Chapter 17 #3
“You better beat me there because I have had enough of this. The house is one thing but my money?” She was fuming and had me praying I beat her there too.
“Avery, you’re pregnant. Calm the fuck down.” I tried to come at her calm so maybe she would calm the fuck down. The thing is I understood her frustration, so there was only so much calming I could do over the phone.
“Meet me there and handle your bitch or show up ready to move some fucking furniture.” She hung up on me before I could say another word to her.
By now I was in the car speeding like a bat out of hell to Omiya’s shop.
Not only had she hung up on me but she’d just threatened the fuck out of me.
What the hell did she even mean by moving furniture anyway, but the fact that she was going onto her last week of her second trimester.
Doc said she needed to take it easy which is why I booked her a spa treatment for today to do just that. Now look at this shit.
I pulled up to the strip mall where her shop was located about five minutes later. I swear I breathed a breath of relieved air when I saw that I had indeed beat her there. Once I parked and got out of the car I rushed into the shop.
“What the fuck, Toya?” I got her attention while she walked through the store screaming for the employees to go get Omyia.
“Oh, so she called you. You’ve really moved on from me so much that you’re at her beck and call like that.”
“What is all of this? You are a grown ass and you brought your childish ass in here to do what besides rack up a fucking bill that you’re not only about to pay for, but you also about to clean up?” I stepped further into the store.
“Excuse me? I’m no—”
“You know who I am and what I’m capable of. I’ve let the lil’ petty shit fly but all of it stops right here.” I looked toward the employee near the counter before I spoke again. “Do me a favor and go get her a broom and dustpan.”
“Over her? What’s so special about her?”
“Everything. Over that woman you won't leave this motherfucker on foot or breathing.” I knew she got my gist because immediately her eyes reacted.
When shorty came back with the broom and shit she passed it to me and I handed it off to Toya for her to get started. “Ring her up for everything she broke too.”
My eyes were on Omiya’s employee for all of five seconds, before I heard the door open and Ommy’s voice. A peaceful day my ass.
I rushed Omyia before she could get any further into the store.
I could see it in her face that she was ready to beat Toya’s ass and I didn’t need that.
Somehow I was able to usher her to my truck so I could light into her ass in private.
Again, I understood her frustration but if any of this shit affected my daughter it would be me and her.
“Calm the fuck down.”
“You keep telling me to calm down. I’m calm enough because I’m not in there beating her ass. I promise yo—”
“Avery, she’s going to pay for all the damages and clean up after herself. This won’t be a problem again,” I said that shit through tight lips because her frustration was spilling into me.
“You fucking her? Why else would she do all of that?” Now she sounded crazy as fuck, because literally ten seconds ago I had explained it to her.
“Because I told the bitch I’d stop her from breathing over your crazy ass. Are you done or are we about to keep having the same fucking conversation?”
She sucked her teeth. “Don’t act like you’re mad at me when your bitch showed up to my place of business acting ballsy.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have a bitch, Avery. I got your nutty ass.”
Once Toya was finished I made sure everything was good before I made the executive decision that we were going home.
By now Ommy was not only giving me the silent treatment, but she was into her fucking phone like I didn’t exist. She had a whole ass pointless attitude with me.
I could see it in her eyes that she was enraged and wanted to beat Toya’s ass, but she had to know I couldn’t let that happen.
Hell even if she wasn’t pregnant I couldn’t have let that happen because she was better than that.
I didn’t need her letting shit like that bend her out of shape.
“You still ain’t talking to me?” I asked once I was in the driveway of the crib.
She looked up from her phone at me then out of the car. “I’m not, not talking to you.”
“Then what do you call what you just did the whole ride home?”
“Me not talking because I have nothing to say.” She shrugged.
“Get the fuck outta here. You better be fucking when we get in this house, because on my mama this attitude shit is for the birds.” I hopped out of the car and walked around to open her door. Instead of letting her out of the car I barricaded her in the car and buried my face in her neck.
“What is your problem, Avery?”
“Why didn’t you let me beat her ass?” she asked, wrapping her legs around my waist and arms around my neck.
“You feel this? This life in here?” I rested my hand on her stomach between us.
“You were pissed in that moment, shit you’re pissed right now and not thinking clearly.
You would’ve beat her ass, but then later on thought about that shit and realized just how much it wasn’t worth it.
Just how much she wasn’t worth it. She wants your life, and that’s punishment enough for her. ”
She didn’t speak back, but I could feel her soft fingertips under my crewneck against my skin. “Yeah, I’m fucking tonight. After I eat, of course.”
I pulled back and just looked at her. “Says the same motherfucker that wouldn’t say shit on the way home every time I asked what you wanted to eat.”
“Well, we did just establish that I was possibly mad because you didn’t let me beat her ass.”
I laughed. This was indeed that shit. When we made it into the house Niema was knocked out on the couch and lil’ man was next to her snoring his ass off.
Omiya’s pops dropped him off while we were on our way back this way.
That was good, because not only was I ready to lock the house up, but I was ready to lay it down for the night.
I could do that semi-peacefully even though I didn’t have a bit of a clue as to what Namari was doing.
I couldn’t ask because then I’d see like I didn’t have faith in his abilities. So, I had to let that shit rock.
“What’s on your mind?” Omiya’s voice interrupted the silence that had engulfed us the moment we both got onto the bed.
“This may sound repetitive, but everything.”
“It’s not because I know how you think and most of all how you carry things. Lay some of it down if that’s what you need.”
I chuckled. That if was loaded as fuck and she knew it. “If I need to? I turned over and faced her.
“Yes, if you need. I’m not gonna force you to tell me what’s on your mind, North.”
That statement as well earned a laugh from me. “Force.”
“You know what? I’m going to sleep because constantly repeating certain words from my statements isn’t cute. It’s actually annoying.”
“I mean if you’d come out and say what you wanna say I wouldn’t repeat your words. Just say, baby I wanna crawl in your skin and be all in your thoughts. I won’t think you’re crazy or nothing.”
“I don’t care if you think I’m crazy. It doesn’t move me one way or another. If anything, it excites me because you know not to try me.”
“Try you? Damn. I might just have to do that,” I joked. I liked pressing her buttons.
“Goodnight, North. I don’t have time to be going back and forth with you about nothing.” She went to turn around, but I stopped her.
“The hell you do. We got a lifetime of going back and forth to do it.” I leaned forward and pressed my lips against her forehead while my hand caressed her stomach. “Maybe even a few of them.”
“Oh God.” She sighed dramatically.
“All jokes aside I’m wondering if some shit I did earlier was wise.”
“As far as what?”
“Allowing my brother to go off on his own instead of go—”
“Do you think he can do what’s necessary by himself?” she asked before I could finish my sentence.
“Of course, I do. He came to me for somewhat of a green light and I gave it to him.”
“So, you don’t regret giving him the okay, but you’re worried.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I won’t say that worry goes away because it doesn’t.
Unlike any other feeling it has the ability to sit with you for as long as you let it.
Worry is tricky, it’ll thrust the worst scenarios into your mind and have you somewhere chewing at your fingernails.
Worry is a bitch, but if you have faith in the people you worry about it’ll slowly disperse. ”
Everything she said made complete sense and I resonated with it all one hundred percent. I just couldn’t help the fact that my brother’s choices and or decisions weighed heavily on my mind. They probably always would because even though I was out of the streets he was still in them heavy.