Chapter 8 #2
“Do you remember when we went to that new lounge in Frisco,” she said, slow and deliberate, “and you’d just gotten that bad news about your brother’s case being pushed back or whatever it was?
Remember how fucked up you got that night?
When we got back to my place later, the condom broke and you kept going.
The pussy was too good, and gripping too tight that you couldn’t stop.
Or you gone lie like you was too fucked up to remember that ever happened?
Cause I remember it clear as day. And you can grab my purse.
There’s a test in there. I took it today.
” Mallory was being dirty as hell with the description of that night.
She wanted to hurt my wife feelings. I hated that she flattered herself like that.
I mean, the pussy was okay, average at best but it damn sure wasn’t doing all that shit she just said.
Tatti was watching me like a hawk while I moved toward that purse sitting on the floor by the door. Namier stood off in the corner with his arms crossed, looking at all of this like he was watching a movie unfold in real time and couldn’t believe the plot twist.
The whole time I was reaching for that purse, my mind was running through that night after the lounge, trying to piece together what I could actually remember versus what I couldn’t.
I ain’t never been the type of nigga to slip up like that, ain’t never been careless with my shit while I’m sober, but I also knew that bad news about Zaire court continuing to be set back, that shit had put me in a headspace that I hadn’t been in before.
I couldn’t sit here and say for certain that Mallory was lying, and that uncertainty was eating at me worse than if I’d known for a fact she was full of shit.
I pulled the box out the purse. There was a test inside, the little stick was already used, sitting there with two lines staring back at me.
Positive. This bitch was really pregnant.
Tatti was asking me what it said before I even had the chance to process it myself.
I turned around and showed her.
“No,” Tatti said immediately, shaking her head hard. “Make this bitch piss again. It’s another test in that box that’s unused, right? I need to see for myself. And if she is really pregnant, who’s to say it’s yours? If it is, the bastard ain’t gone make it here. You can believe that.”
Mallory started taunting her right then, that same smug look creeping back across her face like she’d won something.
“Awww,” Mallory said, her voice dripping with satisfaction.
“You mad cause I’m having your man’s first baby.
Sucks to be you. Maybe if you wasn’t so worried about stuffing your damn face all day, you’d be more likely to get pregnant by your own husband.
Y’all are married huh? Like you claim to be.
If you’d just take my advice, the next bitch wouldn’t have had to do it for you.
It’ll be you instead of me. But ITS NOT.
” Mallory stuck her tongue out at Tatti, the same way Tatti had done her that night she beat her ass.
I cut that down immediately.
“Shut the fuck up speaking to my wife,” I said, my voice going cold and hard.
“You know damn well you can’t fuck with her on no day.
Yo delusional, stalked out ass can’t think that you look better than her, and you pushing it with the fat jokes.
Yo ass be stressing so hard about me that you in a size newborn, and I ain’t ever been yo nigga.
So of course you confusing thick for some other shit, but watch your mouth. ”
Before I could even finish getting them last words out, Tatti swung.
She caught Mallory so hard in the face that the whole chair flew backward and hit the ground with a crack that echoed through that house, but Tatti didn’t stop there.
She went down on top of her, still tied to that busted ass chair, and she kept swinging like she’d been waiting for a reason to finish what she started her first night on my compound.
Mallory was screaming, trying to twist away, but she couldn’t get nowhere with her wrists still tangled up in what was left of that rope.
Me and Namier both had to grab Tatti and pull her off, both of us wrapping our arms around her and dragging her out that house while she was still kicking and swinging. I needed her to calm the fuck down! She wanted Mallory dead, and hearing about a baby didn’t make the shit no better.
I ain’t know how to feel right now. Hell nah I ain’t want no baby with this bitch, but at the same time, how could I say fuck my own seed, if this shit was real.
Just as I looked up, my mom was standing before us, with her head wrap on, and her house coat.
She crossed her arms and looked at Tatti behavior with a scowl on her face.
“Now, what the fuck is going on here? Are you all really trying to turn my place of peace into a fucking zoo?”
Tatti caught her breath and looked up at my mother standing there like she’d walked out her home and right into a war zone. Tatti snatched away from me and Namier, telling us both that she was calm now and to let her go.
I turned to my mom first.
“I got it handled,” I said. “Go on back home, Ma.”
“This is all my property,” she said, crossing her arms tighter across her chest. “You can’t dismiss me off my own land.
Now tell me what the fuck is going on, cause from where I’m standing, some bitch tied up in there and my daughter-in-law over here acting like a wild animal in the middle of the night.
One thing the Carter family don’t do is ghetto ass drama. ”
Tatti looked her dead in the face, and something in her posture changed. It was like she was done being talked down to for one day.
“With all due respect,” Tatti said, her voice steady and cold, “I think it’ll be in your best interest to not speak on me or to me right now.
We made amends and squashed the beef between us, but I’ll really hate to backtrack over you being out of pocket and not even knowing what’s going on.
Besides, I got some shit tucked away that can really blow up your whole life, Mrs. High and Mighty. ”
For the first time since I’d known my mother to be my mother, I saw something flash across her face that damn near looked like fear.
Like intimidation. It moved so fast across her face that I almost missed it.
It was gone before I could even be sure I’d seen it at all.
My mother was the hardest woman I knew, the woman who never backed down from nobody including her own husband.
She had just flinched at something my wife said to her.
“I don’t think so,” my moms said, but there was a bit of hesitation in it now that hadn’t been there a second ago. “But let’s all calm down. You all are still gonna tell me what the fuck is going on tonight.”
“I got it handled,” I said again, firmer this time. Right now, I couldn’t afford whatever was about to turn into a back and forth between two women I didn’t have the energy to referee. I turned to Namier. “Get both of them home. Then come back.”
“I’m going to Kaseem’s house,” Zuri said, already moving like she’d made up her mind before I even finished talking. “So I can speak to Tatti.”
Namier held his hands up. “Not if y’all about to be fighting and acting a fool,” he said. “I’m tired of being the damn ref tonight. I ain’t got the strength to pull nobody else apart! I done had enough for one night.”
I was too stressed to argue with any of them at that point. I just stood there and let it happen, sent them all on their way while I stayed back at the house with Mallory still laid up on that floor in that broken chair, moaning about her face.
I rubbed my hand over my head and looked up at the night sky, praying that this whole Mallory situation was a lie, some desperate move from a woman who couldn’t stand watching me build a life without her in it.
But another part of me, the part I didn’t want to sit with for too long, was already doing the math. Twelve months. A child required to secure everything I’d been working toward. And here go a baby that might secure my position, whether I wanted it that way or not.