When the Side Nigga Catch Feelings 1

by Jessica N Watkins

  He shrugged again. “You been fuckin’ me and my friend at the same time.”

  My mouth dropped to the concrete underneath my feet. “So!” I snapped. “You knew what the fuck was up when you started fucking me. You knew! I never kept anything from you. But you played me and somebody who is like family to me!”

  “You think Vegas ain’t family to me?!”

  “You had a choice, though! You had a fucking choice! You knew what it was! But you didn’t tell me or Divine shit! You playin’ a real dangerous game! This shit ain’t cool! That girl wanna have your baby.”

  Suddenly, Damo became humble. “That ain’t got shit to do with me. I was just doing something.” I frowned with disgust as he went on. This was what I had played my man for? I was disgusted more with myself than him.

  “But I fucks with you,” Damo tried to assure me. “I fucks with you the long way. You know that.”

  My eyes squinted as I tried to find an ounce of humor in his expression. But there was none. He really was serious.

  “What?” I asked unbelievably.

  “You’re with that motherfucker all in my face all the time. How you think that shit makes me feel?”

  “You sound crazy.” I tried to turn away from him, but he reached and grabbed me by my belt loop.

  “How is that crazy? We vibe, we kick it, and we got good sex. Then I gotta watch you be in a relationship? Hell yeah, I fucked Divine. I don't want her, though. I want you.”

  I pushed away from him, but there was no use. He was using all his strength to hold me right there in front of him, keeping us face to face.

  Irritated, I brought my face so close to his that we were now nose to nose. “You can’t have me,” I said through gritted teeth.

  I didn’t like how he was looking at me. After all of this, he was still gazing at me with this longing look in his eyes as he told me, “I already have you.”

  “Well, you can't have me no more!” I spat, getting further in his face until our noses grazed, flesh to flesh.

  And he got right back in mine. “So, it’s like that?”

  “Fuck yeah. This shit couldn’t last forever no way. I got a man that I love at the crib.”

  His eyebrow cocked. “Oh, you love him?”

  “Yes. Did you think I didn’t?”

  Clearly, when all the times that he’d said this was his pussy, he thought it was true.

  I gotta stop gassing these dudes up.

  He bit his bottom lip, seemingly trying to contain himself. “So, what was you doing here with me?”

  “Making a big-ass, motherfucking mistake.”

  I had fucked his head up so much with that one. He was clearly taken aback. He’d lost all strength in his grasp on me. Finally, I was able to push him so hard that he let go of me.

  He hit the doorway, but he bounced right back in my face, shouting, “Bullshit! That’s my pussy!”

  “Get the fuck away from me!” I pushed him away as I backed away from the doorway. “Don’t call me no more. I’m done wit’ yo’ ass!”

  I was damn near running towards my car as I heard him say, “You can’t leave me alone, shorty.”

  Damo was making my guilt turn into fear. He was acting out, but he wasn't crazy. He knew who my man was at the end of the day. He thought that could keep me, but hell no. I was done as I said over my shoulder, “Watch me.”

  15

  Ross

  I was flying to the crib…flying. April’s words kept ringing in my head. Nothing makes a woman stand up to her man more than another man. I had been too busy trying to make sure that I wasn’t on the police’s radar for Tisha’s murder to pay attention to the fact that somebody was encouraging my woman to pop off. Fighting back was only the first of the bullshit. If she now thought that she was big and bad enough to pop off, she would soon start thinking she was big and bad enough to leave me and flaunt that other nigga in my face like my mother did my father. Fuck that.

  I grimaced as my cell started to ring. I looked at it and saw that it was one of my homeboys, Charles. Charles was a smarter man than I was. He was married with kids and way more committed to that lifestyle than I ever had been. I was glad that he was calling because I hoped that he could tell me how to stop what seemed to be happening in my marriage. Usually, I had a lot of bite in me. I thought I could fix any issue with my hands. But hitting Heaven now would only push her further away. And that was the last thing I wanted…for the next man to make her happy and smile. I needed Charles to tell me how to fix this shit.

  “Hello?”

  “Ross…”

  When he said my name, I heard agony in his voice that told me this conversation was about to be about his bullshit and not mine.

  “Bro, what up? You cryin’, dawg?” I asked in disbelief.

  “My wife…” he croaked, his tears causing his usual deep voice to come out in a high pitch. “My wife…” His tears overcame him. He couldn’t even speak. His tears alone were fucking me up. I had never heard a grown man cry like this.

  I pulled over on the side of 87th street and King Drive and threw my car in park. “Charles,” I called his name, trying to get him to come back to the conversation and tell me what was going on. “Charles.”

  I heard him take a deep breath and then say lowly, “My wife….she…she died.”

  My eyes bucked. I sat up as if that would make me hear something else. “She…she died?”

  “Yeah,” he cried.

  “What happened to her?”

  “She had a stroke,” he said as if he was still in shock.

  “A stroke? What the fuck? She was only—”

  “Thirty-two. She was only thirty-fucking-two! Why the fuck is this happening to me, bro?”

  I cringed, not having an answer for him.

  “I only had five years with my baby. Five years. And now she’s gone. I won’t ever get her back. I won’t ever get to touch her again. Won’t ever get to love on her again, man. What the fuck?”

  My heart went out to my dawg. Like I said, he was a good dude. Look up the words faithful, committed, or good man in the dictionary, you would see a big-ass picture of Charles. He loved his wife more than he loved himself, it seemed. He was a dedicated family man. He was a great father to his kids and spared no moment to love on his wife.

  “Gaaaaawd,” he wailed. I had never heard a man wail with so much suffering. It was stomach-turning. “What am I going to do without her? I love that woman so much. I feel like I’m fuckin’ dead. She was a big piece of me, and now it’s gone.”

  He spared no moment to love on his woman. He showed her how much he loved her every day. He had always said she was his Godsend and that he had prayed for a wife just like her. But now she was gone. Yet, I had been taking full advantage of my loving woman…full-fucking-advantage. I had been acting as if Heaven would be there whenever I chose to act right.

  As Charles kept explaining to me how he had come home from work to find his wife of five years on the couch dead, I pulled off. Now, more than anything, more than I wanted to when I left April’s crib, I wanted to be with my wife.

  Heaven

  “Fuck.” I pouted as I hung up the phone. Then I hit the end button and dialed Mello’s number again. Again, my call went straight to voicemail. I hung up with an even bigger pout this time.

  Fighting the urge to call him again, I forced myself not to. There was no use. It was clear that he had put me on the block list.

  “Shit,” I cursed as I lay back on the bed. I was being selfish. Mello had been trying to talk to me for weeks, but I had ignored him. But now that I’d had a shitty day, I wanted nothing more than to talk to him.

  I figured that he was done with me once his calls stopped after he had popped up at my house with that chick. But for the past week, I had been hoping that eventually, we could get back to where we were before we slept together. Now, that hope was gone. I felt like an idiot. I knew that even though Ross was a hoe, I could never be with Mello, no matter how much I had
enjoyed how he made me feel emotionally and physically. And regardless of the fact that the sight of him with that stripper bitch had been on mind all week, giving me a sick, jealous feeling in my stomach, I knew being with Mello wasn't an option. But I still felt guilty for playing him for a jerk who was taking full advantage of every fucking chance he got to play me. Ever since Mello had come back to Chicago, he had shown me so much. The experience had opened my eyes to so many things. I had once thought that Ross was a blessing because he had given me this life for free, but clearly, he was making me pay an expensive price for it after all.

  And the price that he was making me pay was way more than the trouble was worth.

  I wanted to apologize to Mello for dodging his calls and for being stupid. I also wanted to beg for my friend back, but something was telling me that after all that had happened, I wasn’t going to get that. For some reason, it felt like me and Mello would never be the same again.

  “Heaven…”

  I looked up when I heard Divine’s voice in the doorway. I ran my hand over my face to hide my disappointment that she was here. I had forgotten that fast that I had sent her a text message telling her that I needed to talk to her. Forget whatever I was going through at the time. I had to set that shit aside to put myself in the middle of some more bullshit.

  I forced myself to keep a straight face as I spoke to her. “Hey, Divine.”

  I watched as she leaned against the doorway. She watched my face, and despite me fronting, she still saw that something was wrong with me. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  I took a deep breath and let my fucked up expression back out, and she immediately looked concerned and pissed. “What happened?” she asked as she walked in the room. “Did Ross hit you again?”

  Even though he had, I tabled that fucked up conversation for a later date.

  “Come here. I gotta talk to you.”

  She now looked even more concerned as she walked up to the side of the bed where I was sitting. As she sat down, I moved my phone out the way. I knew that Mello had my head gone because, despite knowing that he had blocked me, I checked my notifications for a call or text from him. I was heartbroken when I didn’t see either one.

  What I did see was a text message from Ross. As I opened the text inbox to read it, my heart broke some more, remembering that he had had the audacity to hit me again because he was being a hoe. I was proud of myself for fighting him back this time, but I had been fighting him for the wrong reasons. Finally swinging on him had nothing to do with me defending myself. I had fought him for not being shit in the process of never showing me in three years what Mello had shown me in a few days. Opening the message, I saw that it simply read: I love you. Please don’t leave me.

  That messed my head up more than anything had that day. He had never asked me not to leave him. He had demanded it with his fists, but he had never begged me to stay.

  “Heaven?”

  I jumped a little when I heard Divine’s voice. “Huh?”

  “What you gotta talk to me about?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said as I put the phone down. “Sorry.”

  “What’s up?”

  With a long deep breath, I turned to face her. “I gotta tell you something. It’s about Damo.”

  Instantly, Divine rolled her eyes to the back of her head. “I know you don’t think he fuck with me like that, but—”

  I cut her off. “He’s fucking with Treasure.”

  Her eyes fell out of her face. “What?”

  “She told me today when I told her that you were pregnant.”

  “W-what? How? But…”

  She had so many questions that she couldn’t get one out before the next tried to come after it. So, I just stopped her and tried to answer what I knew she wanted to know. “They have been fucking around for a few months—”

  She cringed… and she looked sick. “A few months?”

  “Yeah. Eight.” When tears started to flow from her eyes, I told her, “I’m sorry, boo.”

  She covered her face. “Oh my gawd. Treasure? My sister’s best friend? What the fuck?” She stared off with wide eyes as if realization after realization was hitting her. “He’s been playing me this whole time.”

  My lips pressed into a thin line. “Yeah, he has.”

  “I-I can’t have this baby. I don’t wanna raise a baby by myself. I thought he was gonna be there for me.” She was rambling and talking so fast as her nose ran while she cried. “I feel so stupiiiid.”

  As she fell apart, I threw my arms around her. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re not the first woman to be played and you won’t be the last. Just learn from this and keep it moving. The only way you can get his ass back is by keeping it the fuck moving. Show him that what he has done to you didn’t stop you from doing a damn thing. Stunt on him.” I had to stop talking when tears came to my own eyes.

  How was I telling her this shit when I had never taken my own advice?

  Thirty minutes later, I was in the living room trying to force myself to get my shit together. Divine had gone into her room and slammed the door. We were both in funks over men who had been playing us.

  I had been living in this heartbroken-ass fairytale in my head with Mello for the last two weeks. My mind had been so wrapped up in him that I had forgotten that I needed to figure out how and when to leave Ross.

  For the last three years, I had been ignoring the cheating while condoning and defending his physical abuse. I didn’t see any of it. I had been living in this appreciative cloud for the last three years. Now, I saw everything so clearly. Ross was willing to damn near kill me before he let me turn into a woman that I had never even met. He was so scared that I would play him like his mother had played his father that he was going to beat me into submission and commitment. No matter how loyal and committed I was to him, he had done everything to me but put me in the grave. I needed to leave him. I just needed a place to stay first, which meant getting a job, which was impossible because Ross didn’t want to give me access to other men for eight hours out of the day. I could have just left him and then got a job, but the thought of that felt impossible as well because I hadn’t even worked since I was seventeen years old. I didn't have the education or the experience to get a good enough job to afford a place to stay and a means to take care of Sunshine and Divine.

  So, I was back to square one, where I always ended up whenever I got so mad at Ross’ cheating that I was ready to leave.

  “Babe…”

  I got sick to my stomach when I heard his voice. Fuck that sweet-ass text he had sent me. Seeing Divine’s tears and heartbreak reminded me of how a man’s words could be coated with genuineness but filled with motherfucking lies.

  But when I looked up at and saw Ross coming towards the couch where I was sitting, I saw a look on his face that I had never seen before—terror.

  “Why didn’t you reply to my text message?” he asked.

  I shrugged as he sat close to me. “I didn’t have anything to say.”

  So much hurt filled his chocolate eyes as he asked, “You didn’t?”

  “No.” Ross was visually surprised at of how much bite my honesty had in it. Usually, I approached him with love and appreciation, even when he had fucked up. “You left town and ignored me for a fucking week because you were with another woman. Then you hit me because I caught your ass! What was I supposed to say to that shit?”

  He looked at me like he had no idea who I was anymore. “You could have said that you love me too.” I just looked at him. I had no response. The longer it took me to say something, his eyes bucked. “You don’t love me no more?”

  Irritation swam over my face. “Why are you asking me that, Ross?”

  The shock was still in his eyes as he replied, “Because you’re acting different.”

  “I’m just fed up. I’m sick of you putting your hands on me because you’re scared that I’m going to treat you exactly how you’ve been treating me.”

  “I’m sor
ry.” He tried to hold my hand, but I pulled it away.

  I got scared, expecting his sadness and shock to turn back into Ike Turner at any moment like it usually did. But I quickly stopped caring. If he wanted to continue the fight from earlier, I was completely with the shit.

  “I don’t wanna hear that, Ross,” I told him. “You’re always sorry.”

  He turned towards me even more so that I couldn’t avoid his eyes. “I know. I fucked up. I been fucking up. But I don’t wanna lose you. I’ll do what I gotta do to fix it.”

  “Fix it how, Ross?”

  His eyes bucked. “So, what you sayin’? You think it can't be fixed?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  His eyes grew even bigger. I knew that this was a first for him. I had always been the one willing to stay in the relationship and fix it no matter what because he meant so much to me. But I had gotten to the point that I was tired of fighting for somebody who was not fighting for me. Instead of fighting for me, he was beating my ass, and I was over that shit.

  “You don’t know? Wow…” He genuinely looked confused and hurt. He had never looked so humble before. I don’t think he’d looked so meek since he’d gotten my number three years ago.

  He scooted closer to me and held my hand softly. “Babe, let’s talk. Have a drink with me and let’s talk about it. I don’t wanna lose you.”

  Seeing the sincerity in his eyes made my heart melt. However, my mind hadn't changed. I could no longer put up with his shit, but if my one night with Mello had turned me into the person that Ross now felt forced to respect, then maybe I wouldn't have to.

  For my sister and my daughter, I hoped so.

  Mello

  “Ma?”

  My mother jumped and tried to wipe her face, but it was too late. I had already heard her crying.

  “Mello? What you doin’ here? I didn’t know you were coming over.” Her back was still to me as she failed like a motherfucker at hiding her tears. I walked towards her as she sat on the floor in front of the loveseat in the living room.