16. July
I wasn’t sure why Abril was tripping on me. As much as I needed her, I needed peace more. Her comment about Briana baffled the fuck out of me, but I chalked it up to insecurity.
I headed back home, climbed into bed, and pulled the covers over my head. I had put my phone on Do Not Disturb, because I didn’t want to fuck with nobody. I’d just lost my ace, and now my girl was tripping hard as hell.
I slept the rest of the night and didn’t wake up until ten the next morning. I got up, ate, ran a few errands, and then headed straight to a party that I had to deejay.
I got off at three in the morning, headed back home, and crashed again. By the time I woke up, it was a little after two in the afternoon. I showered and dressed before I headed out again.
“Aye, you at home?” I asked Briana after I dialed her.
“Yes. Why?”
“I wanted to roll through and holler at you. You got company?”
“I can cancel for you, baby,” Briana purred.
“I’ll be there in about twenty.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I wasn’t sure what or who she had to cancel, and I didn’t give a shit. Information was my only purpose for heading there.
When I pulled up at the house we once lived in, a feeling of despair washed over me. I hadn’t been back here since I left. I knocked on the door, but she must have been looking out, because she immediately opened it.
“Come in.”
Her baby was in her arms, and she was nursing her. Briana had a blanket over her shoulder, and it covered her daughter’s face and her titty.
“My bad. I didn’t mean to disturb her mealtime,” I stated as I walked inside.
“You’re fine. She’s almost done. I had just finished cooking when she woke up ready to eat.”
I took a seat on the couch and waited while she cooed to her baby and fed her. When she finished, she burped her and then looked at me with a soft smile.
“You want to see her?” she asked, holding the baby out toward me.
I was curious because I hadn’t seen her since she had been born. I hadn’t been on any of Briana’s social media feeds because I was trying to cut her out of my life. So I had no idea what the baby looked like.
Briana leaned over and passed the baby to me before I could respond. I took her in my arms, and she squirmed, wriggling her body up as she made a face. A smell emanated from her that shouldn’t come from any person this little. A long sound accompanied it.
Briana giggled. “She’s a little gassy. Breast milk does that to her,” she explained.
“It’s fine,” I declared, staring at the baby. She was beautiful, and she looked just like Briana with her toasted cinnamon brown face, with her thick curls and pouty, heart-shaped lips. “She’s beautiful,” I noted, handing the baby back to Briana just as she started crying.
Briana placed her on her shoulder and patted her back gently to burp her.
“What did you name her?”
“Tynique Solé.”
I wondered what happened to the time when parents just named their kids shit like Mary, Anne, and Deborah. Half the names that these kids were given, the kids couldn’t even spell them.
“Congratulations,” I replied instead, shoving aside the hurt over the fact that she should have been mine.
“Thank you. Sooo . . . I know that you didn’t come to see her. You didn’t come bearing gifts.”
I frowned, thinking about that. I felt bad because maybe I should’ve gotten the li’l jit a bear or a rattle or some shit.
“Stop thinking too far into it,” Briana countered and squeezed my arm.
I dragged my hand down my face so that I could refocus on the purpose of my visit. “Have you seen Abril since the day you popped up at my place and y’all got into it?”
“Abril?”
“Yeah. My girl.”
Briana’s face scrunched up, and I knew that she hated hearing that, but we were in the place we were because of her actions. It wasn’t anything that I had done to break us up. Her selfishness and nympho ways were what led us here.
“Uhm, . . . I might have seen her a few days ago.”
“Where?”
Briana’s face twisted into a grimace as she looked away from me. She glanced down at her baby, who had started squirming again and released one of those noxious odors.
“Aye, you gon’ have to do something ’bout li’l mama. She’s too little and too cute to smell like that, man.”
Briana rolled her eyes. “She can’t help it.” She moved the baby to her other shoulder and continued patting her.
“Yeah, a’ight. Anyway. Where did you see Abril, Briana?”
She cleared her throat. “At your place.”
“The fuck you mean at my place? You went back to visit her?” The doorbell rang, and Briana looked relieved to escape my presence.
“Can you hold her for a second?” she asked, holding the baby out to me.
I took her warily and stared into her precious face as Briana went to answer the door.
I shook my head as heartache ripped through me once again.
This was supposed to have been my kid. I still couldn’t get past the fact that her daddy didn’t want shit to do with her.
How the hell could you skip out on such a precious miracle like a baby?
She was so beautiful and chunky with her rosy cheeks. I smoothed a finger down her face, and her little eyes fluttered open. She blinked several times before her gaze landed on me.
“Hey, beautiful. Your mama lucked up with you, precious. I mean, once she does something ’bout them bubble guts you got going on, you gon’ snag everybody’s hearts who lay eyes on you.”
The baby opened her mouth and grinned, showing nothing but a mouthful of gums. My heart squeezed in my chest. Shit. I wanted a baby of my own. My attention was drawn away from her when I heard loud voices arguing.
I stood up and walked out into the hallway and toward the front door. Briana quickly made introductions to me and the man standing there. “July, this is Keith, and Keith, this is July.”
“Wassup, man. I was just leaving,” I stated as I held the baby out to Briana.
I wasn’t trying to get in the way of her ho activities.
“Thanks,” Briana stated, taking her baby and kissing all over her face.
“I’ll be back to holler at you. I need answers, Bri,” I declared firmly.
She bobbed her head as she kept kissing her baby. I saw fear in her eyes, and it struck me as odd because I wasn’t certain what she was scared of. I jogged down the steps and headed down the walkway to the driveway.
Then it hit me. All kinds of shit started falling into place, and I could see the missing pieces of the puzzle. I turned back around and mugged the nigga standing there talking to her just as he was getting ready to go into the house. I turned back and jogged up the steps.
“Aye, Keith.”
“Yeah?”
“You work over at ViewPoint?”
“Yeah. I’m one of the maintenance men over there.”
“How long have you been hollering at Bri?”
“About four months.”
My gaze slid to Briana as she backed into the doorway. I never took my gaze off her as I asked him the next question. “Any chance you let her into one of the apartments?”
“Yeah. Three-sixteen. Her brother’s apartment.”
“You make it a habit of letting people into other folks’ apartments?”
“Nah. What’s this about?”
“That was my apartment, nigga. And she ain’t my sister.”
He frowned and looked back at her for an explanation. She shook her head, and tears started pouring. That was the manipulative shit she always pulled when she found her ass in trouble.
“She said she had to get some important documents out because her granddad had died, and her brother forgot them at home. She said they were related to the funeral expenses,” Keith tried explaining.
I wanted to go in that nigga’s mouth and bust her in the head, but she was holding that damn baby. The last thing I wanted was to be the reason an innocent kid got traumatized.
“Bri, stay the fuck out my life. Don’t make me get a fucking restraining order.
I know ya ass was in my place. Couldn’t figure out why some shit was out of place, and it wasn’t till I came back here that I recognized the scent that’s been in my apartment the last few days, your perfume.
Nigga, that’s your job,” I stated, pointing at the maintenance worker.
“Hey, let’s talk!” he called out as I jogged to my car.
I ignored both of their begging asses as I jumped into my car and burned rubber out of there.