Chapter Four #2
“What I tell you the first time I heard your pretty ass voice, huh?” Darryl nicked her chin. “I’m going to take care of your pretty ass, and when you ready to boss up with a real nigga,” he touched her thigh again. “I can really take care of you.”
“Thanks for bailing me out. As far as taking care of me, I can take care of myself.” Tyler moved his hand and grabbed the handle to exit the car.
“I hear that, but uh, take this contract. Yours ended and I need to have this one signed so I can file it. I’m also going to need you to work with Amber.
I signed her, but I want you to write her a couple of hits to get her started.
She’s not you, but she has potential. I was thinking you could take her under your wing, you know, on some lil sis shit. ”
Tyler calculated all the ways she could tell him to kiss her ass, but then again, he’d probably do it with no problem. Darryl had her royally fucked up. Instead of telling him, she took the thick envelope and exited the truck.
“It’s not ideal,” Darryl called after her. “But this is the business.”
“I hear you,” Tyler nodded. She waited until the truck pulled off before tossing the contract right in the garbage.
It would be a cold day in hell before she wrote anything for the big booty bitch Dexter tried to fuck on.
Sucking her teeth, Tyler headed back into her building.
She was no longer in the mood to run. All she wanted to do was crawl under the covers and sleep the day away.
???
Logic stumbled into the kitchen in search of a bottle of water.
His mouth was dry, and his stomach felt queasy from all the drinking he had done the night before.
What was supposed to be a quick drink turned into Logic joining a dice game and breaking everybody’s pockets.
With extra money in his pockets and a full liver, Logic went home and passed out on the couch.
“Somebody had a good night.” Shugg tooted her lips. She was sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling on her phone and eating a grilled cheese sandwich. “We saw you on the Shade Room,” she enlightened him.
“For real,” Logic mumbled, pulling an open bottle of water from the refrigerator. Glancing at the clock on the stove, he turned to face his sister while taking a seat at the table. “What time Ms. G leave?”
“About an hour ago. She needed to get ready for church. You know ain’t nothing coming between her and her God,” Shugg stated. “Plus, we don’t need a babysitter.”
“She’s not babysitting, she just making sure shit straight.”
“Boy bye, that’s the same thing. Sage is almost sixteen, and Spice and I are mature. You can trust us.”
“I trust yall to be teenagers,” Logic countered. “Who cooked?”
“I did,” Shugg’s twin Spice replied, sliding a plate with two grilled cheese sandwiches and sausage links to him. “Why did you knock that man out like that?” she asked.
“Down goes Frazier.” Logic’s fifteen-year-old brother Sage slowly fell to the ground. “What did he do?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Logic picked up his sandwich.
“And you were with Ty! Did you get a picture with her? Did you tell her you were obsessed with her YouTube channel? Oh my god! You should see if she can come on our Twitch channel for an interview!” Shugg rambled.
“You should see if she’ll do a song with you,” Spice added.
“Nah.”
“Man, you crazy,” Sage snorted. “I would’ve-”
“You wouldn’t have done shit.” Logic waved him off. “It’s Sunday and what do we do on Sunday?”
“Clean,” the trio mumbled, irritated that Logic wouldn’t give them the tea.
Their older brother was usually calm, so if he was on the internet knocking someone out, it was for a good reason.
They didn’t want to dust, sweep, or mop shit.
The troops wanted the tea, and Logic was playing in their face.
Cleaning the house on Sunday mornings is something Logic picked up from his mother, Pepper. She didn’t care who was still asleep; at 8:30 in the morning, she opened up all the windows, cut on FM 92.3 radio, and started dousing the house with Comet, bleach, and Pine-Sol.
“Then do it,” Logic mumbled, reaching into his pocket, dropping a knot of money on the counter. “When yall done, we’ll go do a lil damage. Sage, you can get the Jordans you’ve been asking for, Shugg, you can get your second ear piercing, and Spice can go to Forever 21.”
“Ooo!” Shugg clapped her hands together. “That’s why you're my favorite brother,” she grinned. “Come on yall, we have things to do, places to go, money to spend.” Shugg snapped her fingers at her siblings.
“You a ham,” Sage tossed out. “How is he your favorite brother when you just said the same thing to me for doing your math homework?”
“Oop, that’s my cue,” Spice clamped her mouth closed before sliding out of the kitchen.
“Eww, salty is not a good look for you,” Shugg hissed at Sage.
“That’s why yo ass in summer school now,” Logic scolded. “Stop doing her fucking homework and stop letting him. He knows the shit, you don’t.”
“Ok,” Shugg mumbled, dropping her plate in the sink.
“Aye.” Logic grabbed her arm as she attempted to walk past him. “Being pretty is cool, but it’s not everything. Don’t let social media hype you up. You can only get so far on your looks.”
“Ok,” Shugg sighed, knowing that he was right.
“Don’t try to get ahead the wrong way. Do your homework so you’ll understand it when you get the shit on a test in class.”
Logic released her arm and allowed her to pass him. He was supposed to be living his best life ─ getting pussy by the boatload, partying, and making money. Instead, he was taking care of a household and raising his siblings while trying to keep them from getting sucked into the world around them.
In reality, Logic was a single parent and had been since he was 16 years old.
Instead of his mother gifting him a car, a college fund, or something else any 16-year-old would love, she gifted him with three kids and a shitload of responsibility.
Logic could’ve easily called CPS, but allowing his siblings to go into foster care didn’t sit right in his spirit, so he stepped up.
He didn’t wait for them to be evicted from the house his mother rented out.
Logic shifted right into gear. With the help of a crackhead from around the way, he secured a low-income apartment in the King Homes projects.
Al hooked him up with furniture, and since he was sixteen, all of the bills were in his name.
Logic went to parent-teacher conferences, doctors' appointments, planned birthday parties, and handed out punishments when needed.
He coached his sisters through teenage breakups while giving his brother the game to pull cheerleaders.
Picking up his sandwich, Logic took another bite before fishing for his phone. He wasn’t surprised that his altercation with Dex went viral. Somebody somewhere was always recording, and the world loved being entertained.
Dexter, also known as ‘Dex,’ was in a brawl last night where he was knocked out by Detroit’s local rapper, Lo.
Right now, we don’t know why, but it seems to be in connection to Tyler.
Has Detroit’s R&B Princess reached to the bottom of the barrel, or was this a misunderstanding? You be the judge. The video is below.
“Did these muthafuckas call me the bottom of the barrel?” Logic squinted, clicking on the video.
A grin spread across his face when he saw the way Dex landed on his ass.
The ooohs and aahhs of the crowd made the video that much better.
As soon as he started to watch it again, his phone rang with an unsaved number across the screen.
“What up doe?” he answered.
“So you fighting over bitches in the club now?” The high-pitched voice blared through the phone.
“Good morning,” Logic corrected her.
“Nigg-
Beep beep beep
“Who raising these hoes?” Logic snorted, pressing play on the video. He wasn’t in for even a few seconds before the phone rang again. “What up doe?”
“Good morning, Lo.”
“Good morning, Scottie.”
“You are an arrogant bastard, you know that?”
“So I've been told. What’s up though? Why you calling my phone with all this hostility?”
“Why were you fighting over that famous bitch?” Scottie snaked her neck as if he could see her. “She can’t sing and the bitch not that cute.”
“Damn, you hatin’ hard on baby girl.”
“I’m not hatin’ on that hoe. Why were you fighting over her?”
“I wasn’t fighting over nobody.” Logic pushed up from the table. “And it’s Sunday, shouldn’t you be at church or something? I mean what day do hoes worship the Lord?”
“Logic, please don’t make me pull up.”
“I’m fucking with you,” he chortled. “But what’s up? I know you aren’t calling to check me. Last time I checked I was single as a dollar bill, shorty.”
Taking a deep breath, Scottie selected her next set of words carefully.
She knew Logic wouldn’t sit on the phone and argue with her.
He’d hang up in the blink of an eye and go on about his day like she wasn’t on the other side of town pulling her hair out.
Questioning Logic was like talking to herself.
He didn’t answer her questions, and at the end of the day, he had no reason to. Logic was single and it was her fault.
“I’m not trying to check you, Lo,” Scottie sighed heavily. “But imagine how I feel when you’re all over the internet fighting over a bitch that can’t even sing.”
“Imagine me explaining anything to you besides how I want my dick sucked,” Logic shot back.
“You don’t gotta explain that to me because you and I both know what this mouth do.”
“Talk a lot of shit. That’s what that muthafucka do.”
“Whatever,” Scottie smacked her lips. She had nobody to blame but herself for Logic’s nonchalant attitude towards her.