THINK DIFFERENT #2
Eazy was the spitting image of his father.
Rich, dark fudge skin with a full beard and goatee just like Emmanuel.
Observing the tattoos on his hands and arms, Summit saw something empty behind his stare that he also recognized.
When Niva died, Eazy lost a big part of himself and was still learning how to keep himself together.
He couldn’t say he would ever move on, but he had to push forward.
The fact that he still didn’t have a face behind their ambush was enough to keep him pressing forward. He’d never been one to give up.
“She’s here all the damn time. Might as well move in. Like I don’t know how to take care of me or my wife,” Summit griped.
“She’s just trying to help,” Eazy reasoned.
“She ain’t got no life as it is. Sitting around here ain’t gon’ get her one. I take care of Taci just fine, and she gets around well on her own most days. Plus, Kissa checks on us. More than she should or is required to, but she’s just good people like that.”
Eazy listened to his grandfather explain before grabbing his napkin and wiping his mouth.
“I think I’ll just stay here, at least until I decide whether this job will stick. I can be with Taci when you aren’t here. We can chill and watch football and shit.”
“I don’t need no damn babysitter. I’m a grown ass man.” Summit sneered. “You the one that stay in trouble.”
Clearing his throat, Eazy shook his head and leaned back in his chair with one arm stretched and resting on the table.
The other was propped against the back of his chair.
When his pops died all those years ago, Summit became everything he needed, even when he didn’t want it.
He was hard on him, but it was for good reason.
He knew what the streets could do to you, and Eazy was determined to get caught up in them.
“I’m trying to clean up my act.”
“And I’m trying to take up marathon racing. Get the fuck out of here.” Summit waved him off. “I have some errands to run. Go check in with your grandmother.” Swallowing the last of his tea, Summit stood and snatched his keys off the hook near the door before stepping out onto the back steps.
Eazy glimpsed him over his shoulder and turned his attention back to his food.
When he was done eating, he washed his plate in the sink and headed upstairs to greet his Old Lady.
Essence sat on the edge of Taci’s bed, reading a book while their grandmother studied the news on TV.
His grandmother was a lot thinner than he recalled, but she was still beautiful.
Her smooth mocha skin was nearly wrinkle free, and her wide grayish green eyes drifted over to him lingering in the doorway.
“Is Scrooge gone?” Essence drawled, flipping the pages to the book before closing it.
“Eazy?” Taci’s eyes sparkled, and a small smile teased her lips. “Come here. Let me look at you.” She held out a hand for him.
“I’m going to make you a plate, Granny. I’ll be back.” Essence set the book on the bedside table. Eazy took her spot on the bed beside his grandmother and noticed all the prescription bottles on her table.
“My handsome boy.” She peeped the faint glint in his eyes, and it saddened her when she stroked his cheek and leaned in to kiss him.
Ezekiel was never the type to wear his heart on his sleeve.
When his father died, Essence was a wreck.
She cried for days. Ezekiel moved like nothing happened.
He took care of everyone. When Taci fell apart during planning the funeral, it was Eazy who stepped up with Summit to help.
He was always so strong that sometimes she forgot he could also break.
Losing Niva did that to him. She saw it in his face.
The light was gone. She was his beacon in this dark world after his father passed, and someone took that from him.
“How you feeling, woman?” Eazy kissed her cheek.
“Oh, tired, but that comes with the territory. Essence and Summit argue all day and night. I swear I spend more time playing referee with them than they spend taking care of me.” She laughed, and the corners of her eyes wrinkled.
“I’m taking my old room for a little while. If that’s okay with you. I got a job I start tonight, so I’ll be around,” he said, grabbing her hand.
“How are you?” Taci prodded gently.
“I’m good.”
“Where have you been? What you been up to? You barely talk to Essence. Bull says—”
“What you mean Bull says? He been here?” Eazy queried, suddenly tight.
Tilting his head, he narrowed his eyes on one of the only other women who held his heart.
“He checks on us. Talks to Essence. Is that a problem?” Taci queried, brows crimping into a quizzical frown. “He’s family.”
“Nah.” Eazy shook his head and sighed. “I’m going to grab my bag out the car. I need to shower and get ready for work tonight. You need anything?”
“No, baby,” she said, her lips softening into a warm grin.
When he stood, Eazy knelt to peck her cheek sweetly before stepping out of her room. He went outside to grab his bag from the trunk of his car and met up with Essence in the kitchen, putting food away, when he returned.
“What you doing talking to Bull?”
“Since when is it a problem?” She turned her nose up and glimpsed him over her shoulder while scrubbing a pan.
“Since he married the bitch who set us all up!” Eazy scolded, watching his sister flinch from his words.
“Look, Eazy—”
“I’m not having this conversation with you, E. Stay the fuck away from him.”
“Oh, trust me, I have my own set of problems with Bull, but—”
“But nothing! As far as I’m concerned, that nigga is the fucking opps! He don’t get a pass.”
“You are going off pure assumption. Now, I might not like that he went and married this girl either. It’s not even like Bull,” Essence conceded.
“Might not be like him, but it’s what the fuck happened. Bronx is dead. Niva is dead. I almost lost my life, and Oracle is in a fucking wheelchair!”
“You think I need a recap!” Essence spat, spinning to face him.
She’d been trying to mask her emotions the last few years regarding Bull and this entire situation.
It was the thing that kept her up at night, though.
The reason she could no longer fathom a connection to a man because it was too much work.
The dating pool was utterly tragic these days.
Bull was easy. He knew her. It was so simple for them to fall into a conversation with one another and talk for hours.
Where he was withdrawn with everyone else, she always thought she saw a side to him that other people didn’t.
It was cliché as fuck, and she really should have been past it after all these years, but when he was around, she couldn’t shake him.
It was like the universe somehow found a way to pull them into one another’s orbit.
“I think you need to quit giving him the benefit of the fucking doubt when it’s clear what the fuck he chose! Get the fuck out of your feelings! The nigga took your virginity and played in your face for years!”
“That’s not even what happened,” Essence argued.
“Yeah? Did he ever offer to take you with him when he bounced and flew the fuck off to LA? All you wanted was for him to be some legit mothafucka out here, and when he finally made that move, he did it without you. So, maybe all that soul mate, meant to be shit ain’t what you thought it was.”
“Shut up! The only reason you’re mad is that you’re in your fucking feelings!
You never expected him to choose her over you either!
But he did, and there wasn’t shit you could do about it.
So, miss me with that bullshit, Eazy. At the end of the day, I still trust Bull with my life.
I believe he did this for a reason,” Essence voiced.
“Believe whatever the fuck you want, E. You delusional as fuck if you think he will ever choose you, baby sis.”
Shooting a slicing stare in his direction, she watched him sling his bag over his shoulder.
Eazy stomped up the staircase and slammed the door to his room behind him.
He tossed his bag on the full-size bed inside the room he spent most of his life in.
Dropping his head, he placed both hands over the back and took a couple of deep breaths.
The walls were already starting to feel like they were closing in.
He didn’t have many options on hitting a lick.
With no crew, shit was even more of a risk than it was before.
Lifting his head, his eyes landed on a photo beside the bed on a table.
It was him, Bull, Bronx, and Oracle; taken on the basketball court when they were in the eighth grade.
Lined up on a bench together, with Oracle holding the ball in his lap, they all stared back into the camera with lopsided smiles filled with mischief.
Days later, their innocence was a memory, and goons were born.
“Lotus, my mama said she wish the ground would open up and swallow you in it,” Little Emrys Wakefield told Lotus Bailey while she moved around their very large, pristine kitchen.
It was your typical Friday morning, and she arrived about thirty minutes ago. Your mama is a bitter, middle-aged, bitch. Lotus’s thoughts got the best of her as she washed dishes at the sink from the breakfast they’d finished eating. Instead, she laughed and shook her head.
“I told her that was mean. You’re nice to me and Michael and take good care of us. So, who would do that if you were in the ground?” Emrys wondered, causing a smile to curve Lotus’ lips.