Chapter 12 #5
I’d been ten seconds from saying I wasn’t with her brother, but here I was, smiling like a crazy woman in the front seat of this vehicle.
Hearing that I was a good catch didn’t have the same effect as being recognized by someone.
I knew I was a catch. My knowing I was a catch was one of the main reasons why I was single.
I’d built myself up, brick by brick, and refused to let a man come around trying to tear it down or control what I’d done myself.
The men who had the pleasure of fucking me hadn’t been worth ten dead dogs.
Being single was easy. It was stress-free.
And before I linked with my girls, it had been the best choice I’d made.
Being single wouldn’t get me the inclusion I want with my girls, though. If I truly wanted to belong, I had to change the status of my relationship, and Tunan seemed willing to help with that.
The car rolled to a stop in front of the last house on a dead-end street.
Even though we were in the hood, all of the houses were new.
They couldn’t have been more than fifteen hundred square feet, but the different exterior colors made them look bigger.
The home we stopped in front of had white siding, dark green shutters that almost looked black, and a small, lush lawn.
It was the biggest on the block, and even though it was just as slim as the other houses, it went up two stories.
There was a group of men hunched down in the middle of the yard, fussing and pointing at each other, while others stood, scanning the area.
“These niggas gone burn the fuck up, gamblin’ in the hot-ass sun.” Parking the car, Tuscany’s phone rang, and the name Aphrodite flashed across the display. “Bestie boo,” she sang as I attempted to scan the yard for Tunan.
“Un hunh! Don’t bestie boo me, hoe! Where my baby daddy?”
My eyes nearly flew out of their sockets as the voice blared through the speakers. Still, Tuscany smiled while looking past me at the yard of men.
“I can’t wait to tell Goal you called my husband your baby daddy.”
“Oh God! Please don’t get him started.”
“Right. But he shootin’ dice. You’ll have to wait till he takes these niggas money, and then call back.”
“Is Tunan playing?” the voice asked.
It was as if he sensed his name because he stood up from the ground with a stack of money in his hands, his hat sitting atop his head in a cocked manner, and a lazy grin on his face.
I couldn’t tear my gaze from his profile while his grin remained in place.
His eyes were on the car, but he hadn’t moved.
I wasn’t even standing, and I could already feel my knees threatening to give out.
My lips parted, but nothing came out except a slight breath.
My hands moistened as I gripped the seat belt diagonally across my body.
Someone said something to him, causing him to look away from the car, and only then did I snap back to reality.
He’s so damn fine.
My inner voice sounded, not helping my current state. It didn’t take long for the other side of my brain to speak up.
But, you know that, Glow. He’s just a man—one of many.
Pulling me out of my head, Tuscany sounded beside me. “Girl, bye! I’ma call you back!”
“Yeah, Exhilarate crybaby self about to wake up anyway.”
“Give my baby a kiss for me,” Tuscany cooed.
“Nope! Y’all shouldn’t have left my daughter. She like Memphis too!”
“No the fuck she don’t,” a deep voice boomed, making both of the ladies laugh.
The line disconnected while Tuscany continued to giggle and shake her head as she gathered her purse from the back seat. She was in the middle of the hood with a Kelly Birkin, reminding me of Jisei and Dasani.
“I can tell we gone be sisters, even if my bigheaded-ass brother don’t make it off the bench.”
I chuckled, and she reached over and grabbed my hand.
“I mean that, Glow. I know Tunan is a little… hardened, but life be like that. I’m not tellin’ you to be with my brother, whatsoever, but I’m a walkin’ testament that sometimes the complex things do work out.
Take my best friend, Aphrodite, that was on the phone just now.
She used to be with my husband before I even knew that nigga existed.
They share a daughter, Athena, and she’s all our baby girl.
Her husband, Goal, is my son’s biological brother.
Crazy… yes. I had a damn child by my best friend’s husband’s daddy, and she got a baby by my husband. ”
Tuscan shrugged like she hadn’t just given me a whole novel’s worth of drama.
“It’s complicated, but it works for us, Glow. That’s all I’m sayin’… complicated can work. Come on… I know Mama ’nem done with the food.”
Before Tuscany could open her door, a fine-ass man, whose skin tone reminded me of a worn penny, was at the driver’s door with a blunt hanging from his lips.
Damn, he’s fine. All these niggas are fine.
If this is the husband, I understand why both her and Aphrodite had babies by him and were now best friends.
He pulled her from the driver's seat, and she giggled like a schoolgirl as he wrapped his arms around her waist while blowing smoke in her face. That was the sexiest thing I’d ever witnessed.
The trunk opened, and then closed, and before I could turn to investigate, my door was being opened too.
“I thought you was gone flake on a nigga.”
How dare the fucking sun sit behind him just right?
Tunan’s smile wasn’t full, but it gleamed just as the biggest star behind him did.
I was starting to make his style, which was streetwear.
While some of the other men I’d been in the presence of opted to mix and match designers and have a perfect balance of street, casual, and business, Tunan didn’t balance shit.
He was all street. A white graphic boxy tee, cut right above his belt loop, matched the yellow and blue Travis Scott Nikes on his feet.
His shorts were also white, fitted, and sat an inch above his knee.
There was a chain belt hanging from the left side of his belt loops.
He couldn’t have been in the sun long because he smelled like soap and Tonka Beans.
His hair had been freshly cut, and if his barber was in the yard, I was giving him not only a tip but a shout-out on my socials. He’d outdone himself.
“Hi, Tunan…” I simpered.
Tucking his bottom lip in his mouth, his teeth were on display as he held out his hand.
Placing mine in his, I flinched at the shock and wondered if he noticed since he hadn’t reacted.
My luggage was at his side in his left hand, confirming he was the one at the trunk a few seconds ago.
I’d overpacked and nearly had to swap suitcases, but I didn’t want to risk checking my bag with the airline.
Glee had been the one to remove a few items and zip the suitcase closed before she shooed me out the door.
As I stood to my full height, which was still many inches shorter than his, he took a step back with my hand still in his.
“You on dat straight from the airport, hunh?”
I didn’t know the context of his lingo, so I just shyly grinned.
Tunan often used words I hadn’t heard before, even though I was heavy in these social media streets. Memphis just had its own language that I wasn’t sure I’d learn before I was back in the air in twenty-four hours.
“You look good, my baby. That’s all a nigga sayin’,” he said, reading my mind.
“Thanks. You look nice too. I love the shoes. I get jealous when I see people in them because I had too many raffles to count and still came up short.”
I remember when the shoes first dropped.
I had my fits picked out and all. But I didn’t get them, and I wasn’t about to ask any of the girls to help me secure them.
I refused to wear replicas since those were the only brands that had reached out to sponsor that particular shoe, and I wouldn’t dare pay five hundred for a pair of Nikes.
I’d just continued to admire them from afar.
“That ain’t shit. I’ma cop ’em for you.”
“Who dat in da whiteeee?” A face identical to Tunan’s stood from the gamblers’ circle while shaking his fist.
“None of yo’ business. Just roll dem fuckin’ dice so I can get dat bread up outcha.”
The men looked like twins. They even smiled alike; it was scary.
“Baguette, this is Glow,” Tunan said as she came up to us with her man’s arms still around her waist as he walked behind her. He hit me with a quick head nod, and I gave a small wave.
“That’s my brother, Turo. Tulen is bent down in the red hat, Tuden got the twist in his head. Tulscan on the way with his wife, Kassie.”
Turo was still shaking his fist as Tunan led us past the group of men. Tulen and Tuden looked up at the same time, and they had faces identical to their other siblings. Their mama literally said copy and paste. I’d never seen anything like it.
“Damn, Tune. How long you been home again?” The one in the red hat, Tulen, licked his lips while pulling money from his pocket.
The whole yard roared in laughter, including Tuscany’s husband. She even laughed with her eyes now red and low from the smoke she’d ingested.
“Long enough, young nigga,” Tunan replied as he pulled me up the four steps that led to the porch. It was massive, stretching across the front of the house with much depth. Four oversized rocking chairs sat empty, and three different children’s bikes leaned against the railing.