“Daddy?” she questioned.
“Yes, do you remember your daddy?” I asked her.
“Yeeeah,” she answered slowly.
I sat down on the loveseat with burdens so heavy that I could no longer stand. I looked into her eyes as I held her hands. “Do you want to spend some time with him?”
“Yeeeah.” She shrugged and then gave me big, hopeful eyes. “But can I still live here with you?”
My heart went out to her confusion. I hated that I couldn’t protect her from any of this. “Grandma is going to make sure that you come back, okay, baby?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
My tears were making her visibly sad. I wiped my face as I sadly stood and walked her to the door. Officer Brown was behind me. The front door was still open, but through the closed screen door, I could see Officer Lopez and Jameel on the porch. I wanted to take off running. I wanted to take my only treasure from True and run. I would leave everything, even Russell, just to be with her. But I knew that in order to keep her forever, I had to do this right. I put on a strong front, not wanting to give Jameel the satisfaction of seeing my pain.
As we approached the door, I squatted and kissed Joy’s cheek. “I love Grandma’s baby.”
“I love you too, Grandma.”
I let her go, weeping as she walked towards her father. As soon as Officer Brown walked out, I slammed the door. Wailing, I slid down the door and collapsed on the floor.
I had lost everything.
23
Coop
- a month later -
“Hey, Coop.”
Hearing Tamika’s voice, I cringed. I was so sick of this little girl buzzing around me every time I came to the office. I barely made eye contact with her as I asked, “What’s up, Tamika?”
Her smile was full of so much thirst as she announced, “I’m going to lunch.”
I shrugged at her simple ass. “Okay.”
“You want something?” she pushed.
I shook my head and put my attention back on the contracts in front of me. “Nope.”
“I do,” Rakim chimed in.
She reluctantly gave him her attention. “I was talking to my boss.”
“I hired you.”
Tamika rolled her eyes. “Because he wasn’t at work at the time. You’re an employee just like me.”
Rakim gruffed as he lay back on the couch in my office. “Well, fuck you then.”
My eyes darted towards him, “Nigga,” I warned.
He shrugged, looking at me. “What?”
Tamika sneered at Rakim before she switched away from the doorway. I shook my head, making a mental note to find a reason to fire that baby mama drama waiting to happen.
“This is a place of business. Be professional,” I warned Rakim.
He chuckled. “That THOT ain’t no professional.”
I glared at him. “You hired her, though.”
“Whenever I fuck her, I’m gon’ fuck the shit outta her,” he promised with a bite on his bottom lip. “I’mma take all these games she’s playing out on that pussy.”
“Whatever. What’s up with the block? Them niggas making my money?”
As Rakim ran down how the block was running, I forced myself to listen. This was what my life was now; hustling, managing the rec center, and Keyes. But, a month after True’s death, I was over managing the center. I was proud of what it had turned into. It was a success. Many of the boys in the neighborhood were taking advantage of the facility. Cops had told me that crime had even gone down a bit in the area. Many boys were even getting bused to the center from different neighborhoods. I had completed the task. I didn’t need to come in daily anymore. I was in the midst of hiring a manager so I could get back to the block.
I had made an effort to change my ways, but I needed somethingelse to put my mind on and to take my frustrations out on. I needed the griminess of the streets, the dirt, and the filth.
“RonRon been flipping the work faster than a motherfucker. He wanna get fronted two more bricks,” Rakim explained.
My eyebrows rose with the excitement of more money pouring in. “Word?”
“Yeah.”
“He paid the money for the first brick I fronted him?” I asked.
“Damn near. Well, front him five more, if he promises to turn that shit around in a month.”
Rakim nodded. “Bet.”
Just then, Tamika walked slowly past the office door. Rakim was facing me, so he didn’t see her. Her smile was lust-filled and seductive as she licked her glossed lips, gazing at me.
My dick jumped. I hadn’t felt pussy in months, but my dick didn’t harden. Pussy was the last thing on my brain. Women weren’t even on my list of priorities. The only woman I talked to was Angel, who I saw frequently because we had agreed to share custody of Keyes.
Angel had stopped asking me about Remi weeks ago, after I had shut that shit down for the fifth time and threatened to never let her see Keyes again if she brought it up again. I understood what True had tried to do, but she had gone over my head on this. She knew I had no interest in being that close to another woman again. I felt bad that I had left Remi feeling rejected, but I’d had no other choice. There was no way that I would voluntarily put myself in the position to hurt and yearn for something again. I had done enough of that as a child.
However, I felt like I had not only lost True, but I had lost Remi’s friendship too. Every time I mourned True, I also mourned the connection I had formed with Remi. But my feelings for her were what was keeping me away from her. My feelings for her were why I had to ignore her and focus on living without True the best way I could and raise my son. I couldn’t put myself through love again. I had stayed away from women for a reason, and I was never going to allow myself to fall again.
REMI
The door to the den creaked open. I looked up from the book I was reading on my Kindle app. Frances’ smiling face was peeking at me through a crack in the door.
“Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?” she asked.
I smiled. “I’m sure.”
Her head tilted to the side. “Okay now. I can cook, girl.”
“I believe you. It smells good.” It indeed did. The aroma of fried catfish had been swimming in my nose for the last hour.
Francis gave me an interrogating yet sweet look. “You on a diet or something? Looks like you’ve lost weight.”
“I have, but I’m not on a diet unless stress is a diet.”
She chuckled. “That’s the best diet, girl. Makes you drop weight quick.”
I chuckled halfheartedly. “You’re right about that.”
In the last month, I had lost a drastic twenty pounds. I was happy to see it finally coming off, but it wasn’t how I wanted to lose it.
Francis sighed. “Well, I’ll let you rest.”
“Thanks. I’ll be sure to turn Sidney in an hour.”
“Thank you.” Again, she gave me a sweet smile as she left the doorway.
A twinge of regret hit my heart. Francis had been trying so hard to show me kindness since I’d started working for her husband, Sidney, two weeks ago. But after my experience with True and her family, I felt it was best that I keep a strictly professional relationship with my patients and their families.
Getting back into the book, Secrets of a Side Bitch, I fought to keep my attention on this scandalous but page-turning, storyline, rather than that constant nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It had been a month since I’d walked out of Angel’s house; a long month of thinking of Coop. True’s letter had only ignited a fire in me that I had been fighting to smother before I read it. She had been right. Those nights that Coop and I had spent together talking and supporting one another had shown me how good he and I could be together. Yet, despite True giving us her blessing, he could walk out on that chemistry and perfection. He ran away from it as if I were disgusting. He had spent so many nights telling me that Banks was an idiot for not choosing me. Yet, when he got
the chance, he hadn’t chosen me either.
I had lost everything: my man, my friends, and then I lost another set of friends and a man who I never got the chance to even experience. It was June. I was used to my summers being full of parties, drunken nights, and laughter. While reading that letter, I thought that maybe God was finally giving me a chance at a happily ever after.
But maybe a happily ever after just wasn’t in the cards for me.
I wasn’t going to dwell in the self-pity, however. I would wait out this tortuous feeling in the pit of my stomach and keep living. Coop’s rejection had not made me forget what True had taught me.
I was broken, but at least I still had a life to be broken in.
24
Angel
“Calm down, baby.” The ripping sound of tape tearing from the dispenser cut through the room. I could feel Russell staring at me as he stood over one of the boxes that was littering my living room. I was moving that next day, moving in with Russell. If moving wasn’t stressful enough, I also had a court date for full custody of Joy. I had filed for an emergency court date with the help of a very expensive lawyer that Russell had retained for me.
“I can’t calm down.” I sighed. “I’m a nervous fucking wreck.” I wrung my sweaty hands together as I paced back and forth.
“Come here.”
I’d heard Russell’s calming, soothing order, but I couldn’t comply right then. I was so nervous that my stomach was turning. I started to argue with him, “Russell—”
“Come here.” Being the alpha man that he was, he insisted.
I felt a soft tug on my elbow. I turned towards his smothering, yet consoling, alpha persona and allowed him to wrap me in his arms. His sexy, masculine aroma soothed me. His arms protected me from the evils of the world.
I soon felt a kiss on the top of my head. “Everything is going to work out,” he assured me.
“I hope to God it will.” I laughed. “Are you sure you want me to move in with you?”
He chuckled as if my question was silly. “Why wouldn’t I?”
I pouted into his chest. “I’ve been dealing with so much drama since we got together. I feel like I’m only adding confusion and chaos into your life.”
I felt him shrug. “So? Of course, I still want you to move in with me.”
I looked up into his eyes, looking at him as if he was a unicorn. “Why?”
Russell smiled at my confusion with his sincerity. He bent down and kissed my forehead so soft and lovingly. “Because with you is where I am supposed to be.”
I sighed with relief as we stared into one another’s eyes.
Then, slowly, the most mischievous smile began to spread across his beard. His dimples were buried so deep that I wanted to make them my home. His eyes began to twinkle with happiness. I stopped gushing and began to wonder what he was smiling so hard about.
He stepped back, playfully biting his lip through his smile.
“What…” I stopped my interrogating as he reached into his pocket and dropped down to one knee in one smooth swoop. I looked on the floor to see what he could be down there for. I hadn’t seen him drop anything. Like an idiot, I looked around and under me until he called for me.
“Baby.”
I looked down at him and gasped. “Oh!” There he rested on his knee holding an open velvet ring box that held a white gold engagement ring with a princess center stone with a three-carat diamond.
My eyes instantaneously filled with tears. My shaky hands flew to my mouth. I assumed what he was doing, but until he said the words, I didn’t have the courage to believe it.
“Angel Marie Jenkins, would you please do me the honor of being my wife?”
The awaiting tears slid down my face as I gasped for breath that I had been holding since he’d pulled the ring out of his pocket.
A year ago, I could not imagine my life without True. I could not see how I would go on without her. I knew that surviving for Joy would be the only motivation I would have to keep going. Many times, however, I even wondered if that would be enough.
But, then, Russell came like a knight in shining armor. It was breathtaking the way that his presence put my insecurities to sleep, the way that he starved all of my fears. He gave me another reason to keep pushing, to keep going, to keep believing in miracles and love.
“Well?” he pushed nervously.
Yet, I did not want to corrupt his calm and happy life with my drama, chaos, and sadness. He had given me so much more, so that is what he deserved.
REMI
A few days after trying to read my way into not thinking about Coop, I was done with the entire Secrets of a Side Bitch series, and I was still thinking about him. I was tired of wondering why he’d walked out on me and why he had been so rude. I was tired of being lonely and missing the kinship I had felt at True’s home. I was missing something, and it was him. I knew I couldn’t have True again. She was gone. But I refused to continue to avoid Angel in order to avoid Coop. And I refused to allow Coop to keep avoiding me. If he didn’t want me romantically, fine, but we could at least be friends.
I nervously walked into the rec center. My knees quaked under my form-fitting, mauve tank dress. My legs were so weak with anxiety that I was nearly sliding against the slippery tile floor of the rec center in my strappy, gold heels.
“May I help you?”
I smiled at the older man sitting behind the reception desk. His smile was perverted as he looked my curves up and down.
“I’m looking for Coop. Is he here?” I probably should have called, but I knew his orneriness wouldn’t answer a call or text message from me.
The old man nodded. “Yes, he’s in the gym.”
I remembered where it was from my tour, so I started heading that way.
“Um, would you like me to get him for you?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” I said over my shoulder.
As I headed that way, I ran my hands through my long stresses to make sure my hair was tamed. I had recently gotten a sew-in with twenty-six inches of Malaysian hair. The hair stylist had layered it and cut a swooping Chinese bang and curled it in loose barrel curls.
“Good D, Terrell!” As soon as I heard Coop’s gruff, smoky voice, I became even more nervous. “Hustle, Brandon! What the hell are you doin’?!”
I started to second guess myself, worried that he would embarrass me yet again, only now in front of a bigger audience. I stood there in the doorway of the gym, ready to make an about-face until some of the boys started to stare. Some of their little asses even started to catcall. So, I felt like I had no choice but to complete my mission.
I swallowed hard and continued towards the bleachers where I saw Coop sitting with his back to me until whatever everyone was staring at behind him caught his attention, and he turned around. I stopped dead in my tracks, waiting and hoping for a smile or some sign of relief when our eyes met, but his face remained as hard as stone. He turned back around, giving his attention back to the practice. Let down, I wondered for a few seconds if he would even make this easier and meet me halfway. I became disappointed when I realized he was still sitting. Embarrassment and nerves turned to anger as I then started to march towards his evil ass. But then he finally stood slowly, said something to the guy standing in front of him with a whistle in his mouth, and then began to amble towards me as if he didn’t have a care in the world. It was as if he hadn’t spent the last month missing me as much as I had missed him.
I took a deep breath as he came closer and closer. Many of the boys were still staring, holding inquisitive smirks, and mumbling to each other.
I couldn’t think of what to do with my hands, so I folded my arms across my chest. I could feel my heart beating uncontrollably fast as Coop finally was in arm’s reach of me. I parted my lips to say something, even though I didn’t know what exactly.
However, before I could say anything, he took my breath away and rendered me speechless, by coldly asking, “What are you doing here,
Remi?”
He was so mean, so emotionless. It was astonishing to me. Even though he had been the same when I’d seen him last, I thought it was because of the shock of reading True’s words. But, now, he’d had so much time to think, to exist without my friendship. But clearly, it hadn’t affected him the same way it had me at all.
“I, um… I wanted to… Um…” The hostile glare in his eyes had me tongue-tied. “I just wanted to say hi.”
When he grimaced, I felt that same embarrassment and disappointment I had a month ago. Only this time, it made me mad instead of ashamed. “You don’t miss me at all?” I snapped.
I just couldn’t believe he had the nerve to stand there and look right through me as if we hadn’t spent the most emotional three months together, like I hadn’t spent hours wiping his tears.
My eyes squinted as I stared at him, trying to see who he truly was. “You’re that cold?” I asked. “You feel nothing? She wants us to—”
His nostrils flared as he bit his bottom lip and gritted. “Don’t mention her.”
But I pressed, “We owe her.”
He continued to scowl, only this time he wouldn’t even look at me. “Didn’t I say don’t fucking mention her?”
I recoiled. “You don’t have anything to say?” My heart was beating fast and hard with disappointment and anger.
Finally, he looked at me, asking, “Would you please leave?”
It was a question that had come out so demanding that it offended me.
My eyes bucked slightly with shock. “Leave?”
He stood stern. “That’s what I said.”
I laughed hysterically. This felt so familiar. Clearly, I hadn’t learned anything from Banks’ betrayal. “You know what?” I asked, shaking my head. “Cool. Bet this is the last time that I beg a man to see me. You can believe that.”
I turned on my heels and stormed out. I had no hope that he would follow me. Clearly, I no longer needed to hold on to what I’d felt back then because Coop had shown me twice how he felt now. He’d made it crystal clear that what I had seen or felt before True’s death was in my head and nowhere in his heart.
When My Soul Met A Thug Page 23
