Down With the King of the South 2

by Diamond Johnson

  I loved Miami so much, but I was scared of what came with being with him. At the same time, I didn’t want to end something that was pretty much just getting started. Here it was, twelve in the afternoon, and Miami all but dragged me with him to the gym so I could sit in the stands and watch him as he boxed. We were going to Vegas in a few weeks for the fight that he had coming up. Although physically, I was there, mentally, I was somewhere else. I couldn’t even tell you how good of a job Miami was doing or if he needed improvement because I wasn’t paying attention.

  “Ima be here for about another hour. You want me to call Manny to take you to the house, or you going to wait?” Miami came over to the bleachers where I was sitting and asked.

  Hearing his voice snapped me out of the daze that I was in. The mention of Manny had me rolling my eyes. Manny was the security that he had hired. I get it, it was just a precaution, but on the other hand, it showed me the lengths that we had to take just for the two of us to be together. I shouldn’t have to have fuckin’ security to be with someone I loved. It wasn’t Miami that I was mad at, but lately, I felt like he was the one that I was taking my frustrations out on.

  I looked at him through the oversized Gucci frames that I had on, and I took a while to answer him. All he wore was a pair of gym shorts, and there was so much sweat on his body that it looked like someone had thrown a whole bunch of baby oil on him. I got a chance to look at the tattoos that filled his body, which started from his neck and stopped just above the trail of hair that went down to his pubic area. Miami was every woman’s fantasy, and I think he knew that too.

  “You said that almost two hours ago. I don’t get why you couldn’t just drop me off at my grandma’s house or even my daddy’s. I don’t want to be around no damn Manny. I don’t even know him! You gave me the option to have him take me home when you knew that I would decline it. I don’t want to be around him, and I don’t want to be in the house by myself,” I snapped, rolling my eyes hard as hell at him.

  “You don’t know him, but I do! I looked that nigga in his eyes and told him that I would kill him if something were to happen to you while you’re in his presence. Fix your attitude, shorty. You directing that shit at the wrong nigga. I haven’t been doing shit but trying to help put you back together after this fucked up shit that happened to you. If you want to release some tension, get in the ring with me. I been dealing with your fucked up ass attitude for the past week now, shorty, and because I know that you have a lot to be mad at, I let you have it, but at the same time, check that shit before I check it for you,” he said while using the face towel to wipe his face. His sweat was getting all in his eyes.

  I didn’t even bother responding to him. I just looked away.

  “One more hour and we can go. We can do whatever the fuck you want to do with your spoiled ass!” he said, then leaned in and kissed my lips. Two seconds later, he walked away.

  My eyes stayed on his muscular, glistening back until my phone buzzed twice with a notification from Mahogany. She was sending me a link from Channel 7 news. The heading for the article was, Teenager and her Unborn Child Die In A Severe Car Crash. I shook my head because that just left another mother to experience having to bury their child. I clicked on the link, and I began to read. Literally, on the third sentence, the name Taylor Owens came into view, and my hand went over my mouth. At the bottom was her senior picture, and I was in shock. Before I could even grasp all of this, my phone rang. It was Mahogany.

  “Did you read it?” she asked.

  “Yes. Oh, my God. That’s crazy,” I called out.

  “She had been on life support for over a week. Her parents took her off last night, and she died early this morning. She was dead ass wrong for what she did, but that girl was only eighteen. Just turned eighteen the same day as Vonte. I feel like if I wasn’t pregnant, I would have said something like this was her karma, but babbyyy, these hormones have turned me into a sentimental, crybaby ass angel. Jabari is sick of me. Last night, he asked if the doctor could induce me right now. Mind you, I’m only ten weeks,” Mahogany said, and that got me to laugh.

  I had noticed the change in her since the words, “I’m pregnant,” left her damn mouth. I was happy for my best friend, though. It made me proud when she decided that she would keep the baby.

  “As mad as I was when I found out that she wasn’t carrying my grandbaby, I wouldn’t have wished this on her, you know? God has a way of working, though. What if that was my grandbaby and then something like this happened? Whew, I don’t even want to think about that,” I said, not even wanting to dwell on the conversation that much more.

  From what it sounded like, I would have given that nursery set along with the clothes and everything that I’d purchased away regardless.

  “I get it. We don’t have to talk about it. Where are you? Your background is loud,” she said.

  There was loud, rap music playing through the speakers in the gym.

  “Here at boxing practice with Miami, ready to go home,” I said, and this time, she laughed.

  “How’s that going?”

  “Girl, you didn’t just hear me say that I’m ready to go home? I’ve been so mean to Miami all week, and he finally checked me about it. It’s almost one. We’ve been here since like nine this morning,” I told her, and I could hear her chuckling on the other end of the phone.

  “That’s what your ass get, and—”

  “Fuck is you on the phone with? Every time I walk in the room, you running your damn mouth on the phone,” Jabari’s deep voice boomed in the background.

  I laughed because the two of them were a hot ass mess. Any other time, I would have ended the phone call, but I could use a good laugh right now, so I stayed on the line.

  “Jabari, are you fuckin’ serious right now? Don’t try to embarrass me when you see me on the phone because I never fuck with you when you’re running your mouth to those ugly ass niggas,” Mahogany snapped at him.

  “How the fuck you know if my niggas ugly? You be looking at them?” I heard him ask. I laughed because he was just as sick as Mahogany made him out to be.

  “Seriously, Jabari? Get out because you’re trying to start something. What? You trying to fight with me so you can leave and fuck another bitch? You know what? Shae, Ima call you back,” I heard, and there was a bunch of shuffling on the phone until the line finally ended.

  Shaking my head, I hung up the phone, and because I had nothing else to do, I logged onto my Instagram page. I wasn’t social media crazy. In fact, now that I was back working and in a relationship, I really didn’t have the time to be on it like I used to. I had a handful of follower requests that I wasn’t even sure how long they’d been sitting there for. I was so personal when it came to my life that I only allowed people to follow me who I actually knew. I declined a lot of the female requests because they were either trying to follow me and be nosey because of my dealings with Miami or my prior dealings with Trip. I knew how this social media shit went.

  A woman whose Instagram name was Krystal305 had sent me a friend request. Her page wasn’t private, so I was able to look at her pictures. Instantly, I knew who she was. We’d gone to high school together. We weren’t friends or anything like that, but I definitely remembered her. She used to be so skinny, but now she was thick as hell. She had a nice body on her. She was always pretty, so it wasn’t even shocking to see the nice pictures that she had on her page. Looking at the third picture, I swear it felt like my heart had stopped beating.

  “Wowwwww,” was all I could say out loud.

  This woman was just as much in a relationship with Trip as much as I used to be in. Pictures of him and her took up the majority of her profile. They took pictures together like they were at a photo shoot at a club. I mean, they looked like the perfect hood couple. At the prison, we were allowed to take pictures, and I have a drawer filled with pictures of myself, Trip, and Vonte. There was a little girl that she was posting on her page as well who looked to be no older than
six. She didn’t post the little girl’s father, and the little girl wasn’t in the prison pictures with Krystal and Trip, so I really didn’t know who she belonged to.

  Of course, like any other woman would do, I zoomed in on the pictures of the little girl, just to see if she looked anything like Trip or Vonte, but it was so hard to determine because she was Krystal’s twin. Krystal was like an open book, posting everything. She had screenshots of messages between her and Trip, and this man was telling her a bunch of jailhouse lies, letting her know that he wanted to marry her and whatever other bullshit he felt the need to say.

  I was proposed to by Trip on more than one occasion while he’s been incarcerated, and I’m just so glad that my dumb ass didn’t say yes. I almost did, but something in the back of my mind always told me that I deserved better than that. She even went as far as posting the video calls that they had, and on this specific video, he was expressing his love for her. She posted the letters he would send, the drawings, even pictures of himself. Out of curiosity, something told me to check my DM’s. Sure enough, I had a message from her from over two weeks ago.

  “Hey Jashae, it’s Krystal. I’m not even sure if you remember me, but we attended the same middle school. I’ve been putting this message on hold for the past five years, but I finally got the courage to send it. I can just bet that you’re going through a lot, especially after losing your son. Whenever you get some free time, can you give me a phone call?”

  After the message, she left her number. Remember me saying that her daughter didn’t look any older than six years old? Now, she’s saying that she’s been wanting to contact me for the past five years. That was all I needed to know. That little girl who I was just looking at, definitely belonged to Trip. All this shit made the perfect amount of fuckin’ sense now. There were times when I was supposed to see Trip, and he would change his mind at the last minute. When I said little things like, “You must have another bitch coming to see you,” he would swear on everybody’s grave that he loved that he wasn’t fuckin’ around.

  The smirks and the stares that I got from the correctional officers who worked at the prison when I went to see Trip all made sense now. They knew that Trip was playing the fuck out of me. Damn, I felt so stupid! This was the same nigga who made threats to kill any nigga that he heard I talked to, yet he had a whole other bitch while he and I were together. I can’t believe that I held a corny ass nigga like him down.

  I didn’t respond to the DM. However, I did go back on her page and finish looking at the pictures. Yes, I was over Trip, but that didn’t take away the fact that I was hurt. That was ten years of my life that I felt like I had just wasted.

  “How that shit make you feel?” Miami’s deep voice boomed from behind me.

  I jumped because I hadn’t even seen him when he came over. He snatched the phone from my hand, scrolled for a few seconds, and then he threw the phone in my lap. I don’t know why, but I was scared. My eyes even squinted a little bit because I thought that he was going to hit me. I should know better than to believe that Miami would raise a finger toward me.

  “We can go now. I’m done,” he called out.

  He had the towel wrapped around his neck, a backpack was on him, and this time, he wore a sleeveless shirt with a different pair of gym shorts. I assumed that he must have taken a shower in the back. I had to say something. It would be crazy for me not to.

  “I’m just now seeing this. It’s not like I check my page every day. I haven’t been on Instagram in weeks,” I told him, trying to cover my ass.

  “You ain’t gotta explain shit to me, shorty. What you want to eat?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

  I stood up, holding in the groan that I wanted to release when the pain in my ribs shot through me.

  “I do have to explain shit to you because I know that you’re mad about it. You want to know how I feel about this, and Miami, to tell you the truth, I’m hurt! I’m fuckin’ angry too. Do you realize the sacrifices that I have made when it came to this man? A nigga couldn’t even walk up to me and get my phone number because that’s just how loyal I was to him. Now, I just found out that I was the only one loyal in this damn relationship. I look like a fuckin’ clown. That woman just wrote to me and damn near told me that she and Trip share a daughter. Trip and I are done, and I’ve moved on, but”

  “Have you, shorty?” he asked.

  “Have I what?” I questioned, cocking my head to the side.

  “Have you moved on? It don’t sound like it to me. Shae, I dig the fuck out of you, hell I even love you, yo, but my life is still going to go the fuck on if you decide that you not ready for this shit. Physically, you’re here, but mentally, you’re still with that nigga. I need you physically, mentally, emotionally, all that shit. If you not ready, let a nigga know, so you don’t waste no more of my fuckin’ time, and I don’t waste any of yours,” he said.

  I sucked my teeth while stepping down from the bleacher.

  “Forget it! I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” I said while walking ahead of him.

  He sped up and jumped in front of me.

  “I’m not supposed to understand. Fuck you care about that nigga and that bitch for if you moved on? You think I give a fuck about the bodies that my baby mama got before me, during me, or after me? That’s her fuckin’ business. I don’t deal with her on that level. You are my dealing, so I only care about what the fuck you got going on!” he snapped.

  “I don’t expect you to understand because your baby mama just happens to be a chick that you hooked up with, raw dogged her, and then she popped up pregnant. I share history with my baby daddy, Miami! You act like I’m sitting here crying over the nigga. I said I was hurt, not going to fuckin’ die about it. Fuck it, never mind,” I said, looking up at him with a pissed off look on my face.

  “Yeah, I think it’s best that you stop talking. Talking about you ain’t crying over the nigga, but shorty, you might as well be! Before I said something to your ass, I had been standing behind you for about a good two minutes, and you were so wrapped up in that shit that you didn’t even see me when I approached. Listen, this is corny, and I’m not about to do the whole back and forth thing with you when you supposed to be my shorty. Fuck I look like? Talking about you hurt! Fuck is you hurt for? This is the same nigga who had that pussy run in your house and put his fuckin’ hands on you! Same nigga that’s responsible for that fuck nigga having you limping around this bitch with these big ass frames on your face. You trippin’ yo! I don’t want to hear shit about I can’t understand when it’s not a motha fuckin’ thing for me to understand!” he barked.

  “But—”

  “Yo, I’m done talking about the shit!” he said.

  “You can go. I’ll have my daddy come and pick me up. I don’t want to be around you,” I said and pulled my phone out of my purse to call my dad.

  No matter how grown I was, I stayed running to my dad for any small inconvenience in my life. I was so used to Miami spoiling me and treating me like a queen that when he wasn’t, I felt like my whole life was turning upside down.

  When he laughed and pulled down on his beard, I knew that I was pissing him off. We never argued. We’d have small disagreements, but nothing like this. Nothing where I was so mad that I didn’t want to even ride back home with his ass.

  “You don’t have that option no more, shorty. Any option of not being around me went out the window the same day you opened your legs for me, and you came on my dick! Let’s go. I’m hungry, and I’m fuckin’ tired. I don’t find interest in beefing with my shorty. That type of shit don’t excite me,” he called out.

  I didn’t even bother to say anything back to his ass. I just let him lead the way, and I followed. He claimed that this conversation was over and that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, but I wanted to revisit it.

  Jabari Brooks

  It was five in the morning, and my ass was in the bedroom packing. I always waited until the last minute to do s
hit like this. We were set to leave for Vegas in a few hours for the fight, and I was just now putting shit in my luggage. I was trying to be as quiet as possible because I wasn’t trying to wake up my girl. Listen to me, talking about my girl. That was new. That’s what she was to me, though.

  I posted a picture of Mahogany on my page a few weeks ago, and if you know me, you know that that was a major step for me because I ain’t never in my life did no shit like that. By doing that, I was putting myself in a position to lose all of my hoes, but I swear I didn’t care. Within five minutes of the picture uploading, my phone was blowing up. I had all my old bitches pissed. To them, Mahogany just popped up out of the blue, but to me, shorty has been here for months.

  To show my girl that I was serious, I ended up changing my number and all of that. I may smile at a bitch here and there or look at a fat ass, but that was it. I was on the road to being a faithful ass man. Plus, shorty was carrying my baby, so I wasn’t about to do her dirty while she was pregnant. I couldn’t see me doing her dirty in the long run though, because I actually loved shorty. All these hoes wanted to pretend that they wanted to be my main, but the truth is, I was too much for them. Mahogany could put up with a nigga and all my fucked-up ways, so I knew she was the one because that showed me that she was strong.

  Right now, she was on my side of the bed knocked out, lying on her side with the pillow between her legs that she’d put there late last night/early this morning. I put a hurting on that pussy since I knew that I would be gone for the next three nights. Hell no, I wasn’t taking Mahogany with me to Vegas. Not because I wanted to go up there and fuck around, but because I liked to gamble, and motha fuckas smoke weed, cigars, cigarettes, and all that other shit in the casinos that she didn’t need to be around while she was pregnant. I told her maybe three times that I wasn’t letting her go, and I think she thought I was bullshitting when I said it because she never got mad. Here I was, a grown ass man, trying to sneak out of this shit, so my girl wouldn’t wake up and start tripping.