Syn 2: Sex Is Syn, Love Is Pain

by J Peach

  “Yeah, Peach, I really am feeling him. He’s just so different and he got me so open that I want to see how things go with him. But, Peaches, I don’t know how to be romantic…” I felt stupid because of my feelings and how clueless I was to the whole dating thing.

  “I’m happy for you, boo. I’m glad you’ve found someone that has pulled you out of that shell of yours. Okay, so let’s see…” She began to hum.

  I laughed at her. “Peach, yo ol’ dramatic ass.”

  “Okay, so go get a bottle of wine—” She started and I gagged.

  “Peaches, I don’t drink wine, it’s nasty.”

  She started laughing at me. “Yo ol’ hood ass. Well, bitch, get yo favorite beer and pour it in a wine glass. Problem solved. Then cook him a bomb ass dinner. Next, get some movies and that’s the perfect night,” she said as if she was my teacher instead of my friend. But that tone quickly changed when she said, “Oh, bitch, make sure you’re in nothing but an apron, thong, and heels. Leave that on throughout the whole night. And Angel, don’t have sex with him. Girl, make his ass hurt for it. Then put that shit on him like boom! Bitch, he gon’ wanna marry yo ass!” Peaches yelled excitedly, making me laugh.

  My lips stretched into a smile and I got excited about doing something special for him. “Peach, thanks so much, babe. I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you how it went. Okay?”

  “Alright! Have fun, boo. Fuck his world up!” Peaches yelled.

  “Girl, I’mma try! I promise I am!” I laughed.

  “I’ight, love ya, bitch. Bye.”

  “Love you too, Peach,” After we ended the call, I texted Parker, letting him know he didn’t have everything I needed for dinner and that I was running to the store. Once I sent the message, I didn’t wait on his reply as I got up and left his house.

  I couldn’t wait for him to get home!

  Chapter 5

  Parker

  “Bret, who you taking pics for?” I asked him. I knew for sure he wasn’t a narc. I had a couple of low kept, well paid narcotic officers on my payroll, so if any uncovers were assigned to get close to my operation I would be notified immediately. Besides, I didn’t let anyone I didn’t know in on the drugs we shipped. There were only a handful of us who knew what Fast Line Shipping was a cover for.

  Fast Line Shipping was a legitimate business, we were no different than UPS or FedEx and we were worldwide with our company. It was the perfect front for the drugs we shipped from state to state.

  That was how I knew Bret had to be working for another dealer who was trying to make a come up or trying to knock us off. Either one, it wasn’t going to happen.

  “I wasn’t taking pics for no one, you got it all wrong, Parker.” Bret’s voice shook as he tried to produce a lie.

  I looked at him like he was stupid. My head tilted to the side and my eyes squinted. “You wasn’t taking pictures?”

  His head shook franticly as he stumbled over his words. “N-n-no, I wasn’t. I t-t-told you I-I-I was about t-t-to unpack the truck when I heard the woman hit the side. That’s it.”

  “So I’m imagining the picture of the boxes and jars in your phone, huh?” I zipped up my black plastic jump suit and pulled on my black rubber boots.

  “I don’t know what you saw in that phone, it’s not mine. I was holding it for Mitch,” he blurted out as his eyes jumped around the room wildly. He looked from Chris to Roc and then back to me. His head shook. “I’m telling you the truth. Parker, I wouldn’t cross you like that. I don’t even know what was in the boxes. I was only going to scan them, you have to believe me,” he pleaded with me to believe him.

  Grabbing a chair, I sat down in front of him. “Chris, hand me that drill.” He handed it to me and I started it up. “Bret, don’t lie to me. I’m not stupid, I’m far from it. Now, who were you taking pics for, huh?” His head shook again and his mouth opened. I knew he was about to lie again so I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

  “Bret, I got all night to be here. Believe me, I ain’t gon’ kill you quick. So tryna show yo balls ain’t gon’ help you, yah understand me?” I asked him before I looked around the sound proof cellar with my many different tools in it. “I barely get to play in this room,” I laughed once my eyes landed on the small handheld saw. “I got shit in this mothafucka I ain’t never played with. I kinda hope you don’t tell me so I can try some of this shit on you. Matter fact, I think I wanna try this first.” I stood and grabbed the small power saw before I went back to him. Grabbing his pointer finger, I sawed it clean off.

  “Ahhhhhhhhh!” Bret let out an ear piercing scream.

  “Damn, this bitch cut straight through that mothafucka like butter,” I said before letting the blade cut across his middle finger.

  “Okay! Okay, I’ll tell you,” Bret cried.

  I sat the saw down and picked up the drill. I jerked his head to the side then started the drill up. “And if you lie to me, I’ll drill yo fuckin’ eye out. Now talk,” I spat out harshly as I muffed his head hard to the side.

  “Brian. Dude said his name was Brian,” Bret stated saying.

  I looked at Chris and he shook his head, not recognizing the name. “Put his hand in the ice.” Roc grabbed the bucket of ice and pushed Bret’s hand in it. With the drill in, I ran the bit across Bret’s face. “We don’t know no Brian. So I think you’re lying—”

  “No! I swear to you I’m not lying,” he yelled, panting heavily. “Parker, you have to believe me. I’m not lying to you.”

  “How did this start?” I got comfortable in my chair while waiting on his reply.

  Bret took a shaky breath and started to explain. “About a month ago when I got off work. Some guy approached me asking if I wanted to make a quick twenty-five hundred. He said all I would have to do is send him pictures of the shipments you personally handle and to let him know the bosses schedules. When you come in and out the offices, how many hours you stay up here. He never told me why, he just needed that information. That’s it.”

  His story sounded believable. “I believe you, but I think you’re lying about the person that hired you. Because we don’t know a Brian. What he look like?”

  “B-b-black guy, tall, long dreads. H-h-he um, tattoos all over his arms a-a-and two tear drops under each eye. Um, um, um…gold fronts in his mouth. That’s it, that’s him. H-h-he told me his name was Brian. Parker, I’m not lying to you, I swear. I messed up, I’m sorry. Just please don’t kill me. I have a family.”

  Whack!

  Chris smack Bret across the face with his gun. “Yo, shut the fuck up, bitch. Fuck all that crying, baby. You should’ve thought about yo family before you made that deal with the devil. Yo ass done already sold yoself for twenty-five hunnit, bitch. You dead already, yah only breathing on life support. And I’m about to pull that plug.” Chris kicked him backwards in the chair, making it fall to the ground. “Lord?” He glanced at me with his head tilted.

  I waved my hand at him as I thought on the description Bret gave. “I can picture the face, but I can’t place it for shit. Damn!” I grunted out, frustrated.

  POW! POW! POW! Chris put three bullets in his head. “Yeah, it sounds familiar but I can’t put it to a name or a face. Then again, we know a lot of mothafuckas who fit that description, for real. So tryna pinpoint who’s who right off back ain’t gon’ get it. Shid, just look through that phone, see what you find and get to calling numbers. That’s our best bet right now.”

  “Whatever the fuck is going on around here, y’all need to hurry the fuck up and clean house before that shit work its way through our whole organization,” Roc spoke angrily but calmly. “We don’t need that bullshit. It started here so you mothafuckas find the fuckin’ snake and cut its fuckin’ head off,” he stressed how serious the situation was. “Don’t let this shit start to affect our other businesses. Somebody that got a beef with y’all hired this mothafucka to snoop around our shit. His ass ain’t know nothing other then what he told us and the name that the nigga who hired this mo
thafucka gave him is obviously fake,” Roc shook his head in frustration. “Parker, this shit started in yo house, clean this bitch!” Roc demanded.

  I couldn’t be pissed at him for snapping. Hell, if the roles were reversed, I’d be the same way. In fact. I’d probably be worse.

  Roc was my blood cousin, we started this shit together and we were going to finish it together. I remember when we decided to branch out into different states, Roc had no problem relocating to New Orleans. Roc took what we did seriously. Even though I was cool with us doing business from Indiana to New Orleans, Roc started to think outside the box on how to make our shit international. He went back to college and got degrees in business, engineering, and law. He soon started to learn so many different gotdamn languages and taught me each one so that when we did go international we would blend right in without a problem.

  We were partners in crime, so he had every right to speak his mind freely when it came to business.

  “Don’t worry about it, we got our shit. It ain’t gon’ even come yo way. Believe that,” I assured Roc. “Now let’s clean this shit up and finish the business we came here for. Chris, start that furnace up.” We rolled Bret up in the plastic that was laid underneath him and then tossed him in the cremation furnace.

  ***

  “We got those cherries in a couple of clubs out here, in Springfield, and in Bloomingdales selling for thirty dollars a cup. It’s pricey for a drink, but mothafuckas buying that shit like crazy. Then we selling them to club owners fifteen hunnit a jar. That shit alone bring in money. We just put a nigga on yo end onto this shit. Talking about a killin’,” I let out a loud whistle just thinking about the money we can make off of Bourbon Street alone.

  “Roc, just think about all those gotdamn tourist that come down to New Orleans. Can you picture all the paper we’ll bring in off they asses?” I pitched to him as I leaned back in my desk chair.

  Roc rubbed his beard as he nodded his head, showing he was thinking about it. “Thirty bucks a cup?” He asked.

  “Yup, and they love those cherries out here. That’s why we need to push this shit down south. Shid, a hot day out and them tourists wanna get wasted, they’ll buy that shit,” I told him. “Roc, we got a hunnit boxes in the truck ready to go now,” I made the idea of the cherries being pushed his way sound as good as possible. He would be a stupid mothafucka if he didn’t take this shit down to the many different clubs and states we had down south.

  “I’ight,” he nodded his head in agreement. “But you know me. If I do it, I’m gon’ do it big. I ain’t gon’ be pushing that shit on Bourbon alone. I got a few high end restaurants, five star hotels, and top dollar clubs in the N.O. I’m gon’ push it in as well. Hell, if they’ll pay thirty dollars for a regular drink in these little ass clubs out here, they’ll drop an easy hunnit out there,” he grabbed his cigar from the desk then leaned back in the chair as he lit it. His head slowly started to nod. I could tell his mind was running on the idea of the cherries and the money we could bring in.

  His eyes soon snapped to me. “You bringing them down? Because with this shit suddenly coming out your house, I think you should drive the truck back down to make the drops,” he stated.

  A sigh left my mouth and a hand ran over my face. “Lord, I just got back from out that way last night. I ain’t tryna make my way back out there so soon—”

  “Yeah, what the fuck happened with that shit?” He cut me off to ask about the business trip I had to make.

  “We had some new buyers out in Memphis. This dude name Taz was looking for a new connect after his man got booked. Long story short, they got ahold to one of our vial’s and wanted to try us out basically. Taz and his people didn’t want to deal with no middle men. They wanted me to make the drop personally or they was gon’ walk,” I told him. “You know I’m not about to let no money go, so I went down and met up with them. Everything went smooth, I’m sho’ they’ll be back.”

  “After I made my rounds with drops, “I continued, “I checked out our clubs, construction companies and Fast Line out there. Everything was running good.” I reached over my desk and grabbed the blunt from Chris. I inhaled a lung full of smoke and then blew it in the air out of my nose and mouth before inhaling again.

  The room had fallen quiet after I informed him of how everything was going. I knew what he wanted, but I couldn’t take that trip back down south when I just got back the night before. Syn immediately popped into my head. I couldn’t even front and say I didn’t want to make that drive or I didn’t feel like it. When truth be told, I had no problem jumping on the highway and doing shit when it came to business and getting that money. But shid, those last two weeks away from Syn had done something to me. I missed shorty crazy ass something bad.

  I had gotten used to talking to her every day, waking up to her ass every morning. Baby had my ass whipped over her and she ain’t even know it. If I could, I’d pack her ass up and bring her with me, everything would be good then. But I couldn’t do that, especially when she had school. I wasn’t too much concerned about her jobs, hell, I was gon’ try to make her ass quit both of her jobs so all she had to worry about was school.

  I thought about how the conversation would go if I told her I had to go out of town again. There was no doubt in my mind that she would be pissed as fuck. I couldn’t put her off like that again. Hell, if I did, Syn’s crazy ass would probably start thinking I had a whole other family out there somewhere. I hit the blunt harder as I thought on what I was going to do. My eyes stayed focused on the ceiling as I continued to pull on the swisher filled with loud.

  “What’s with shorty that was up here earlier? What’s her deal?” Roc suddenly asked.

  My eyes snapped to him. “That’s my shorty, she’s cool.” I left it at that as I pulled on the blunt once again.

  “You sho’? Ain’t too many females gon’ put herself in harm’s way for a nigga. Unless she got something she’s trying to hide. We don’t know what the fuck really happened out there, straight up. Words could’ve been exchanged before we got around there—” Roc started to plant doubt.

  I sat up in my chair and glared at him. “Yo, kill that bullshit you coming with, Roc. I said shorty cool. That’s all you should need, especially coming from me.”

  “So you trust her without a doubt?” He questioned.

  My head nodded. “Most definitely. Now drop it.”

  “It’s dropped. Now back to this shipment. I still think you should drive the truck down to New Orleans,” Roc pointed to me.

  The thing with driving the truck was that, once I made the drop at his spot, I’d have to go back to the warehouse, have the truck reloaded, then make different stops between states so that real packages got scanned. Fast Line was a legitimate business, so regardless of the underhanded shit we did with the company, we still had to go about shit like a business. And that took a lot of time, given the stops we had to make.

  “When is you heading out to go back home?” I dropped the roach of a blunt into the ashtray then stood up, stretching. I looked at Roc who followed my actions.

  “Early morning. I’m actually about to do some work here, check the books and all that and then we can meet up later.” Roc slapped hands with me then shook up with Chris before he left out my office.

  “So what’s on the schedule for the day?” Chris hopped out of his seat.

  I grabbed my hat off of my desk and put it on. “I need to drop a few jars off at Red and Inferno. Then I’m about to go to the crib with Syn and be on some intimate relationship type shit. So let’s make these runs so I can go to the crib.”

  “Yo cake ass ain’t about to drive that mothafuckin’ truck. I’ll call J.R to drive it then.” Chris took out his phone and shook his head at me.

  “Hell n’all, I can’t even do it. Not this soon.” I couldn’t even give a fuck at that moment. I had just gotten back and I wasn’t trying to leave again. And I didn’t have any other reason for not wanting to go besides Syn. As she popped i
nto my head, I pulled out my phone and called Jason. I hopped inside of Chris’ truck just as Jason answered the phone.

  “Yeah?”

  “Aye, how that crib coming?” I asked him as Chris pulled off.

  “Everything’s on schedule. We just waiting on her bedroom set which will be here tomorrow afternoon. What time y’all gon’ get here?” Jason asked me.

  “I’ll be there in the morning. I’mma have Chris hang out with Syn while I come by the crib to see what it looks like.” I glanced over at Chris and laughed. I didn’t know how shit was going to work out with him and Syn chilling together for a few hours, but I knew they both would do it if I asked them to.

  “I’ight, bet. We trying to get the living room together now, so I’ll hit you up tomorrow, bet?” Jason said as he gave instructions to someone in the background.

  “I’ight, Lord, I’ll call you in the morning.” We ended the call. “Yo Chris, tomorrow I need you to drive Syn around for a few hours. You know, keep her busy while I check up on her crib. Bet?”

  Chris shook his head at me before he turned up the radio, tuning me out. All I did was laugh as we continued on to make our rounds.

  ***

  When Chris and I pulled up in front of my house it was eight o’clock at night. I didn’t call and tell Syn when I was going to be back, I just hoped she wasn’t to pissed at me for being gone all damn day.

  “Be here early in the morning to pick her up. I’ight?” I reminded him.

  “I got you, Lord,” he shook up with me. “Here, you might need this more than me.” He handed me a blunt that he had rolled. “Don’t forget yo flowers,” he clowned as he grabbed the Roses and Lilies I had gotten for Syn.

  “Man, shut the fuck up,” I laughed as I closed the door. I then placed the blunt behind my ear and made my way to the front door.

  I had given Syn my keys so I couldn’t just walk inside the crib. Feeling crazy as fuck, I rang the doorbell at my own damn house.