2. July Maxwell
“Aye, Juju. Where you want this at, man?” Evyn asked, carrying my box of albums.
Music was in my blood. Although I used all types of technology to mix and entertain at the parties and events that I was hired to deejay, I didn’t let that stop my love of the old school classics.
My pops, Doug Maxwell, raised us with a love of music.
Whenever we chilled with him on the weekends, he’d pull out that old vinyl and have us listen to how much better it sounded compared to the CDs and internet music.
My sisters, Journey and Jamaya, loved it until they found a more interesting crush to chase, boys.
My little brother, Jordyn, who was now twelve, was like me.
He’d rather spend time with the old man chilling and listening to his music, in exchange for Pops playing video games with him in his spare time.
Unlike my little brother, I didn’t want my pops to do shit else but play that music.
There was nothing like the lyrics of an old R&B or blues song that spoke to your situation.
Nothing compared to the edgy raunchiness of the soul music of the greats like Clarence Carter and Candi Staton singing nasty ass hunching songs.
Shiiid, put on a good Clarence Carter song any day over today’s hip-hop, and I bet I would get a lot more panties tossed my way than today’s music could pull.
Shiiid, women loved to hear Clarence singing “Strokin’.
” It did something to their inner freak and made them want to do all the nasty shit that they claimed they didn’t do on a regular.
“Put it in the spare room across from my bedroom,” I instructed my friend, Evyn.
He was one of three friends who helped me move today. Thaddeus, my best friend, and Evyn and Nick had been my friends since elementary school. We were all from Huntsville, Alabama. We had relocated to Cherokee Springs, Georgia, six years earlier, to attend college, and never returned home.
Evyn moved toward the back of my apartment as I looked around. I rolled my shoulders to release the tension that had accompanied me for the last year. I inhaled a deep, cleansing breath as I took a moment to appreciate my new normal.
It wasn’t what I would have planned for myself, but the reality was that this was my new normal.
“You good, G?” Thad asked as he came and stood beside me. He gripped my shoulder, and I nodded. “On the real. You my homie, and if you need to talk about it, cry or some shit. . . I’m here.”
I narrowed my gaze at him and shoved him off. “Get outta here with all that.”
He chuckled. “I’m just saying. When niggas go through a breakup, they be hurting and shit just like women. Next thing you know, we be ready to kick somebody’s ass and tear some shit up.”
“Or on some rebound bullshit,” Nick interjected as he walked into the living room with us. He unscrewed the cap off his power drink and took a long gulp.
All four of us were coated in sweat from the move. My new apartment was on the third floor of our building. Thankfully, there was a service elevator, something I had taken into consideration when looking for a new place to live.
“Ain’t nobody on no rebound. It’s just me and the first lady in my life. My first love.”
“Music,” my boys all chimed in as Evyn rejoined us.
He shook his head. “I just knew your ass would be walking down the aisle in the next ten months. I had a plan about all the honeys I was gon’ snatch up.”
“You was on some ho shit,” Nick muttered and laughed at Evyn.
“Damn straight I was. I ain’t—” The doorbell cut off Evyn’s comment.
“I got it,” Thad stated and headed for my door. I wasn’t expecting anyone.
“Might be the fine ass bitch welcoming committee,” Evyn noted.
“If you consider pregnant exes that, then I’ll give you that,” Nick commented and nodded toward the front door. I turned and glanced behind me as my eyes narrowed in disbelief.
My palms started sweating, and my breathing increased.
“The fuck? How did you find me?”
“Juju, just hear me out,” Briana pleaded, walking through the door, being led by her belly first. She confidently laid her purse on the foyer table as she waddled toward me.
“Ain’t shit to hear out. Why are you here?”
“I asked you not to do this until we could talk about it.”
“B, ain’t shit to talk about when you carrying another nigga’s baby.” I wanted to say a hell of a lot more, but there wasn’t a need to get too disrespectful.
“It’s not even like that, Juju.”
Briana Carter and I were in a relationship for the last three years and engaged for the last year and a half, as she planned the wedding of the century. I loved that girl with all my heart, and there wasn’t a damn thing that I wouldn’t do for her.
The last few months, those feelings dwindled when I suspected her of cheating.
It had started with little things, like putting a lock on her phone and niggas sliding into her comments on her social media.
It escalated to her being out all night, staying overnight at her girls’ houses, and not wanting to have sex.
When her ex, Jamir, popped up at our house and spilled all the beans, she cried and denied it.
The nights she was supposedly with her girls, she was at his house.
He claimed he was pushing her to tell the truth, but she refused to give up her “meal ticket.” Jamir didn’t want to sit back while another nigga raised a child that could have been his.
I demanded a DNA test for the daughter that I thought I was having, only to learn it wasn’t my kid.
“I don’t know why you’re here, but you need to get the hell on. We ain’t got shit to talk about.”
“It was a mistake, Juju.”
“You don’t mistakenly fall on another nigga’s dick and end up with his seed inside of you, B!” I yelled.
“We can make this work. We can raise her together, Ju. I love you, okay. I fucked up, but you can forgive me.”
“Damn right you did. Seven months’ worth of fucking another nigga who got receipts is on you, love. It ain’t on me.”
“You act like you’re some damn saint, but you ain’t shit! I see how them bitches be all over you at your events. You don’t even want me there.”
“Because you like showing ya ass. That’s my work, B! ’Sides, ain’t none of ’em running up claiming I’m their baby daddy.”
“I wanted more time with you.”
“I was building our future, while you were on ya back building a family with ya ex. Get the fuck on.”
“You’re nothing but a country ass, bitch ass nigga.” She slapped me and then stepped back. Sweat popped out on my head. An unrecognizable laughter with an edge spilled out of me, and my lips and fingers curled. My shoulders heaved up and down.
“Get the fuck out,” I demanded quietly.
“What the fuck you gon’ do, Juju? Huh?” She walked up into my space and shoved me.
“How the fuck you find me?”
“Don’t worry about that shit. You need to man the fuck up. Walking out on your woman when she’s pregnant ain’t cool, Juju.” She shoved me again.
“Come on, B. Chill,” Thad implored.
“Fuck all y’all. This nigga gon’ be back at my door begging to come back before the week’s out. You can’t stay outta this pussy.” She jabbed a finger in the side of my head and mugged me.
I snatched her by her arm, but Thad and Evyn grabbed me and pulled me back, while Nick’s big ass lifted and carried her to the door. I jerked away from them.
“I’m not done, Juju. I will stalk you using that same GPS tracker I put on your car that showed me where you were today. I’ll be at every event you have, showing my ass till you come home,” she screamed as he carried her out the door.
I snatched her purse up and rushed out into the hallway with them. Flinging her purse at her, it smacked her on the side of her head. “Get the fuck outta my life and stay out, Briana!”
“I’m not leaving. This ain’t over, Juju. You can’t just walk out on me like this! I’m pregnant!”
My chest heaved up and down as I tried to calm my anger.
“Go on, G. Get inside. I got her,” Nick stated, bending to pick up her items that fell from her purse.
I was so furious that I kicked half the shit, and Evyn and Thad dragged me back into the house.
“Nigga, you might need to get a restraining order. She’s purposely antagonizing you because she’s trying to get ya ass locked up,” Evyn stated.
“Yeah. She just wanted to get a rise out of you, Juju. You can’t let her know that you still care that much,” Thad advised.
“I don’t. I fucking don’t,” I lied, shaking my head.
By the time Nick returned fifteen minutes later, I had calmed down.
“Nigga, you might wanna get a restraining order on her. I sent her little ass on, but she wants her claws sunk in you,” Nick expressed.
“Yeah, Evyn just said the same thing,” Thad explained.
“Bitches know when they got a good man and fuck around and lost ’im,” Evyn commented wryly.