It is What it is: A Hood Love Story

by B. , Ivory

  “What up mami?” Los said as he lay on top of her. Lucky started laughing “Baby you squishing me,” she whined. He lifted his body slightly allowing her room to roll over on her back. Lucky wrapped her legs and arms around him while burying her face into his neck and inhaling. His scent never failed to get her aroused. Carlos closed his eyes enjoying the soft kisses she placed on his cheek then neck. “I love you,” Lucky whispered in his ear. Carlos heart started racing. He loved to hear Lucky say those three words to him. He cared a lot for Lucky but he didn’t know if he loved her, or if he just didn’t know how to love her. Something seemed to always hold him back, it was hard to explain why he couldn’t seem to let his emotional guard down. He looked into Lucky’s eyes before kissing her deeply.

  “Luck you gonna be ready or not? You know we have to leave in a few right?” Lucky blew out air in frustration, “I’m almost ready but damn, I can’t seem to get this part, it’s too hard.” “What?” Los asked grabbing her research methodology and statistics II book. He scanned over the section Lucky was claiming to have trouble with. “C’mon, what you mean this too hard? You did this already last semester in the other class.” “I know, but that was in research methodology one this is two and it’s harder. I just don’t get it.” Lucky couldn’t understand it, Los was so damn smart, yet here she was the one in college. He was like a mathematical genius and he always helped her with anything that had to do with math. Any other subject Lucky whipped through pulling good grades with not much effort except for math, she had to study hard with that subject. “What parts are you not getting?” “17 through 21. I have to answer those do the graphs and everything.”

  Los sat up and looked at the examples, he turned and explained it to her. “A’ight now after what I just told you, what if there was two pairs of Prada shoes in the store and you and about 215 thousand other chicks were trying to cop em, what is the probability of you getting one of those two pairs…?” “One hundred percent probability cause I’ma get them shoes, even if I had to make you go to Italy to cop them bad boys,” Lucky said not even letting him finish his question. Los looked at Lucky and shook his head. “Lucky you know what, that’s my fault. I should have never mentioned anything about shopping if I wanted you to concentrate. A’ight ma now listen, What if I had ten bricks of whipped weight. I cooked it up, cut it up to bacon bits, and sold it out on the block for like 30 dollars a pop. But the shit was garbage and the fiends wasn’t really feeling it. So I flipped that and bought a bird of that raw, straight sushi, it aint been stepped on nothing. Cooked that shit up, put it on the streets with a different name for double the price cause the raw this time around is better quality. What is the probability…” “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lucky interrupted him before he got the chance to finish his question. “Baby I didn’t understand a thing you just said. Cooking the crack, birds, sushi and fiends, what?!” Los started laughing. “Damn how the fuck am I going to explain this to her?” Before he could think of another example Lucky straddled his lap, breaking his thought process.

  “Baby, if I could get this done quicker I could hook you up before we go to the game,” Lucky said while nibbling on his neck seductively. Los looked at her as if she were crazy. He looked dead at her and laughed in her face. “Ma I know you ain’t tryna use ya brain on me. I’m not doing your homework for you Lucky Charms, not a chance. And if you don’t get this shit done in the next couple of hours then those courtside tickets to the Brooklyn Nets game are gonna go to waste. You know it don’t really matter to me if we go, I would rather sit right here at home and watch the game for two reasons. One; I can’t get right in the arena while watching the game, secondly; I couldn’t have you top me off while watching the game either if I wanted to. You the one that wanna go to the game so you could rub elbows with celebrities and maybe run into ya girl Beyonce. Yo, you going to do this shit or we not going. And another thing baby girl I’ma tear this pussy up when I want to, and still not do your homework.” He sealed his statement with a slap on Lucky’s ass before he lifted her off his lap. Lucky watched with her face screwed up as he laughed all the way to the bedroom door. “Lucky the clock is ticking,” He called over his shoulder. Lucky sat on the bed with her mouth wide open, she could not believe his cocky ass.

  Three hours later they were both sitting outside of Ty’s row house in Los’s CLS 550 Mercedes waiting for Ty and Douglas. Lucky had invited both Ty and Douglas since Los had the extra tickets and for some reason, Los didn’t seem happy about that at all.

  Lucky missed Ty like crazy. Between Ty working a full-time job while working on her MBA, and her new love life Lucky hardly saw Ty. Although, they talked to each other two to three times a day, Ty was changing. She wasn’t the same person anymore and Lucky knew who to blame the sudden personality change on. Lucky had just called Ty to let her know her and Los were outside. Ty and Douglas had agreed to riding with Lucky and Los instead of taking two different cars.

  “Lucky Charms you mad at me?” Los asked in an unsure tone. “No baby why would you think I was upset?” “I don’t know, I mean, you’ve been quite and I did make you do your homework by yourself then checked it before we left.” “No baby,” Lucky said through laughter. “I’m not mad, I’m glad you did that. I know how to do the stuff , I just get frustrated sometimes and feel like quitting. I’m thankful that your there to push me.” She reached over and touched his face lovingly, they stared at each other for a second until their stare was broken by the sound of a closing door. Lucky looked towards the door and could not believe it at first. Lucky had to do a double take cause she wasn’t sure she was seeing straight. But yes, that was Ty coming down the stairs with Douglas and she had lost a lot of weight. She still looked good but no longer did Ty have the wide Alicia Keys hips and all that ass. Nope that was defiantly a thing of the past. The bottom half of her body was much smaller. She was once a size 8-10 now she looked to wear about a small 6 or possible 4. Unconsciously Lucky verbalized her shock “Oh my god, Ty what happened to your shape?” she said in a low tone talking to herself. Los turned his head and said “Oh shit, I almost didn’t recognize Ty.” Ty was looking fly as usual though.

  Ty walked up to the car and shook her head in approval. “Los this whip is so sick” she backed up from the car and screamed “Look at the wheels!” Los just laughed. “What up mama?” he said through laughter. Lucky hopped out the car and gave Ty a hug. “Ty oh my god you lost so much weight.” “Yeah girl you know I have to watch my girlish figure,” She said in a joking way. “Ty, Ty you look good but you know I loved your Beyonce curves.” “You about the only one that did girl, I always wanted to lose some of my hips thighs, and ass, so I finally did.” Lucky gave her a strange look really since when? Ty was always so proud of her shapely figure and showed it off every chance she got with tight jeans, pencil skirts or swimsuits so hearing this was news to Lucky. “Oh well you look good girl.” “Ty looked at Lucky and whispered in her ear “Speaking of hips and ass. I see that you’ve gained some extra of both in these last months, someone must be on they job.” Both Ty and Lucky started giggling like women do. Lucky was always little but shapely, now she was still little but her hips had spread wider and her ass and thighs was fatter than they used to be. “Girl you and Los both on that shit, it’s the hormones from the birth control, not the sex,” Lucky said in a low tone not wanting Douglas to overhear. “Bitch please, yeah you going to gain weight from birth control but if you didn’t have a nigga hitting it up right that weight would be in all the wrong places. Get what I’m saying? Give ma boy his due credit.” Lucky just laughed and waved Ty off.

  “ Hi, how are you doing Douglas?” Lucky said stepping around Ty to shake his hand. “I’m doing just fine Louchanna and you?” “Good,” Lucky responded. Why the fuck do he insist on calling me by my government? I told him countless times before to call me Lucky. Lucky gave him a once over he wasn’t an ugly fella but he damn sure was far from handsome. Another thing that just turned Lucky off about Douglas was h
is style in clothing. Like right now they were going to a basketball game and this dude was wearing some tight ass looking jeans, penny loafers and long sleeved polo shirt that was rolled up to the elbows that looked like the cleaners used a whole container of starch on. To top it all off , a sweater tied around his shoulders. Lucky could not understand for the life of her what the hell her cousin was doing with this guy.

  They all hopped in the car and Los was quiet as usual when he got around people he didn’t know or wasn’t comfortable with. His guard went up and he was not the same person at all. He was like an alligator in a swamp silent as can be just waiting and watching for someone to say or do the wrong thing so that he could eat their ass up. Lucky knew him now so she didn’t take offense to it, like she did initially when she first met him. She thought that the ride to the casino when he was just silent he was being rude. Now she knew that was just the way he was.

  This was Los and Douglas first time meeting each other. Lucky grabbed his free hand while he pulled off. He drove with only one hand most of the time unless he was doing some crazy ass maneuver whipping through traffic. Los looked over at Lucky smiled and pinched her cheek. Douglas wasn’t even in the car for a good ten minutes before he started in with the investigation.

  “Nice car. So what is it you said you did for a living?” Douglas asked. The entire car got quite enough to hear a pin drop. Los just answered in a calm matter of fact tone “I didn’t say.” There was silence for a few seconds “Oh so what do you do for a living?” Douglas asked. “I’m in the music industry, I own my own label. I have a lot of investments market wise and I own quite a few properties in Philly.” “Oh that’s quite impressive,” Douglas said. You could hear the hate dripping off his words. “My name is Douglas Whitfield the IV.” Douglas said while extending his hand over to shake Los’s hand. Los looked over his shoulder and just nodded his head without even shaking Douglas’s hand. Douglas felt a little slighted so he withdrew his hand quickly. Lucky looked over at Los with a look that said behave. Los caught the look Lucky shot him and shrugged his shoulders giving her a look of innocence, as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

  Douglas couldn’t stand the type of guy that Los represented, thuggish hoodlum type of guy, the kind that never went to school but was successful expensive cars, jewelry, and plenty of money to just throw around. In his mind he felt that he was better than those type of men, he considered them to be cowards because they took the easy way in life either the illegal drug business, NBA, NFL or the music industry and in his opinion it didn’t take much brains to be successful in neither of those industries.

  The rest of the ride was basically quiet Los banged his music not caring who was in the car and Lucky just bopped her head and rapped along to Jay-Z’s classic reasonable doubt. Now that was her and Ty’s CD Lucky was a diehard Jay-Z fan and Ty loved him too but when she looked in the rearview mirror at Ty, Ty was sitting completely still not bobbing her head or anything. Douglas had his face all turned up as if he were offended by the choice of music. Lucky thought to herself oh well.

  When they finally reached the arena the traffic getting into the parking garage was moving at a snail’s pace and Los was getting aggravated. Los sat back in his seat lifted his fitted off his head and ran his hand over his head, then his face and blew out a loud breath of frustration. He had turned the music down minutes ago. Lucky just watched him damn his sexy chocolate ass is so damn fine. She reached over and squeezed his hand. Los looked over at her and she gave him a seductive smile that said he was going to get it tonight. “Yeah,” Los said. “Yeah,” Lucky said back. Los pushed the button on his door to roll his window down, and yelled “Yeah!, Yeah!” in a hyper thugged out tone. A car horn beeped and then he beeped back, his beep was followed by a barrage of blowing horns. Lucky and Los burst out in laughter. Lucky shook her head this nigga is so damn crazy. Ty laughed along with them “You two are bugged out,” Ty said. Lucky turned around to see Douglas looking pretty upset and uncomfortable about what just took place. Whatever Lucky thought to herself.

  The game was exciting and Lucky found herself cheering for both teams “Ayo Lucky you on some bullshit. How you gonna be cheering for both teams?” Los asked through laughter “Baby Rondo is killin em” Lucky said with a big smile on her face. Los just froze and caught himself staring at her for some reason his heart just felt like it jumped. That smile seemed to make his heart skip a beat. Lucky turned to catch him staring and she kissed him right there not caring that they were in the arena in front of thousands of people. When they broke their kiss Lucky looked up to see a couple of people looking on at their PDA but she didn’t care.

  By now she was used to people just staring at them every time they were out together. Los looked, walked, and smelt like money. People were shameless they would approach them while they were out and ask for his autograph and what team he played for? Being that Los was tall and had an athletic built many people assumed that he was on a professional team or either a rapper. White people were the funniest though, they would walk up and ask the craziest shit. “Are you Puff Daddy?” one woman asked one day or “Are you 50 cent?” Now Los looked like neither men, he was way too good looking but you know to some white people all black people looked alike.

  Chicks were the worst though, they would approach on some real disrespectful shit sometimes and openly flirt, “Didn’t I see you on TV somewhere?” Or some other corny pick up line. Lucky was about to take this little White broad head off one day for pulling that mess. Usually she ignored it because Carlos was always on his best behavior but when this little bleach blonde chick approached them one day and asked was he a rapper, he said no, but a CEO of his own record label. Becky tried to get real live. She smiled and then pushed her silicone breast all up in his face and asked him to sign them with a wink, right in front of Lucky. Before Lucky knew what she was doing the girls entire upper body was dripping wet. Lucky shot her bottled water in the girls face and started to commence to an ass whooping when Los caught her mid air and dragged her away kicking and screaming. Onlookers at the restaurant were looking on in shock there was a table of three older black women that witnessed the whole thing. As Los was passing by their table carrying a mad Lucky out. They all stood up and started clapping one of them screamed “You go girl, tell Barbie she can’t have that one!”

  At half time Los got Lucky a large soda and popcorn even though he didn’t get anything. They shared her soda. Los got pissed when he noticed several of the players from the Brooklyn Nets looking at Lucky. He gave them the ‘I will lay ya ass on your back’ look and they turned their heads quickly. Lucky didn’t notice she was too busy watching her cousin and Douglas. They were just returning from going to the commission stands and Lucky couldn’t help but notice that Douglas’s whole demeanor was just so cold and stiff, it was as if he never showed any warmth and affection towards Ty. It almost seemed as if they weren’t even together romantically, Lucky just couldn’t imagine what the heck her cousin was thinking about when she got with him.

  “Ayo Lucky why the fuck do this dude got on them nut hugger ass jeans? Them shits is tight as hell. I can see his fuckin wallet imprint on his back pocket.” Lucky fell out laughing and so did Los. Ty and Douglas had just made it back to their seats and Los and Lucky were still laughing falling all over each other . “So let us in on the joke, we want to laugh too,” Douglas said in his all too proper tone. That only made them laugh harder. Ty had a feeling the joke was on Douglas but she didn’t say anything. Lucky mustered up enough strength to say through laughter “Oh it’s nothing we were just laughing at something that happened yesterday, it’s a little inside joke that’s all. “Humph,” Douglas said and sat down. Just as he sat down Los looked over and could not believe it this nigga had on some penny loafers with a penny in them and his jeans had rode all the way to his damn ankles, displaying his colorful argyle socks. “Beat it, beat it, gon wit the beat the beat,” Los sang. Lucky could not believe that he said that but
she couldn’t even hold her laughter. They cracked up laughing hard as ever. People started to turn and look. Other people started laughing, they didn’t even know what they were laughing at but they were. Lucky’s smile and laughter was infectious. Ty laughed a little but stopped as soon as Douglas looked at her. Douglas must’ve been upset because he said little of nothing for the rest of the game and on their way to the car in the parking lot is the first time they heard him say anything in nearly two hours.

  Lucky and Los were playing around like two nasty teenagers on their way back to his car. She was trying to play hard to get and he was grabbing her up and placing her in a bear hug from behind getting his free feels at the same time. Every time she would slide out of his grip and try to run he would grab her up again and place his dick on her ass and hump her slightly as they walked towards the car. Lucky was giggling and loving every bit of it.

  They were all in the car and Los was pulling out of their parking space when he placed his hand on the back of Lucky’s headrest. The bezel of his watch was in clear eye level of Douglas and that’s all Douglas could say was wow in his head. He knew diamonds, he came from a wealthy family where diamonds weren’t uncommon, so he knew that the watch Los had on was very expensive. “Nice watch, that’s one flashy thing. So how much did that set you back? Or should I ask how many albums did you have to sell to get one like that?” Douglas asked. Lucky saw Los’s jaw tighten she knew he was upset with all of Douglas prying, she looked at him with pleading eyes. She didn’t want any drama to pop off between Los and Douglas. Los looked over at Lucky and took a deep breath. He didn’t want her caught in a fucked up situation knowing how close her and Ty were, so he wanted to avoid any problems between them.

  “I don’t know, I didn’t buy it, it was a present. My manz bought it for me.” “Manz?” Douglas repeated like he didn’t understand. “Yeah my boy, my co-defendant, my right hand man, you get it?” Los asked with sarcasm. “Well, oh yes, I get it, he must be a real good friend to buy you something like that” “Yeah he is, he’s actually my brother, he has this thing about buying people that he loves and cares about jewelry. Oh yeah Ty, I forgot to tell you that’s a nice ass necklace you got on. The ice is shinning on that butterfly.” Ty cut her eyes up to the rearview mirror and mouthed “Fuck you.” Los just smirked.“Well I’m more a conservative type of fellow, I choose not to wear my wealth on my wrist and neck its so ghetto.” The car came to a screeching halt. Los bit his bottom lip in anger and leaned over with his hand in a slapping position to smack the shit out of Douglas. Lucky’s eyes got wide and Douglas looked as if he were going to scream like a bitch for help. Lucky grabbed Los’s arm and screamed “Baby I’m hungry!” trying to defuse the situation. Los looked at Lucky with crazed eyes “Please baby,” Lucky repeated in a pleading tone, emphasizing the please. “I’m really hungry, can we stop somewhere and pick something up?” Los cut his eyes at Lucky and then back at Douglas. Lucky squeezed his hand “Please baby.” The please definitley had a subliminal meaning. He knew what Lucky was referring to. She didn’t want him to fuck Douglas shit up. Horns started blaring in back of them because Los had stopped in the middle of the street holding up traffic. He turned around in his seat and pulled off mad as hell yanking his hand from Lucky.