Chapter 2
TWO
Posydiann
I turned my face up, irritation already in my chest because why did she have to answer this phone like I was bothering her? Like she didn’t miss me even though she was really on some Tom and Jerry shit with me.
“Yo, I didn’t wake up next to you this morning.” I mugged the air, watching Junior walk the wall of the shoe store he begged me to bring him to. School started next week and he wanted to be right, which I understood, but he was running my pockets trying to be fly.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“And that’s your fault too. You knew I was coming through and went into hiding.”
She laughed. “I’m not hiding from you. I meant what I said the last time. You’re just not trying to hear me, because everything has to be on your terms.”
“And what did you say, Syn?”
“I’m not about to keep repeating myself to you. You’re extremely smart and very capable of good conversation recall. As a matter of fact, I know you know what I said.”
I laughed. “And do you remember what I said?”
“Pops, what do you think about these?” Junior walked up on me holding three shoes when I could have sworn we came in here for one pair.
“Is that Junior? Tell him I said hey.” Karsyn livened up as soon as she heard his fucking voice.
“Damn it’s like that, Syn?” I asked, splitting my attention between the two.
“That’s my stepmama, Pops?” Junior asked, his attention immediately on the phone and not the fucking shoes piled in his hands.
She laughed in my ear, just as this lil smooth fucker grabbed the phone from me with his free hand.
“Hey, Ma,” he greeted her immediately. Junior had been calling her his stepmother since the morning she made breakfast for me and him at my spot months ago.
Carla, his moms, had dropped him late as fuck because she needed to fly to Tampa and care for her grandmother.
Some emergency shit like that, so when she woke up, he was there and she made us breakfast without even being asked.
Junior being who he was, having heard me on the phone with her a few times and finally being able to meet her, immediately started calling her his stepmother.
I guessed that also came from the fact that I’d never had a chick around him unless it was blood or his mother.
Carla and I were tight as fuck when I was younger.
She was seventeen and I was fifteen, but that never stopped anything, hence Junior now being sixteen and me thirty-one.
I was young as shit when she had him though.
Hell, I didn’t know a damn thing about being a father, but we grew up together, learning as I went.
It was never anything between me and Carla though, just good coparenting and her deciding years after Junior was born that she liked women instead of men anyway.
Junior brought the phone back a few minutes later, then went to find an associate to get his size.
“Why does it seem like you’re happier to talk to Junior than me?”
“’Cause I am. Is that all or do I nee—”
“Nah, that ain’t. Gimme your word that you are coming by the house tonight.” My eyes stayed on my boy while he waited for ol’ girl to bring his shoes out.
“And why would I do that? I meant what I said, Posydiann.”
“We can talk about what you said.”
She laughed. “Why do you have to be so smooth? You don’t wanna talk, Posydiann.”
“Nah I don’t, but if that’s what needs to happen to get you to come, then I will.”
She was quiet for a moment, digesting my words. “Fine, I’ll come over tonight.”
That was all she had to say and I was all smiles. I knew I should have never fucked with Karsyn, should’ve steered clear of her after that night. I didn’t though. Instead I kept seeing her and I fucked up. I got to know her past what was between her legs.
I had always known of her through Junnie.
Shit, she was her best friend, but I never addressed her and she never addressed me.
I also knew she was ol’ dude’s daughter, so I really didn’t have anything to say to her.
Then I got shot, almost dying in the process, and before I knew it, I was thinking about all the things I hadn’t before.
Two weeks later I was leaving Dirties and saw a fool trying to handle her.
I didn’t like that shit at all, and for the first time in my whole life, I was reckless for a cause other than my own street agendas.
She went home with me that night and she’d been doing it since.
Well until she decided she wanted more, and for the life of me, I couldn’t decipher what the fuck that more was.
She was convinced that I was fucking other people, but I wasn’t.
For about a year and a half, the only person I had been fucking with was her.
She had been around my son, shit, my family.
While she was trying to keep this away from her folks, I wasn’t hiding a damn thing.
I paid for Junior’s shoes then we went by a few more stores before heading home and to my mama’s spot.
Her, my grandmother, and my uncle lived in a two-flat in the heart of Watertown.
No matter how many times I tried to move them out to Marshall or Westvale, none of them were going for that.
They wanted to stay where they grew up and I understood that shit one hundred percent because I still stayed there.
Watertown was home, and would always be such, regardless of the dangers people not from it feared.
In order to exist in Watertown, you had to be aware of the flow and stay the fuck away from shit you knew nothing about.
Long story short, keep your nose clean and stay the fuck out of the way.
I purposely bought both the buildings and had security gates installed around the perimeter because when it came to safety I didn’t play any of that.
I pulled into the alley behind my house and pressed the garage button for the door to open.
“You wanna buy me a car?” Junior said out of nowhere while I was backing into the garage.
I glanced over at him like he had lost his fucking mind because obviously he had. ’Cause who the fuck was about to buy his non-driving ass a car. “Yo, you good? Who’s about to buy you a car, Psy?”
“You. I’m boutta be seventeen. You gonna drop me off and pick me up from school every day? You don't even like it when I take buses or rideshare.”
I coughed because he had me. “You don’t even have your permit.”
“I can get it.” He was too damn eager, looking like a miniature version of me. Between trying to grow up myself, he had too grown up. Shit was wild. he had gone from asking me for money to buy Robux to a whole fucking car.
“We’ll talk about this with your moms.” I deaded the conversation for now, knowing damn well I’d hear about it as soon as he got his mother on the phone.
She wanted him to come to Tampa with her, but he didn’t want to go.
Lowkey, I would have liked for him to go with her too.
At least I wouldn’t have to worry about his safety here with me, but we fucked up and gave him a choice and he chose to stay with me.
Now it had been almost nine months since Carla went to care for her grandmother and I was dead ass a full-time dad.
Shit wasn’t easy at all, but I was grateful I didn’t have a daughter because that shit would have had me DOA.
“Aight.”
He got out of the car first, grabbing his bags from the backseat. I sat there for a moment, about to call Killah when my phone started ringing. He must have felt me about dialing him because he was calling me.
“Are you at home?”
“Just pulled up, boutta go over to mama nem’s. What’s up?”
“Nothing, I’m about to slide through. Come take a ride with me.”
I glanced at the time. “Aight, lemme go in here and check on Hattie right quick. You know she keeps sending me all these fucking Google searches of illnesses.”
He laughed. “You are the only person who pays that much attention. You know she be talking to Ms. Gladys up the block. Err’time I look up she got a fucking ambulance outside her spot.”
I shook my head. “And she needs to stay the fuck away from that lady ’cause that’s a bad influence.”
“What?”
“Birds of a feather flock together. My grandma ain’t no ambulance bug.”
“Yo, shut up, dumb ass. I’m out front.”
I got out of the car and headed out the door. My yard was somewhat connected to my grandmother’s, only separated by a flimsy garden gate with a latch. So it took no time for me to go from my yard to hers.
I went in through the back door after climbing the back stairs. Just like I already knew, Mama was at the stove while Grams sat at the table talking to Junior.
“Pops, I'll stay over here for a little while and put Grandma’s bookshelf together.”
I leaned in and kissed my mama’s cheek, then moved to where my grandmother was sitting. “That’s cool. I’m about to take a ride with Killah right quick. I shouldn’t be long.”
He nodded. “My stepmama coming over tonight?”
I grilled the fuck out of him. “Probably. Don’t you got a fucking bookshelf to be building?”
“Posydiann, language.” Grandma hit my thigh.
I glanced around the spacious kitchen, my eyes landing on the golden-brown fried chicken wings sitting on the pan near the stove where my mother stood frying the other pieces.
I didn’t even realize I hadn’t eaten until now.
I had gone from picking Junior up at AAU to getting my truck detailed then the mall with his begging ass.
Now he wanted to play me in front of Grams.
Junior laughed, then hightailed it out of the kitchen. He knew what he was doing, knowing damn well my grandmother and Mama went feral over Karsyn. They knew who he was talking about because she was the only woman who had ever been around him for him to call her his stepmother.
“So, did I hear that correctly? My daughter-in-law is coming over and you didn’t tell me?” Moms asked immediately.
“Probably, knowing her she’s gonna gimme some excuse why she couldn’t. Karsyn is wishy-washy.”