Chapter 9
CHRISTIAN
Isat on the couch and glanced around Mya’s place. Seeing her laptop open on her desk in a corner, I smiled slightly. There was no way I was gonna let her struggle and take the fun out of something she loved. I’d already gone to the leasing office and paid her rent for the next three months before I came to her unit. I could tell she was struggling. What kind of nigga would I be if I had the money to spare and didn’t help?
Whether I remained in the friend zone or not, I couldn’t sit here and watch her struggle like this. I’d never had a female friend that didn’t cross the line anyway. I wasn’t the type of nigga to be strictly friends with a woman. She would have had to been ugly as fuck, and even then, I wouldn’t be her friend, because I wouldn’t want to look at her for too long.
When Mya walked away, I could tell that her feelings were on her sleeve. I committed that nigga’s name to memory in case I ever had to check his ass again. His rejection had done something to her, although she said she didn’t want him. I knew hurt when I saw it. He had better hope I never had to see him. It wouldn’t be nice or friendly. I didn’t give a fuck what Mya said. She was mine, and she knew that shit too.
It took real restraint to turn her down, especially after I’d tasted her and saw those perfect ass titties. I wanted to grab all that thick ass hair on her head and fuck the shit out of her. I was so close to that shit, but I would have felt horrible if she would have started bleeding or some shit like that. Jess said they didn’t wait six weeks like the doctor had said, but she was married. I wasn’t about to take that chance with Mya, only for her to ghost my ass afterward.
When she came back to where I was, she had changed into a looser T-shirt, warm-up pants, and she was clearly wearing a bra. Her nipples were so fucking hard it didn’t take much to see them through the tight T-shirt she had on earlier. When she jumped in my arms and I felt that hot ass pussy against me, I almost turned the fuck around and went back home.
She sat next to me and asked, “What do you want to eat?”
That was a loaded ass question. My first thought was you. I wanted to eat the fuck out of her. I had never had a desire so strong to eat pussy, not even with Janay. Mya’s young ass had me tripping. I was an entire nine years older than her, and she had me spending money on her ass. That was highly unusual. I wasn’t a nigga that tricked off money. Uncle Kenny and Avery had both taught us to hold on to our money and not let these lil fast ass girls stick us for our paper.
“Whatever you wanna eat is fine. I’m not picky.”
“You sure?” she asked as she stared up at me.
“Yep.”
She gently rubbed my cheek and smiled. “Pizza it is then.”
She seemed extremely happy about that. Her smile widened as she pulled her hand away and placed a call.
“Damn. You got ’em on speed dial?”
“Shut up, Christian. Yes, I do.”
I slowly shook my head as she placed the order. It was rare that I ate fast food. There was no reason for me to do so when my mama was the best cook in Southeast Texas. As if she was reading my mind, she said, “Everybody ain’t got the best soul food diner in the world in their back pocket.”
“You right about that shit. I’m gon’ have to tell my mama and Aunt Jen what you said.”
She smiled at me. “How’s Mister Jasper?”
“First off, don’t call that nigga mister. That don’t even sound right. Just say Jasper. Secondly, I’m pretty sure he’s fine. He’ll be high in a couple of hours.”
She chuckled. “I could smell it on him, so you ain’t gotta tell me. You smoke with him sometimes?”
“Hell naw. Smoking with Uncle Jasper is the equivalent of tryna smoke with Snoop. I’ll sleep for a whole week trying to keep up with that nigga.”
She laughed loudly. “Your lips are too pink to say you’re a smoker.”
“I’m not a smoker. I just smoke every now and then. Jakari smokes the most out of the three of us.”
“He’s the oldest, right?”
“Mm hmm.”
“How’s the baby?”
A slight smile graced my lips. They’d asked me to be the godfather, and I was beyond honored. “He’s perfect. He looks just like Rylan. I already know that he’s gonna be my lil road dawg.”
She smiled big. “That’s so sweet.”
“Yeah, well, it might be a while before I have any of my own. I’ll be thirty-five in a couple of months, and I have no prospects.”
“I find that hard to believe. Just staring at you makes me wanna drop my drawz.”
“You telling me you wanna have my baby, Mya?”
She stared at me as I slid my fingers across her cheek. After taking a deep breath, she said, “If I wanted kids right now, I would. I don’t want children any time soon.”
“When do you want them then?”
“When I’ve aged out of my heaux phase. I gotta make sure that shit is done with first.”
I nodded as she grabbed the remote and pulled up Netflix. She flipped through movies for a moment then handed me the remote. I frowned slightly as she said, “I picked the food, so you pick the movie.”
“You ain’t gon’ wanna watch shit I wanna watch.”
“What type of movies you like?” she asked.
“All kinds really, except drama, but mostly action and comedy.”
“Then pick something funny to watch.”
I exited Netflix and signed into my Hulu account and pulled up Harlem Nights. When I clicked on the movie, she frowned slightly. “What’s this?”
I rolled my eyes. “Man, if you don’t know this movie, I’m gon’ call your dad and cuss his ass out. Real shit. It’s a comedic classic.”
She giggled. “You can cuss Andre out if you want to.”
I grabbed my phone and called him. “Hello?”
“Mister Ceasar, this is Christian. How you doing?”
“Yeah, I have your number saved. I’m good. What about you?”
“I wanna know why Mya doesn’t know what Harlem Nights is.”
“What?”
“I’m at her place, and I picked the movie. She doesn’t know the movie Harlem Nights.”
“Damn. I’ve failed as a father.”
I laughed hard, and so did Mya. When he started laughing too, it only made us laugh harder. “I just wanted to pick with you. I came to check on her.”
“Thanks, Christian. Y’all enjoy the movie. Mya, I can’t believe you embarrassed me like this. I’m so disappointed in you.”
Mya laughed again and said, “Bye, Daddy!”
He chuckled and ended the call. She snuggled into me as I resumed the movie. After kissing her head, I chose to focus on the TV instead of how her body heat was about to have me going back to what we were doing earlier.
“Nigga, where the hell you been?”
“I was at Mya’s yesterday, and I been working all morning,” I said to Kendrall as I sat at a table with my beef tips, rice, and gravy.
“Aww shit. I guess y’all tryna make a friends to lovers novel. Well, guess who called me?”
I rolled my eyes. KJ could make a joke about any damn thing. While he was outgoing and loud most times, he was real quiet about his personal shit, as were most people who stayed in other folks’ business. “Who?”
“Cassie.”
I frowned slightly. “What she calling you for?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess she tryna reestablish our friendship. I don’t know.”
“How long she been engaged?”
“A year, I think.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“Clearly, you think it’s more to it than that. Otherwise, why would you be telling me like it’s tea?”
He slid his hand over his face as Rylan sat with us. “What y’all over here talking about?”
“Single nigga business, family man. Go over there with Jakari, Brix, Decaurey, and Lennox,” KJ said.
Rylan rolled his eyes and slapped my hand. “How’s it going, man?” I asked.
“It’s going good, bruh. Renzo is laid-back, just like his daddy. He eats and sleeps. Angel has to wake him up to eat at night.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Yeah. Lil man likes to sleep. She was panicking at first, though, thinking something was wrong. It took me and her mama to calm her down about it.”
“What was she thinking?”
“You name it. At first, she thought he wasn’t eating enough. Then she thought something was wrong with her breast milk. I told her if he wasn’t fussy, most likely, he was okay. Because he was eating a lot more a week ago, it threw her off. I figured he was probably able to get more in one sitting now. Her mama said that what he was getting was colostrum. After her milk came in, maybe he needed to adjust.”
Rylan shrugged his shoulders as did I. “What did the doctor say? I’m sure Angel insisted y’all call,” KJ said.
“Pretty much the same thing we were saying. That if he wasn’t getting enough, she would definitely know it. He would be extremely fussy and not sleeping nearly as much.”
“Hmm. Maybe he won’t be a big eater like his father,” I added.
Jacob joined us, looking pissed, as Rylan pushed my shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?” Rylan asked.
“Bitch got me fucked up.”
We all frowned. Jacob was the last one to call a woman a bitch. After the abuse Aunt Jen suffered from his biological dad, he made sure to be extremely cautious of how he treated and spoke to women. He never wanted anyone to feel like his mom did for all those years.
“Who?” we all asked in unison, garnering attention from Jakari’s table.
“Man, who fucked up your truck, Jacob?” Uncle Storm asked as he walked into the diner.
We all stood and made our way outside to see it was scratched the fuck up, and there was a hole in his windshield, like someone had thrown something through it. The minute Aunt Tiff, Jess, and Aunt Jen walked outside, all hell broke loose.
“Where the bitch at, Jacob?” Jess asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. “When I came back from mowing the hay field, the shit was like that in my driveway.”
“Who did it then? I know you know that much,” Aunt Tiff said.
“Jameka.”
“Oh! That ratchet ass girl you brought up here last month?” Aunt Jen asked.
Jacob nodded, clearly pissed and embarrassed that all the family was in his shit. He should have stayed his ass at home if he didn’t want nobody involved. That girl had crossed the line. What made it worse was that she lived in Nome. She had to be dumb as hell.
Texas wouldn’t be big enough for her to avoid Jess and Aunt Tiff. Jess was always protective of Jacob. He was her only brother for years before CJ came along, and she said he was too soft when it came to women. However, when that nigga got mad, anybody’s best bet was to stay out of his way. His temper was like trying to fight a damn inferno.
I slowly shook my head as my phone rang in my pocket. When I saw it was Mya, I silenced the ringing and made a mental note to call her back when I left from here. We had a heated day yesterday. After we watched Harlem Nights, I was about to leave, and she started fucking with me again. She knew I wasn’t gon’ fuck her, but I felt like she was using me to get hers. Before I could leave, she was naked on her couch, screaming my name. Right after she got hers, I got the fuck out of there.
After I left, she called, apologizing me up a wall. I should have left before going so far with her. I was on the verge of blue balls when I finally left. I called her when I got home so she would know I made it safely, but I hadn’t talked to her since. I had to distance myself for a minute before I fucked her up. At this point, just talking to her was dangerous.
When I saw Jess and Aunt Tiff get in Aunt Tiff’s truck, I knew all hell was about to break loose. Uncle Storm jumped in his truck, and Uncle Jasper hopped in with him. They weren’t about to leave us though. We got in the truck with Jacob and followed them. Jameka’s family was big, but they weren’t Henderson big.
After we crossed the railroad tracks and I saw Aunt Tiff hit brakes, I already knew shit was about to be on. She hopped out of her truck with Jess right behind her. Jess walked right up to Jameka and punched her in the mouth. No words were spoken. Everybody rushed them, and we were right in the mix too. Niggas liked to fight dirty, but that shit wasn’t gon’ happen on our watch.
Uncle Storm pulled out his twelve gauge and cocked that bitch loud as hell. Jess never stopped swinging on ol’ girl. “Who the fuck you thought you was playing with, bitch? That’s my fucking brother!” She kicked her in the ribs before Aunt Tiff pulled her away from her. “Try that shit again, and I’ll kill yo’ bitch ass!”
“She fucking with him because she know he ain’t gon’ do nothing to her. Hopefully, she realize she ain’t getting away with shit,” Aunt Tiff said to that girl mama.
I supposed they knew each other because the woman only nodded at Aunt Tiff. She also must have known how ratchet her daughter was. The older folks respected the Hendersons for the most part. Jacob leaned against his truck, staring at Jameka. She was still on the ground, moaning. I didn’t know what that nigga was thinking getting involved with that girl.
Shit, he was probably thinking the same shit I was thinking when I fucked her cousin early last week. Courtney and Jameka were first cousins. Courtney just wasn’t as ratchet as her. She was something though. She’d shown up at the diner again yesterday. My mama said she walked right up to her again, asking if I was coming up there. My mama said she had to tell her, “Baby, Christian is a grown man. I don’t keep up with his every move. If you can’t get in touch with him, that’s probably intentional.”
I almost choked when she told me she said that to her, but I was glad she did. Courtney didn’t know how to take a fucking hint. Maybe now she would stop trying to track me down. As I stood next to Jacob, I asked, “You cool?”
He nodded as Uncle Storm stood next to him. “Nephew, I know how you are with women, but next time, call the police on her ass. Don’t let her fuck up your shit without consequence.”
“Hell yeah,” KJ added. “She picked the right one. I would have had her ass licking that fucking cement.”
“You wouldn’t have done shit. You a chip off the weak ass block,” Uncle Storm said, referring to Uncle Kenny.
He only said that shit because Uncle Kenny was approaching, along with Uncle Carter. Uncle Carter was Jacob’s stepdad. Uncle Kenny pushed Uncle Storm as Uncle Carter put his arm around Jacob and pulled him away from everybody.
“Well, I guess everything is done here,” I said as my phone rang again.
I pulled it from my pocket as KJ said, “Must be your homie lover friend.”
“Nigga, that’s gon’ be you and Cassie. Don’t fuck around and be the side nigga.”
I silenced the call again. Mya was gonna have to chill out until I could talk. I sent her a message instead. I’m busy right now, but I’ll call when I can.
She responded immediately. Okay. Sorry.
I slowly shook my head and jogged back to the diner. We weren’t that far away, and I refused to wait on Jacob and Uncle Carter to finish having their counseling session. Checking the time, I knew I needed to get to my next appointment in thirty minutes. We’d left all our food on the tables and hauled ass after Jess and Aunt Tiff. So, I quickly went inside and got a to-go box to take my food with me for later.