12. Smoke
Smoke
Three Days Later
K aifiya had a meeting with Terry this evening. She was paying him, and she also was planning to ask him for an extension. I knew that she had her pride, so she refused to ask me for help. Although I had offered it on multiple occasions, she always turned it down and told me that she could handle her business.
I respected that shit, but eventually, I knew that I would need to step in. After the way that nigga showed up and showed out on her at her shop, I had wanted to kick his ass. But it was the reaction that I saw tonight while she met with him that convinced me I was about to take his ass to task on that bullshit.
She wouldn’t let me repay him, but I was for damn sure about to beat that ass for the shenanigans he pulled on her. I was heated a few nights ago when she mentioned that he’d been sending some thugs to her business to collect his money every week. I’d been pissed at her for not telling me, but I didn’t let her know that. Kaifiya was already emotional at the time, and the last thing she needed was my emotions on top of that.
I watched that nigga from the moment that he pulled in. I’d paid my friend Quincy a nice little price to have them seated at a table of my choosing so that I could see everything from my spot—what that nigga ordered, what he ate, what he drank, what he paid with, and when that nigga left the table to take a piss. I caught it all.
It took everything inside of me not to go in there and bust a cap in that nigga’s ass when I saw the tears streaming down Kaifiya’s face. Instead, I comforted myself with the knowledge of the shit I was about to do when he stepped his ass out of Q’s restaurant.
I sent Kaifiya a brief text when she grabbed a handful of napkins to wipe her tears away.
ME: Hey, just checking on you. Is everything going okay?
She swiped at her tears before she glanced at her phone. She held a finger up to his ass, and he had the nerve to shake his head and look frustrated. I saw her typing on her phone. I glanced down and saw the bubble message pop up on my screen.
KAIFIYA: Yes, it’s okay. Thank you for checking on me. I almost lost my shit for a moment, but thoughts of you keep me at ease.
ME: That’s what I’m here for. If you want some company when it’s all said and done, just say the word. What did he have to say?
KAIFIYA: He wouldn’t give me an extension. He told me that if I came back to him, then he would forget all about the debt. I told him that I didn’t want him to. He then said that if I were to suck his dick, then he would give me the extension.
ME: That nigga’s out of pocket.
KAIFIYA: I don’t want to ruin your Friday night. I take up enough of your time. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that.
ME: You don’t take up nearly enough. Besides, I’m not doing shit, just sitting here thinking about you.
KAIFIYA: You’re so sweet. Maybe I will call you afterward.
ME: You do that.
I sat there for a little while longer, thinking about the bag in the trunk of my car. She stayed with that punk ass bitch for another twenty minutes before she got up to leave.
I could tell by the way she stormed out of the restaurant that she was upset and that his ass hadn’t given her the answers she thought she needed.
I picked up the phone and dialed a number.
“Yo, Bossman, wassup?”
“She’s on her way out of the parking lot, Sam.”
“I see her moving now. I’m right behind her.”
“A’ight. Let me know when Kaifiya makes it there safely.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to handle that business?”
“Nah. Niggas wanna think I’m playing and shit. I’on be on that bullshit. Tonight, I’m the schoolteacher, and honors class is in session.”
Sam chuckled before I ended the call.
I watched as Terry headed out of the restaurant and jumped into his car. I waited for a minute before I pulled out too. He was stopped at the traffic light when I pulled out of the restaurant, and I purposely drove slowly to give him time to get ahead. When he took a couple of right turns and then left, I knew exactly where he was headed.
I let him get ahead of me, and I took another route to meet up with him. He would stop by the liquor store and then head home.
I was thankful that my boy Finn owned these brownstones. So, when he’d received a call that the exterior building lights were out, he promised to get them changed, but he dragged his feet on that shit.
The lights would be replaced in the morning. But tonight, it was darker than a muthafucka out here. After I parked a few spots down from the nonworking streetlamps, I jogged across the street to the inner courtyard. My eyes quickly acclimated to the darkness.
I walked around to the rear and jimmied the back door open. I didn’t have much time. I ran upstairs and checked the usual spots where people kept guns and found nothing. When I returned downstairs, I checked the front hall and then the living room and bingo! That nigga had a gun in the foyer table.
Because he would have to walk through the living room to get to the stairwell or the kitchen, I took a seat on the couch and waited for him to come home. I glanced at my watch. He would be home soon. I pulled a blunt out of my inner jacket pocket and lit it.
After I reclined on the sofa with my ankle propped on my knee, I rested my arm across the back of the couch and smoked my blunt. I looked around and noticed a woman’s touch with the lace curtains, the colorful knickknacks on the floating shelves, the framed pictures of people I assumed were his family, decorative pastel pillows, an area rug, and the artwork displayed.
A part of me wondered if it was Kaifiya’s touch, but it didn’t quite feel like her. I’d only known shawty a little while, but it felt like I’d known her much longer. I didn’t sense her personality here at all. This was probably the work of the woman he had moved on with, if not a woman before Kaifiya.
I heard the key in the lock. I removed an empty cigar box from my pocket and put the blunt out inside of it.
“Shit doesn’t make any sense. How the hell am I paying these high ass HOA fees, and we can’t get decent service. No lights. What’s next?” he complained aloud.
“Me, muthafucka.”
“Who the hell is that?” he asked and flipped on the light switch.
I smirked at him when his eyes widened.
“What the hell are you doing in my home?”
“You like to pay visits to folks, so I decided to pay you a visit for a change.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The runaround you’ve been giving my lady about that damn money she owes you.”
“And she’s going to pay me back every dime!”
“That wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t harassing her and sending your thugs to her place of business.”
“I have a right to collect my money,” Terry argued as he backed toward the foyer table.
I stood and slowly walked toward him.
“You do. But you ain’t got the right to bully women, especially not mine. Looking for this?” I asked and held his gun up when he pulled the foyer drawer open.
His eyes widened. I emptied the gun and shoved the bullets in my pocket.
“Listen, Smoke. I want no troubles with you. I just want my money. Tell her to pay me, and I’ll be out of her life.”
“Yeah? I hear that’s not all she’s worried about. I heard you’ve been saying some slick shit to her ’bout sucking your dick and getting back with you to get a pass on the money she owes.”
He chuckled. “You can’t blame a man for wanting to bounce off that fat—”
I hit him in the mouth with a set of brass knuckles before he could finish that sentence. I followed that up with a punch to the belly. That nigga instantly went down, and I could hear him gasp for air, as blow after blow, I beat his ass with my bare fist and the brass knuckles on my other fist.
I grabbed him by his collar and pulled him back up until we were eye to eye.
“Smoke.” The word came out in a half-choking and half-gurgling sound.
“If I see you again, if my name or her name comes out of your mouth again, that’s the last time you’ll be breathing. I ain’t giving your ass another warning. Your payments will be delivered to you. You don’t go to her. You don’t call her. You don’t muthafuckin think about her. The next time—”
“You gonna kill me?” Terry managed to choke out.
His words weren’t easily deciphered, but I knew that was what he asked.
“Nah, nigga. That’s easy work. I might be doing that anyway, just on GP. You’re giving her the extension she needs to repay you since she won’t let me do it. And the next time I find out you said shit to her, about her, or let my name come out ya mouth, that’s a bullet in your grandma’s head.”
Terry’s eyes widened. I learned that his grandmother raised him, and he cherished her.
I smashed my fist into his face again and released him until he fell backward. I kicked him several times before I kneeled and beat the shit out of him until he was unconscious.
I wiped down the few things that I touched before I slipped outside, hopped into my car, and headed to the office where I worked for my car sales business. I washed up and changed out of the black running pants and hoodie I’d worn and exchanged them for a pair of army green True Religion cargo pants, a white Balmain T-shirt, and some white Jordans. I sprayed some cologne on, put my jewelry back on, and brushed my hair. Once I checked myself out in the mirror, I was satisfied that I was fresh and ready to roll.
I checked my phone and saw that I had a missed call from Kaifiya by five minutes. I immediately returned her call.
“Hello?” I could hear the tremble in her voice, and that shit pissed me off. It made me wish that I’d put a bullet in his head after all.
“Aye, yo. You don’t sound too good. You want me to run through?”
“My roommate is here, and he’s got company. Not that it matters, but I just don’t want to be here tonight.”
“Bet. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Aye?”
“Yes?”
“Pack a bag.”
“Are you sure?”
“Did I stutter?”
“Thank you, Smoke.”
I ended the call, headed outside, and placed my clothes in the bin that I used for these things. I set fire to it, closed the top to secure it, and locked that shit.
Within ten minutes, I was heading out to the parking lot to hop in my car and head to her place.
Kaifiya was sitting outside on the hood of her car with her bag looped on her arm when I arrived.
“Why didn’t you stay inside and wait for me?”
“I didn’t want to bring their mood down. They’re in the living room having game night.”
“That’s your place, Kaifiya. You need to be safe.”
“And I am. I feel safe and comfortable in my neighborhood.”
I reached out a finger and wiped her wet eyelashes.
“You’re too beautiful to be crying.”
“I just wished that I didn’t owe him shit.”
“I’ll take care of it. Just say the word.”
“Smoke, that’s going from owing one man to the next.”
“Not the same.”
“Sorry. I just need to handle this.”
“I know. But I’ve got your back.”
“I know,” she stated softly.
“Noel good with you sitting out here like this?”
“No. I lied to him,” Kaifiya stated as she looked up at me and chewed her bottom lip.
“How?”
“Noel walked me out here to my car. I hopped inside, started it, and told him that I was heading to your house.”
“And he was good with that?”
“Yeah. He believed me.”
“You need to tell him the truth. What if he comes out and sees your car out here? Don’t let him worry.”
“I planned to tell him the truth after I left.”
I nodded, took her bag from her hand, and grabbed her other hand with mine. I led her to my Range Rover, tossed her bag into the back seat, and pulled the passenger door open so that she could climb inside. After she was seated, I grabbed the seat belt and pulled it over and around her.
When I pulled out of her lot, I asked, “You hungry?”
“No.”
“We can swing by one of the cafés and pick something up.”
“With all that food you pump into my belly whenever we go there, I probably shouldn’t,” she stated, beaming at me for the first time since I’d seen her.
“That ain’t all I wanna pump into your belly.”
I was serious when I told her a couple of months ago that I wanted to slow shit down and get to know her. That was all we had been doing, spending time together, getting to know each other. We hadn’t had sex yet, and I hadn’t gone down on her again since all that time ago. I knew, in time, that would change. In the meantime, I was satisfied with teasing her little ass.
“Excuse me?” Kaifiya’s mouth dropped open.
I winked. “You better close your mouth, ma, before I fill that too.”
She quickly closed her mouth and turned back around in her seat to face forward.