“Well, I’m glad for you, but next time you want to fight Nardo’s ho, take shit outside. This me business,” Kimmie fairly stated with attitude while looking around for any damages to her shop that she could charge my black ass for.
“Yup, Kimmie, you’ve got my word—if we make it that far,” I fired back. After what just went down, I was not getting ready to apologize or explain why I’d lost my cool. If her gotta-have-gossip ass was not fishing for some entertainment, ol’ girl wouldn’t have had anything to comment on. “Now, about that pedicure . . .” I kept a brave front, walking to the chair so we could resume my much-needed rest and relaxation time.
Kimmie shook her head and started back on my pinky toe. Rain, sleet, snow, or a fist fight in the middle of her money, she was still going to manage to chase a dollar. Reaching over into my Gucci purse, I threw the braids I’d captured out of her head into it. Nardo would have some serious questions to answer when I got home. As the clock ticked, I was beyond anxious to find out who I’d just beat down in the name of love.
CHAPTER FOUR
Zaria
Though I’d gotten the best of ol’ girl and walked out of the nail salon the winner of the war, the victory didn’t stop the pain my heart was feeling. The truth was in my face—again. I had been faithful, loyal, and stupid to Nardo’s lies. It had been hard as hell to keep a straight face while Kimmie finished my pedicure. And now that I was gone, I knew those heifers were talking about me like clowns, and Kimmie was the circus leader. I didn’t blame them for being entertained, however. It was not like me and Nardo’s jump-off hadn’t given them a helluva show.
The nail shop wasn’t too far from my mom’s crib so, I drove past to make sure everything looked straight on the outside, then swooped down on my homeboy. Growing up, Deuce and I used to call each other brother and sister, though we did not have the same blood running through our veins or DNA in our genes. Deuce is, was, and would always be my family, because he had always been loyal. That was more than I could say for the man—and I used that word loosely to describe Nardo right about now—I chose to start a family with. After all the manipulation and lies, I did not know if I was more upset with him or myself.
“Bro!” I pulled up, yelling out of the window. “Come kick it with yo’ sis for a sec.”
He was smiling hard, happy to see me, until he got into the car. “Damn, sis. What happened to you?” he questioned me, concerned because I was sweating and my appearance was disheveled. “Don’t tell me that ho-ass nigga put his hands on you. Do I need to go strap up?” Deuce had always been my protector, beating up bullies for me before I learned how to.
He did not like Nardo, and not because they both hustled dope in the streets. Deuce was my go-to guy whenever I needed a male’s perspective. In other words, he was extremely versed on the bullshit I’d been tolerating out of my baby daddy. He had also been the most vocal person in telling me to dead my relationship with Nardo.
“Naw, he didn’t put his hands on me, but his ho-ass side chick did.” I proceeded to tell him about what happened at the nail shop.
“You’re gonna have to calm all that ra-ra bullshit down, Z. For real. What are you gonna do if you’re out with Cid and a bitch tries you?”
“Hit her over the head with Cidney on my hip,” I joked, but I knew what Deuce was getting at. He didn’t want his niece targeted or to become a casualty behind some bullshit her mother and father couldn’t get right.
Deuce tipped the ash off his blunt outside of my window and then responded to my comment like he’d just had an epiphany. “Yo’ ass is just as crazy as Auntie is,” he said, referring to my mother as his aunt, just as I referred to his mom as mine. “And Cidney is gonna be just as crazy as the both of you.”
“Yup, it’s embedded in her genes.” I reached over and put my hand out for the blunt. I was not a smoker, but I did want to take a few puffs.
“I don’t know why you’re so scared of being without that nigga, though. It ain’t like you and Cidney will be out here alone if you leave him. You know I’m here.” Deuce sounded offended.
“I’m not scared. I just want my family.” My voice drifted off. “And on our good days, I swear it feels like Nardo wants our family too.”
“Why? ’Cause that nigga comes over with some carryut and watches movies with you on the couch before fuckin’? Naw, that doesn’t mean he wants his family, and I know you don’t believe that bullshit.” Deuce was not sugar-coating the truth. “It doesn’t take nothing for that man to throw some money at you and my niece and fall through there every couple of days with some empty promises.”
I sat back, catching a contact and listening to him advise me for about fifteen minutes. I’d swooped down on him for a male’s perspective and ended up getting angrier. The truth most definitely hurt.
“Can you roll me up a blunt to smoke for later? I’m sure I’m gonna need it after I get home and confront Nardo.”
He shook his head while digging in his pocket for his stash of baggies. Deuce sold marijuana as a hustle and worked at a factory through a temporary service part-time. “Yo’ ass kill me, having a habit but can’t support it.”
“Yeah, whatever. It’s not a habit. It’s a soother.”
“I see you make it a habit to tell yourself whatever you need to hear to get through the struggle.”
His honesty hit my heart. “Just for you trying to be funny, roll me up two.”
* * *
I slowly drove into the driveway of my two-story brick home, wondering how I was going to play my position with Nardo. At the end of the day, I heard every single word that Deuce had schooled me with, and I understood that Nardo was playing me. Hell, I didn’t need Deuce to tell me that. I was sick to my stomach over being in love and loyal to the lies Nardo had been keeping me line with.
As I vindictively stared at his car, I couldn’t believe he had the balls to mess around with some Jamaican trash. Each time he stepped out on me, my hood celebrity status deteriorated. Nardo had to pay for playing me to the left, and I had to get my situation straight quick. Zaria was not getting ready to go down like that.
Turning the key and slowly opening the door, I tiptoed onto the gray-and-black marble floor in my disposable pedicure slippers. I knew Nardo wouldn’t hear me with them on.
I heard a movie playing on the television, but no other movement or sound in the house. Slowly creeping down the short hallway, I cautiously peeped around the corner and saw Nardo stretched out on the couch and our baby girl across the room in her bouncer. Deuce’s opinion of Nardo wanting to be a family man was right. Instead of bonding with Cidney, maybe having her across his chest, he was allowing the television to soothe her. Nardo was acting like a babysitter rather than her father.
Out the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of his cell phone on the coffee table, and my curiosity was piqued. It had been a while since I’d gone through it, but today would either be my luckiest or most dreadful time of them all. Butterflies were swarming around in my stomach as I slid his phone from inside the holster. That was my sign from God to stop because my feelings were about to get hurt, but of course, I couldn’t fight the urge to snoop. I wanted to see what he’d been up to. I wanted to see if there was some truth behind ol’ girl’s claims of being his future and me being his past. I wanted to see how much dirt he’d done so I could know how many times I’d have to put my foot off into ol’ girl’s Jamaican behind.
Let me see. My curiosity led my movements.
Quickly scrolling through his call log and text messages, all I saw was female names and a bunch of nicknames that I knew belonged to females. Instead of playing with Cidney, he’d been chit-chatting all fucking day with one heifer after the next. Whoever this Spice character was, she got more phone time than me. Judging from the call durations, I could see that these two were constant phone friends, having conversations from fifteen minutes to an hour. Yeah, so off rip, me and this Spice chick had problems.
It was hard to keep
my cool, ’cause I was ready to clown. Noticing Cidney was starting to squirm, I had to make my Inspector Gadget search move a little faster. Taking a mental note of Spice’s number, I hurriedly scrolled to his photo gallery.
Damn, it gots to be more than this. There was no way I could be coming up so dry. Ol’ girl had too much of an opinion to just be some one-night hood jump-off.
Going through the picture gallery left me privy to what pieces of ass he was willing to hit. Never once did I see a picture of me or Cid, besides the ones I’d sent in his text messages. Me or mine didn’t mean enough to be saved. Duly noted.
Get the fuck out of here. This nigga got me fucked up. Yeah, it was on and time to get turned up. I hadn’t come up empty-handed, and this trifling nigga had some explaining to do.
“What the fuck is this bullshit?” I started my ghetto-style interrogation, stomping into the living room. “Nardo, get yo’ stinking ass off my couch, nigga, and answer me!” I yelled as loud as I could.
Standing firm in his face, I refused to be ignored or back down. It took him a second to wake up and recognize what was going on and that I had his phone gripped tightly in the palm of my hand.
“Z, you don’t pay no fucking bills, so don’t be going through what don’t belong to yo’ ass.” He tried ignoring my questions, snatching for his phone. “And on top of all that, where in the hell have you been?”
“I’m the one asking the questions, Nardo. Who is this tack-head heffa? And please don’t say this is your bastard child,” I suggested, franticly pacing the floor.
This picture had me beyond heated. I hadn’t even revealed to him the events that jumped off earlier. Seeing the same chick’s twisted face in his gallery with the ugliest monkey kid I’d ever seen on her hip was about to get a hard, inanimate object smashed upside his big damn head. He’d fucked with the wrong one.
“Zaria, I’m trying to keep my cool,” Nardo insisted while lacing up his shoes. “So, don’t ask me another question about what’s in my phone. And P.S., her child is innocent and doesn’t have anything to do with it. Just like Cid,” he felt the need to remind me. Standing up, shaking the wrinkles from his clothes, he dismissed my hurt emotions and mixed feelings.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Is this for real? Are you sitting up in my freaking house, in my face, taking up for that whore and her child?” My hands were posted on my hips, and I was ready to charge toward his ungrateful behind. I’d given him the world. I’d given him all of me. Yes, indeed, he owed me answers.
Nardo rushed me before I could blink. “I’m tired of you, Zaria. Now, I asked you nicely, and we both know I’m not the type of nigga that’s into asking twice,” he threatened, pinning my body up against the wall.
“Back the hell up, Nardo, and get your dirty hands off me. They probably were all over that mangy heffa.” I twisted my face and lips. Struggling to free myself from his strong grip, I could hear Cidney becoming fussy.
“Stay in your damn place, Zaria. I’ve had more than enough of your ratchet-acting ass. She’s a better woman than you anyway,” he taunted me, shoving me harder into the wall, causing a mirror to fall. As the glass shattered loudly across the floor, both me and the baby yelled. What was next?
“Get the fuck out, nigga! Get the fuck on to her then!” Emotion-driven, I dug my freshly manicured nails into his back and face. Ducking and dodging, he only took a few scratches.
“Yeah, okay. Baby, you can believe I was planning to do that anyway. You’ve been replaced a long time ago. I was just trying to spare your feelings and be there for Cid, but to hell with all this drama,” he gloated, releasing my frame, acting as if he was entitled to belittle me.
His words were starting to hurt, but I had no choice but to accept them. With everything out in the open, I now knew where he’d been laying his head when he wouldn’t come here or would ignore my calls—with that ape and her repulsive offspring. He didn’t need to be taking care of someone else’s child when he had ours to raise. He was giving her the family I so desperately wanted.
“Humph, is that right? Well, Nardo, if you want to leave, then get the fuck on, fool. Ain’t no bitches around here stopping ya! I’m tired of smelling yo’ stank nuts anyway. Plenty of ballers want me,” I barked, angry and hurt that he was being so damn irrational and evil.
“Come on now, Zaria, with the headache. The shit is played out, and it’s over. I quit. My patience has been worn thin with you, and that’s why I haven’t been trying to be in your pathetic presence anyway. If another dude wants yo’ good-begging, baby-momma-tainted ass, then fly the fucking coop. I made yo’ gutter ass into a gold star anyway. It’s nothing! I’m a boss!”
Out of breath from his insults, I didn’t even know what to say to him. I was tired and confused. Here I was raising his child, his first-born no less, and he was not even trying to give me enough respect to be referred to as the mother of his child. Instead, I was his baby momma; a good-begging gutter one at that!
“Sweetie, why can’t we just try and be a family? I’m all insecure and shit because you run out of here never giving me confirmation that you love me,” I pleaded with tears burning in my eyes, grasping at straws. As I realized that Spice had been right and I was getting ready to lose out on everything I worked so long for with him, my world started to crumble.
“Family?” He said the word like it was foreign to him. “Bitch, fuck family! I don’t even know if Cidney is mine,” he bellowed out of his mouth, making me lose all compassion and hope.
I had never witnessed so much anger in his eyes, and I knew at that moment it was truly my harsh reality that he was done with me once and for all. I was devastated. Nardo had never repeated what the streets said about Cidney not being his, and now it had come to him throwing it in my face. I had run out of ways to keep him coming back to me.
It was not shit I could say about nothing because I had no plans on explaining the paternity of my child. He knew how scummy we got down, never once using a rubber. If he wanted to listen to the grimy streets, then so be it. My child’s paternity didn’t have to be no muthafuckin’ twisted mystery like he was making it. All boss niggas know about doing sneak swab DNA tests, so get a Q-tip and push on!
“So, now it’s fuck family, huh, Nardo? You’d rather walk out on our years and be with her?” I quizzed with a shaky voice, giving him the privilege and opportunity to stick the knife even deeper.
“She has a name, and it’s Spice.” He possessed a coldly condescending tone, staring directly through me.
My hurt feelings meant nothing to him, and that was crystal clear. He’d called Spice at my house, sitting with our daughter, disrespecting the make-believe family I though we shared. And even though he knew I’d pop the lock on his phone at any free moment, Nardo still kept several pictures of the other life he was living with her.
“Dude, you’re really taking this shit too far.” I rolled my eyes, having a flashback of the beatdown I’d put on his pet silverback gorilla.
“You’re absolutely right. I should’ve been gotten rid of your miserable ass. Knocking you up was definitely taking it too far.”
“Well, you better get on out of here then, Nardo,” I bravely commanded, gritting my teeth and nodding my head. Fuck going through another second of his verbal thrashing. Nardo may not have given two sweet fucks about my loyalty or his daughter, but I did. I refused to let his ungrateful behind see me sweat another day. No longer did I need Renard or his sympathy. I needed revenge.
“Oh, yeah. Before you go—”
“What? What is it? What the fuck is it now? I know yo’ ass ain’t about to ask for a muthafucking thang,” He cut me off, getting gutter and tough. His tone fueled my hate for him even more.
“I ain’t about to ask you for shit, boo. Believe that. Just make sure you get those tacky-ass braids out of my purse.” I devilishly smiled, rubbing Cidney’s back. “Yeah, nigga, now who got one up? I tagged that bitch at Kimmie’s for running her mouth. And just for a heads up,
it ain’t over!” Now brazen and feeling myself, I was talking mad shit.
Walking toward the door, he pulled out the handful of trophy braids from my purse and nonchalantly tossed them onto the marble floor. His mug was torn up because he’d been caught in his web of deceit, and I’d molly-whopped his lover.
“I wouldn’t lay another finger on Spice if I were you, Zaria,” he called himself warning me.
“I ain’t worried about you or that bum bitch. G’on and do you, Nardo.” I threw my hand up and shooed him.
He snickered like he was amused. “I ain’t never needed your permission to do me, baby girl. Trust and believe that.” His cockiness broke my ego. “I’ll see you around.”
Knowing he couldn’t hear me, I rocked back and forth, trying soothe our li’l baby and ease the rage burning inside of me to run outside and clown on his ass. Hearing his engine start, I jumped up and looked out the window right as he was burning rubber out of the driveway. “Daddy will be back, baby.” I kissed Cidney and hoped I wasn’t lying.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nardo
I walked out of Zaria’s place knowing I’d hurt her badly, but for some reason, I didn’t feel much remorse. She knew what type of man I was when she started messing around with me. It was her best friend Melanie who she stole me from. Living up to her reputation as an opportunist, she respected no loyalty when it came to checking for me. With me being a roughneck nigga carrying heavy clout in the streets, I lived wild and reckless, and she was in love with the guaranteed money. But karma is a muthafucka, and rest assured, karma is meant to go around. So, I guess it was my turn to serve Zaria hers.
Loyal to His Lies Page 5
