by Shan
“What’s up, Cass?” I heard a soft female voice, and I looked up to see Jourdin standing in the doorway of her apartment. I bit down on my bottom lip noticing that she’d gotten a little thicker since the last time I laid eyes on her, and it looked good on her. She wore a light pink camisole with some cotton like gym shorts that she had pulled up enough for me to see that camel toe.
Jourdin was not only bad, but she was cute in the face too. She had caramel brown skin, some pretty brown eyes, and she wore her own hair, which was down her back. At 27, Jourdin could pass for at least 21, and sometimes, she even looked to be younger than that.
“What’s up? I came over here looking for you a couple of months ago and your grandma told me she hadn’t seen or heard from you,” I said, and Jourdin leaned against the door and crossed her arms over her chest.
“What you looking for me for?” she asked, and I sucked my teeth.
“You forget you popped up on a nigga hollering about you was pregnant while me and my shawty was together?”
“And?”
“Fuck is up with your attitude? I’m the one that should be mad about that hoe ass shit.”
“Nigga, that was years ago, and you denied her, so I went on about my business and did what I had to do. You couldn’t even get your damn brothers to look after her while you was gone. I even tried asking Dae for some bread when I was having a really hard time, but he chumped me off too. Shit, we surviving; you four years too late.”
“I ain’t got shit to do with what Dae did. And besides, I don’t even know if lil’ mama is mine or not. You know we wasn’t even on no exclusive shit like that. I had a shawty…and you did you, whatever that was.”
“Whatever, Cass. You can continue to downplay what we had if you want to, but I know the real. We damn near was fucking every day…rather making love. You was just too embarrassed to admit that you was in love with a stripper and too scared to leave your boring ass girlfriend alone in case me and you didn’t work out.”
“What the fuck ever,” I said and sighed.
“If you don’t believe that Cassie is yours, then why have you been looking for me all these months?” Jourdin asked with a roll of her eyes.
“If you know I’ve been out here looking for you, then why the fuck have you been dodging me?”
“I ain’t been dodging you, Cassidy. I just got out of jail a few days ago, and when I came over here to pick Cassie up, my grandmother told me that her father came looking for her. I can’t believe that you’re denying her,” Jourdin said, as a tear slipped from her eye. I sucked my teeth and hiked my pants up a couple of inches just as someone started calling my name from behind me.
“Cass! Cass!” she yelled.
I turned around to see a chick hopping out of her car and making her way over to me. My brow furrowed, and I patted the tool for assurance and walked in her direction.
“Who the fuck is she?” Jourdin said, all salty and shit from behind me. I shrugged my shoulders and stepped towards the curve to see what she wanted.
“You’re Cassidy, right? Khi’s brother?” she asked, and I looked at her without answering. She was a pretty chick with dark skin that seemed to glisten in the dark. She ain’t look familiar, and I hoped that she wasn’t another chick that I had slaughtered carelessly. I knew there were many of them, but I thought I was smarter than I obviously was.
“What’s up?” I said, and she looked around me at Jourdin before looking back at me.
“I’m looking for my cousin, Briana. Have you seen her?” she asked, and although I knew something wasn’t right about this, I played it cool.
“Nah, she came through to the lil’ New Year’s bash earlier, but I went my way afterwards, and she went hers.”
“I’ve been calling your brother nonstop, and he’s not answering my calls. Briana called me after the party to pick her and Skylarr up to take them to the airport. When I got to her house, she wasn’t answering the door or her phone. Her car is still parked outside… so I’m kinda worried.”
“And you just so happen to find me in the middle of the hood,” I said and slid my hands into my pockets.
“No, I just know that Briana kicks it over here all the time, and I was looking for her and then…I just so happen to see you standing here, so I figured since your brother wants to dodge me, then I would ask you.”
“What’s your name, Ma?” I asked her, and she sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes at me.
“DeeDee. I’m Briana’s cousin. She stayed with me for a little while, not too long ago.”
A’ight, DeeDee, if I hear from her, I’ll let her know that you looking for her.”
“Call Khi and ask him if he knows where she’s at.”
“Don’t you see me over here talking? You call Khi and ask him if he knows where she’s at. Not my fuckin’ baby mama,” I said, as I turned my back to her and headed back in Jourdin’s direction.
I could no longer concentrate on what the bitch was saying behind me, because Jourdin’s daughter was standing right beside her with her thumb in her mouth. The little girl had a head full of wild, curly hair, but the shit that caused my heart to drop was the fact that she had my damn eyes. Fuck! I thought, as I stopped and stared at her.
How the hell was I gonna deny her? One brown one and one hazel one. Ain’t no way it was just a coincidence. All this time, I had tossed it up as Jourdin being bitter, and now that I knew that she was telling the truth about being pregnant by me, I felt bad. Even if I wanted to be around, I couldn’t, being that I was locked up, but I could’ve at least made sure she was taken care of. Damn! The kid was living in the slums, and I ain’t like that shit.
“What’s up, lil’ mama?” I said, and she smiled big, showing off a set of pretty little white teeth.
“Hey…daddy,” she said, shyly, and I was shocked.
“Damn…you told her I was her father?” I asked Jourdin, and she nodded.
“Yea, she knows. Had I known you denied her to that extent, then I would’ve never told her. I figured that you was just trying to keep us hidden from your broad, but I never knew that you felt like she wasn’t yours.”
“I wasn’t your man, Jourdin, and you wasn’t my woman. What the fuck was I supposed to think?”
“You was supposed to know that I was telling the truth. I had never come to you or that broad on no hoe shit ever. I never ran my mouth about our business, but I wasn’t about to let you get locked up without knowing that we had a kid on the way. It was like, when you got caught up on them charges, you cut me off and acted like I wasn’t shit to you, and you know that wasn’t true. Yea, I know you was trying to act like you had been good to ensure that Tangie was gonna hold you down, but I needed to know that I wasn’t about to be out here on stuck.”
“She told me that if something happened to her before I got to her, that Khi did it!” That bitch DeeDee yelled, just as I stepped closer to embrace my kid.
“Take her in the house, and I’m a fall back through here tomorrow. I don’t know what’s up with this bitch, and I ain’t trying to have y’all out here in case something pop off,” I told Jourdin, as I sucked my teeth.
“Who is she?” Jourdin asked, and I could see that she was ready for some action if need be.
“Nobody. Take your ass back inside, and be here tomorrow. I’mma be back.”
“Yea, okay…say bye, Cassie.”
“Bye, daddy,” Cassie said, causing my heart to melt. Damn I got a daughter, I thought, as I watched the two of them walk inside of the house and close the door behind them.
I was really starting to feel bad about the way I had treated Jourdin, knowing that I now had princess of my own. Not only that, all the hoes I had previously disrespected had me wanting to get on my knees and ask for forgiveness. I would murder a nigga if he ever treated the kid the way I was treating these hoes. Damn, I gotta get my muthafuckin’ life right, I thought, and I took my cell phone out of my pocket to shoot Khi a quick text.
Me: Who DeeDe
e?
Send.
Khi: Fuck you asking me for?
Me: She say she Briana peoples. Who is she?
Send.
Khi: Fuck that bird. Come to my house. We got hit again.
“Is that Khi?” DeeDee asked as I turned around to head to my car.
“Look, bitch, get the fuck away from me! I don’t know where no Briana at. Go check your peoples, and see if they know where she at.”
“Khi is her peoples. Out of me and him, she ain’t have nobody else! She told me that she did some real fucked up shit and that she had to get her daughter and get away. She begged me to come and take her to the airport, and I told her that I was on my way. She said that, if I didn’t get to her before Khi did, she was dead and not to let him get away with it! You better tell Khi that Briana better contact me or else I’m going to the police.”
“Yea, a’ight,” I said to her, as I hopped in my Escalade, cranked it, and skirted out of the parking lot.
I didn’t even have to ask Khi to know that Briana was dead, so I knew there wasn’t gonna be no contact from her. I ain’t even know how serious this chick DeeDee was, but I just hoped that Khi covered his ass just in case. It seemed like Briana was determined to take the kid down, and if that was the case, that nigga had better hope that, wherever he dumped her, she was never to be found. Deep down, though, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that simple.
Chapter 6
Khi
Ding, Dong! Ding, Dong!
“Stay in there until daddy comes back,” I told Skylarr and BJ, as I walked out of their bedroom and closed the door behind me. I peeked in on Cuba sleeping before I raced down the stairs and to the door. It was Cass, and he looked as angry as I felt. I sighed as he stepped inside, and I guess we both had the same idea, because we went straight for my bar area. I slid him a cup, grabbed one for myself, and then grabbed the Hennessy. I poured us a big glass, straight, and leaned against the bar.
“What happened?” I asked Cassidy, and he looked at me briefly before taking a sip from his glass. He sighed and sat down on one of the stools before looking at me again.
“I found Jorudin’s hoe ass. She got a little girl named Cassie. Got her mama skin tone, but she got a head full of curly hair,” Cassidy said, sounding regretful.
“She look like—“
“She got my eyes,” Cass said, cutting me off, and I shook my head. Cass’ eyes were rare. There wasn’t too many people in the world that had two different colored eyes that were their own.
“Damn, you told Tangie?” I asked Cass, knowing that he hadn’t.
“I ain’t talked to her since she left here earlier. I might tell her, I might not. I’m kinda thinking I’mma just be single for a minute. I kissed Tangie’s ass this whole time I been out, and that broad gonna turn her back on me and shit over a hoe like Tameeka. Fuck her. I fucked that broad Tameeka before me and Tangie got back together, but since she wanna whine over nothing, I’m about to hit these streets heavy, so what the fuck happened?”
“I don’t know… Tramell hit my line soon as I snatched Cuba from mama’s talking about, the only spot we had left that was bringing in any kind of money, got hit and everybody is dead. He said it’s the same scene as when we got hit before. Everything was taken, but there was a Jamaican flag left behind. Sound like somebody declaring war.”
“We got beef with some Jamaicans or niggas on some copycat shit?” Cassidy asked and frowned. I looked up at him, but said nothing. Taking a sip of my drink, I swallowed the liquor back and then sat my cup down.
“We lost a lot of youngins’ tonight. We gotta fall through the hood tomorrow, make some visits, pay for funerals, and make sure we feed a few pockets if we got to,” I said to Cass, and he nodded.
“What was you talking about in your text? Briana’s peoples?”
“Some bitch came up to me while I was chopping it up with Jourdin talking about she was Briana’s cousin and wanted to know if I had seen her.”
“Cousin? She from ‘round here?” I asked, because as long as I had known Briana, she didn’t have any family from around here. She fucked with a few broads that she would call sis or whatever, but my family was her family.
“She said that Briana stayed with her not long ago, and that Briana called her after the party and said she had did some fucked up shit, and that she and Skylarr needed to get to the airport. Briana told her that, if anything happened to her, you were the one behind it.”
“That bitch. I swear—“ I stopped talking when I noticed Cassidy’s eyes divert to something behind me. When I turned around, Cuba was standing a few feet behind me.
“What about Briana?” she asked, and I took another sip of my drink before I walked over to her.
I tried to wrap my hand around her waist, but she stepped back preventing me from doing so. I frowned a little, but I knew that she was still upset with what had taken place. Shit, I was upset, too, but I had handled Briana. I wanted her to know that I had taken care of it, but I didn’t need her stressing or worrying about me.
“You need something?” I asked her, as I made another move towards her; this time she didn’t step back. I pulled her into my grasp and kneeled down to kiss her forehead. “Go back to bed, baby. I’m a be up when I get through talking with Cass.”
“What’s going on with Briana?”
“Nothing for you to worry about. Go back upstairs, please.”
Cuba looked up at me before shoving my hands away from her. She turned around and raced towards the stairs before quickly climbing them. I watched and waited until she was out of view before I made my way back over to Cassidy and grabbed my drink.
“She good?” Cassidy asked, and I shook my head.
“Hell nah, she ain’t good. She’s pregnant and worried. It’s a new year, and we starting it off with bullshit. She doesn’t know about Briana, and I don’t wanna tell her right now.”
“Yea, I figured she didn’t know.”
“She done already tried to leave me. That’s why I had to leave the hospital. She had packed up and had stopped at mama’s to get the damn kids. Good thing ma’s loyalty is to me, or otherwise, she would’ve taken the kids and been gone.”
“How you feeling though?” Cassidy asked, and I shrugged.
I really didn’t wanna talk to anyone about how I felt. The shit wouldn’t matter to them and they would all still judge me for the mistakes I had made. I had a lot of thoughts going through my head though and none of it really mattered. All I wanted was to be a gentleman to Cuba and the perfect father to my kids.
Not gonna lie though, I felt real fucked up. Not about what I had done to Briana, but by what she had done to Cuba. Not only that, hearing Cuba tell me that Briana was responsible for all the bullshit that had been taking place fucked me up even more. All along, Cuba had been telling me that Briana was no good and that I needed to do something about her, but I didn’t listen to her, and now look at us.
I wasn’t going to let this break us though. If Cuba thought she was about to leave me then she had me fucked up. I had proposed in front of a thousand muthafuckas to prove to her and anybody else that wanted to know that my love for Cuba was real. I was now starting to understand what people meant when they said that their spouse was their everything, because it was how I felt about Cuba.
I dropped the ball a few times, but I was learning and willing to correct my mistakes. One thing I knew, though, was that I was never going to let my shawty get hurt again. All this shit that everyone had been throwing at me was only turning me back to the old me. I used to be a cold ass nigga back in the day not giving a fuck about nothing. The streets feared me, and I was not a nigga that you wanted to fuck with.
Having my daughter had softened me up a little and had me wanting to change the way I was with everybody in my life, because I didn’t want anything I did to ever affect her, but now, fuck that. I wasn’t being nice to nobody if they wasn’t Cuba or these muthafuckin’ kids.
It was fuck ever
ything and everybody from here on out, and that included my brothers too. I would always look out for them, but I understood that, if what I did couldn’t be appreciated, then I would love them niggas from a distant. Dae didn’t have no more chances with me. He had one time to fuck up before I was completely writing his ass off.
Niggas forget shit quick, but I didn’t have nobody but myself to blame for that. Me trying to look out for any and everybody done got my ass robbed and my people murked two muthafuckin’ times. Shit wasn’t cool, but I’ll admit that I had slipped. It was time for me to boss the fuck up though. Fuck it. Let me take my streets back.
***
A few days later…
I sat in the windowsill of my bedroom staring out into the parking lot while Cuba slept peacefully in bed. I hadn’t been able to sleep since the night Briana tried to turn my bae into a junky and I had to murk her ass. I had been watching Cuba like a hawk, afraid that, if I turned my back for too long, she would run off in search for her next high. She claimed that she wasn’t even thinking about that, but I couldn’t get losing her to that dope shit off my mind. That shit would break me all the way down and—I just needed her.
Now, that Briana’s hoe ass was out of the picture for good, Skylarr needed her. I needed her to bring my son into this world, safe and healthy, and besides that and the kids, that was all I wanted her to worry about. I had already contacted a maid and a nanny to help out around the house and with the kids. I had a lot of making up to do, but it was worth it. Cuba’s happiness was worth more than my life, and I would die trying to see to it that I fixed everything that I had fucked up in her world.
Ding, Dong! Ding, Dong!
I glanced at Cuba, once she stirred, before I stood up and headed out of the bedroom. It was about 9:30 in the morning, and I had planned to stay in the crib with Cuba and the kids until later on tonight, when it was time for us to run down on the niggas that had supposedly hit my spot the other day. Niggas had the nerve to take my shit, kill my people, and then set up shop right across the street. Shit was crazy like that in the hood, and niggas would disrespect you and laugh about that shit if you let them, but I wasn’t on joke time.
