I let her know, and she laughed.

  “I don’t want to wake up Choc, but I’ll probably be gone by the time she wakes up. I gotta get my baby girl from the airport,” I said.

  Saying it made me smile. I Facetimed her just about every day, but that was nothing compared to being able to actually see her.

  “That’s fine, I’ll be here. You gotta bring her little pretty self over here. We never got the chance to meet her,” she cooed.

  “I will. Fuck you sounding like you got baby fever for?” I joked.

  “Nigga, please! I’ll never. If I ever get pregnant, I was drugged because I wouldn’t willingly let it happen,” she boasted.

  I laughed at her comment, all the while thinking that I didn’t know how the hell my cousin was going to deal with her shit. Mahogany was cool as fuck, though. I liked her for Jabari, so I hoped that they were able to tolerate each other long enough for them to work out.

  The next morning

  I ended up leaving Jashae’s place a little bit after five this morning. My baby girl and her mother would be landing at 7:30, and I still needed to get back home so I could shower and shit. Lord knows I didn’t want to leave Shae, but I had peace of mind, knowing that Mahogany was over there with her. If I didn’t have prior obligations, swear I would have woken her up with breakfast in bed and all.

  I had every plan to come back later just to check up on her. She’d been talking about wanting to meet Taniya, so I felt like this would be a good thing for her. Anything that a nigga could do to put a smile on her face, I was willing to do all of that. I drove on the dark road with just a few cars on the road with me and used this time to think about life in general.

  I had received a phone call earlier in the week, and they wanted me to fight again. Not to actually get out there and do it professionally, but for a fundraiser. I hadn’t picked up a pair of gloves and got in the ring in years. I stopped doing that shit because when my ole girl died, I just knew that the shit would never feel the same. The fight that they were asking me to participate in was for a good cause. It was scheduled to take place in two months in Las Vegas, and I still hadn’t made up my mind whether I was going.

  The anniversary of my ole girl’s death was coming up in a few weeks, so I think that played a huge role in why I was a little bit in my feelings about not doing the fight. If you didn’t know me personally, then you couldn’t understand how much I loved that woman and how she was my rock. When she died, it put a damper on the relationship that I have with my ole boy. Not that I blamed him for the shit because it wasn’t his fault, but just as much as I loved her, my ole boy loved her, so how could we have been there for each other when we could hardly be there for ourselves?

  Although I took care of every bill that he would ever have and I made sure that he would always had money in his account, that didn’t mean I was doing my whole part as a son. I needed to start seeing him more. I promised myself that when I picked my daughter up from the airport, I was going to pay him a visit because I knew that it would mean a lot to him to see Taniya and me.

  It didn’t take me long at all to get home, take the much needed shower that I needed to take, brush my teeth, and find a quick outfit
to throw on. In no time, I was jumping in a different car, which was more kid-friendly versus the green Corvette that I was originally driving. This time, I chose to push the Bentley truck, which had Taniya’s car seat in the back along with built-in TVs on the back of both the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat. There was no need for me to break the speed limit while I was on the road since there was hardly any traffic this morning.

  When I was about fifteen minutes away from the airport, Tahira texted me, letting me know that the plane had just landed, and they were on the way to baggage claim. I texted her back and let her know where I would be parked, and that was that. Thirty minutes later, I was standing outside my car with my back against the wall, waiting to see my lil mama.

  Every five minutes or so, someone walked up and asked to take a picture with me. I was cool with it for now, but the moment I got my daughter, I didn’t care to do the whole picture taking thing. I took daddy and daughter time very seriously.

  In about another minute or so, I looked up and saw them coming out of the double doors. Out of all the cars and the people that were standing out here, my daughter’s little eyes managed to land upon me. The second she saw me, she dropped her little unicorn luggage, broke free of Tahira’s hand, and she took off in my direction.

  “Dadddyyyyy!” she screamed at the top of her lungs as she ran toward me like she was in a track and field race.

  Her long, thick hair was in braids, so they just bounced in the wind as she ran. I bent down, with my arms spread open, and the moment she was close enough, she leaped in my arms. I picked her up, spun her around, and kissed all over her face.

  “Ohhh, daddy! I missed you,” she cried.

  My three-year-old was literally crying with her little arms wrapped around me and her face buried in the crook of my neck. Tahira and I had decided to keep this little meet up a secret from her. She was just under the impression that she was going on vacation with her mommy. My daughter was beautiful. She had my entire face, every single feature that I had, but she had her mother’s chocolate skin complexion. She was three, a little thing, but had the imagination, the mouth, and the brain of a thirty-year-old woman.

  “I missed you too, lil mama. How was your flight?” I asked her.

  At the same time, Tahira was walking up. She was holding Taniya’s suitcase along with a carry-on. I put Taniya down so I could get the bags from Tahira’s hands.

  “It was good. The plane was going to crash, Daddy. It was shaking and stuff. The man who was flying the plane kept talking on that loudspeaker and saying something about nerbulance,” she said, trying to say turbulence.

  “Turbulence baby, it’s turbulence, and the plane was not going to crash,” Tahira corrected Taniya.

  All I could do was laugh. I looked up at Tahira, and we came toward each other for a two-second hug. Although she was my baby mama, we were very good friends. Hell, still to this day, I went to her about personal shit. I even trusted shorty enough to have her file my taxes for me. We did damn good when it came to this parenting stuff and this friend shit, but as far as being in a relationship, that shit just didn’t work out.

  It wasn’t even that Tahira lacked anything because shorty was fine with her dark chocolate skin, her naturally curly hair, her thick frame that was all hers, pretty white teeth. Her intelligence and her ability to raise the fuck out of my daughter and do a damn good job were all things that made her a good woman, but we tried that relationship shit, and it just didn’t work out. We were toxic as a motha fucka for each other, and once I felt like my freedom was at risk for being with a woman, I knew it was time to go.

  “You staying in Miami? I thought you were going back,” I said because originally when we talked, that was the plan.

  It didn’t matter what she did, as long as I got to keep my child for the week like we agreed.

  “Just until tomorrow. I’m going on a cruise tomorrow with a friend, and we’re leaving out of Miami,” she let me know, and I nodded.

  “Mommy has a boyfriend, Daddy,” my daughter said with her arm wrapped around Tahira’s leg.

  That little girl loved the hell out of her mama. I remember being that way with my ole girl when I was Taniya’s age.

  “Oh really? You met him yet?” I asked Taniya.

  I heard Tahira suck her teeth when I asked that question.

  “Nope, not yet. I talked to him on the phone, though. His name is Simon,” my daughter said, telling all of her ole girl’s information.

  “His name is Simon, but he’s not my boyfriend. We’re just really good friends at the moment. His birthday is tomorrow, that’s why we’re going on the cruise. I know how you are about having her around people, so of course, I’m not going to have her around somebody that I didn’t even let you meet first. We know you and your rules,” she sarcastically said and rolled her eyes.

  I didn’t give two fucks who or what Tahira dated, but because I was so overprotective of my daughter, I made it clear that she had to run that shit by me first. We hear too many fuckin’ stories on the news about little kids getting molested, and if it isn’t by a family member, half the time it’s by someone that the parent was dating. So, to prevent some sick shit like that from happening, I wanted to look a nigga in the eyes, put some fear in his heart, just to let him know that I wasn’t going to play behind my child!

  I didn’t even bother responding to Tahira’s statement. Instead, I just put the bags in the trunk, helped Taniya get in her car seat, and like that, we were pulling out of the airport. I already had Taniya’s favorite movie, Boss Baby, ready, so all I had to do was press play. The movie had her attention, so she wasn’t paying Tahira and me any mind.

  “I wanted to run something by you. My job is opening another office in Washington DC, and they want a few of us to go down there for five months to train some of the new workers at that office. I wouldn’t mind a change of scenery for a few months since I’ve been in LA my entire life. The only thing is, I have Niya. I could ask my mom to keep her while I’m away, but I figured that it would only be right for me to ask you first since you are her father. While I go to Washington for those five months, would you mind keeping her?” she asked.

  “That’s my daughter, so of course I don’t mind. When is all of this supposed to happen?” I asked her as I jumped on the turnpike.

  “Next month, on the fifteenth,” she let me know.

  “I’ll be down there to get her a couple of days before that then. We’ll talk more about it when we get closer to the date,” I said, and at the same time, her phone started ringing.

  “Hey, Si,” she cooed into the phone.

  Not even on no jealous shit, but I turned the radio up a little bit. When I did that, she reached over me and turned the radio back down. Not even wanting to argue with her ass in front of my child, I let her have it, and I didn’t turn the music back up.

  “We just landed about thirty minutes ago. Yes, he picked us up. You flew out of Washington, right?” she was asking this nigga a million and one questions, and then she kept laughing like she was on the phone with Kevin Hart or some shit. “Yes. I will. Okay, I’ll see you soon,” and then she hung up.

  “That nigga from Washington?” I asked her the moment she got off the phone.

  “Yes,” she said, and all I could do was sarcastically laugh and shake my head.

  “That’s the real reason why you want to go to Washington for those five months, right shorty? To lay up under that nigga, huh? I mean, I can care less what you do on your personal time, shorty, but keep that shit one hundred with me. You don’t got to lie about no shit like that, yo! You always show a nigga reasons why I can’t trust you,” I let her know.

  “Miami, please! Simon isn’t the reason why I took the offer, but he damn sure was a motivator in me deciding to go. I can already see where this conversation is going, so you can either pull over, and I can get an Uber to where I need to go, or you can drop me off there yourself, whichever one gets me out of this car faster,” s
he shot.

  “Out of respect for my daughter, I won’t put your ass out on the side of the road. Where you need me to drop you off at, yo?” I asked.

  I hadn’t even been around her ass for more than thirty minutes, and we were already about to be in this bitch arguing. Tahira could say whatever she wanted, but I knew she was taking that offer in Washington because that’s where that nigga was at. That’s cool and all, but when I looked through this shit with lenses on, it came off like she was dropping her daughter off to the side for some dick and to play house with that nigga.

  Instead of answering my question, she just keyed the address into the navigation system that was hooked up to my car. It was the Four Seasons hotel on Miami Beach, which wasn’t too far from where we were. When I finally got to the hotel, Taniya had fallen asleep. Before Tahira left, she made sure to kiss our daughter a few times, let her know she loved her, and she walked into the hotel.

  I wasn’t even stressing about the little mishap that just happened because I had my daughter with me, and that’s all that really mattered.

  Mahogany Williams

  “Oh, my Godddd. How cute is this? I have to get this. Mahogany, look at this one,” Shae said.

  It was Thursday afternoon, and She and I were in Aventura mall doing some shopping. I was going to enjoy these next few days because starting Monday, I was taking my ass back to work. Luckily, I was the type of person who never took off from work, so I was able to use my time to be there for Jashae when she needed me, but my friend was getting better as the days went by, so I knew that it was time for me to head back to work. Besides, she told me that she planned to go back to work the following week as well, so that was more progress on her part.

  She wasn’t fully back to her old self, but we were getting somewhere. Right now, while she and I were in Macy’s baby department, she was picking up so many baby clothes that she had to end up getting a cart from the home section to put the clothes in. I was sure why, but that was worrying me for some reason. I’ve been having my worries about this whole grandbaby thing for quite some time now. I guess because Shae was so excited about the fact that she would have a piece of her son on the way in a few months that she was ignoring all the red flags.