Adonis Gates

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Adonis Gates.

“AP, get yo’ ass up. It’s seven fifteen, nigga.” I yelled from the outside of my little brother’s door. I’d already knocked twice so a nigga was being generous. He knew I hated repeating myself.

It was his first day of high school, and at the rate he was going, he was gon’ be late. I had my own moves to make, so I needed to get his ass up out the crib then where I needed to be.

I’d been raising my little brother on my own for the last eight years.

Our mother died at the hands of our pops, who was serving a life sentence for her murder, which left only me to get him if I didn’t want his ass in the system.

I loved the little nigga more than I loved myself, so I couldn’t allow that shit to happen.

At the time I was an eighteen-year-old kid my fuckin’ self, planning to take my ass to college on a basketball scholarship that I’d lucked up and got, but shit quickly changed when my mother passed.

I was pissed with myself for not being there to save her from her demise, but I was gon’ save my brother. I couldn’t fail her again.

I didn’t have a job and shit, so the state tried giving me a hard time when I applied for custody.

Luckily, I had got close to one of the hood’s OG’s, Vado, who put me on his payroll at his auto shop and helped me get a lawyer who ultimately assisted me with getting my brother.

I was forever grateful for the nigga so I made sure none of his bread was ever short when payday came around.

I’d been hustling my ass off, working the blocks at night and cutting hair during the day.

When I was a youngin’ my mother couldn’t afford to send me and AP to the barbershop.

She was too busy supporting her husband’s habits.

She did manage to buy me some clippers and shit though, so I taught myself to do the shit, and got so good that I was cutting everyone’s shit around the way.

I needed better though; some shit that I could pass down to my brother in the future which was why I was going to meet with a realtor after I dropped him off at school to see about buying an old shop downtown.

“AP, I ain’t sayin’ the shit no more.” I barked, hitting his door again.

“I’m up!” he shouted before I heard him mumbling under his breath. I didn’t care though, as long as he got his ass the fuck up.

I made my way to the living room area which was littered with an ass of boxes and shit that AP and I had packed up.

We were finally moving out of our old spot.

My grandma left the crib we grew up in to my mother, and after she passed, we had nowhere else to go, so we were still there.

I’d finally got my money up enough to get a new spot, and I felt like AP needed the shit.

He’d been beefing with the lil’ niggas at school and shit for years, so I was getting him in a new environment for high school.

While he got ready, I started to move some of the shit we had onto the moving truck.

I had a few smokers from around the way that I’d gotten straight to help me as well as my homeboy Ziggy.

The fiends were more than happy to help once they realized their method of payment.

My work was way more potent than the stepped on shit they were used to getting from Brock.

Brock used to be my man. We went back to the sandbox where we first began running together.

Some niggas were fucking with him, trying to jack his lunch and shoes since his mother always had him in the most up to date shit.

I stepped in and beat the niggas asses for him because I couldn’t stand bullies, and we’d been rocking since.

Brock didn’t grow up in the hood like I did, but he wanted everyone to think he had.

I didn’t understand it. He came from a two-parent household where both of his parents loved and took care of him.

He had food on the table every night while I was often wondering where my next meal was coming from.

That shit ain’t matter to him, he was a tyrant, always giving his folks a hard time.

Shit got worse when we started to kick it.

When I met and started working with Vado, I brought him with me.

He wanted in on the hustle, and because he was my man, I had Vado put him on too.

The shit lasted two years before I pulled away from him and we split the city in half, creating the North and South Sides.

I could have axed the nigga all the way out and ran the whole shit alone, but I wasn’t a greedy nigga.

There was enough money for everyone to make, and as long as I could take care of my brother, I was good.

Brock didn’t share the same sentiments and was salty because he knew whether we split shit in half or not, the fiends were going to navigate to me.

I was the one that cooked the shit up to perfection and could sell salt to a slug, he was just the face of the shit because I liked to be low key.

When I fell back, he had to learn to do all the shit on his own and was failing miserably because the streets were dry on his side of town.

“You took my box out the bathroom already?” AP finally appeared.

I glanced up and took his skinny ass in. Nigga was the spitting image of me. He knew I liked to keep myself up. Even before I had money in my pocket, the lil’ shit I did have was always up to par.

“You ain’t want to put no heat to them fuckin’ pants?” I frowned.

“You packed the iron too.” He shook his head.

“Shit still on the counter.” I pointed behind me.

AP was always trying that lazy shit, and contrary to him acting like he was a grown man at times, he was still a baby that wanted me to do every fucking thing for his ass.

“You gon’ do it?” he asked like I knew he would. “You iron better than me.”

“You gon’ help take this shit out?” I quizzed and he groaned. “Exactly. Iron yo’ own shit. And hurry yo’ ass up because I told you to do it last night.” I fussed as he walked down the hall.

“Check you out, in here soundin’ like someone’s mother.” Ziggy teased when he walked in.

“Fuck you, nigga.” I chuckled before slapping hands with him. “‘Bout time you brought yo’ ass on.”

“Had to meet with the truckers on the wake up.”

Ziggy had his own trucking company that we used for transport. It was small because we both agreed that we didn’t need a massive team to get the numbers. As long as everyone pulled their weight, we would see the results we were looking for.

Zig started to help move the boxes to the truck, so I went back to check on AP. When I entered his room, he had the music playing and was half ass ironing his pants.

“Apollo, come on man.” I chuckled, stepping into his room fully and walking toward him. I nudged him out the way and folded his pants correctly before demonstrating how to properly iron them. He was smiling hard as hell as I did the shit because this was exactly what his little ass wanted.

“Don’t even matter how my clothes look for real. The fee’s still on my body.”

“That may be true, lil’ nigga,” I grabbed the pants and pushed them into his chest. “But you should want to look good for ya self.”

“Aight.” He accepted the pants and headed out of the room toward the bathroom.

“And put on lotion, bro. Them hands dry as hell.”

He closed the door, but I knew he was in there talking shit under his breath.

AP was a typical teenaged boy that really thought he knew it all and had shit figured out.

I stayed on his ass because I wanted the best for him and always wanted him to live up to his full potential.

I learned early in life that mothafucka’s weren’t taking you seriously if you didn’t take your damn self seriously, so I stayed on him about his appearance and shit because that was the first thing that mothafucka’s peeped.

Plus, if you looked good, you’d feel good.

After he was done getting ready for school we headed out leaving Zig there with the mothafucka’s that were moving our shit out.

I wasn’t taking any of the furniture and shit but we had an ass of clothes and other miscellaneous shit.

I was just gon’ leave the rest of the stuff there until I decided what I was gon’ do with the place later.

AP wanted to stop and get food, so we hit a drive-thru, then the spoiled ass nigga asked to go to the gas station for snacks, so we slid through there. I let him go in while I stayed outside and pumped the gas.

Baby bro: You want something?

Me: Gatorade.

Baby bro: Aii

Baby bro: Your girl in here.

I glanced up at the store as if I could see through the shit and see who he was talking about before I texted back.

Me: Who?

Baby bro: Jru’s fine ass.

Just as I read the message, she exited the store with Brock’s bitch ass right on her trail, and a few other niggas behind them. He ain’t ever let her out of his sight for too long, and if she wasn’t working, she was with him.

Jruelle O’Neil was easily the most beautiful woman that I’d ever laid my eyes on.

She was about five foot five, golden brown skin, long ass, jet black hair that cascaded down to the center of her back.

Her petite frame was stacked in all the right places, but my favorite parts of her were those pretty ass lips and her light brown eyes that had been calling out for me since the day I met her in high school.

I still remembered how soft they were the first time we kissed.

I met Jru in homeroom our senior year in high school.

She was the new girl that didn’t know anyone, but had everyone’s attention, including mine.

Since I was the first person she met and started talking to, we became extremely close.

I was sure that I’d loved her ass since the very first day because I could never get the image of her out of my head or the sound of her laughter out of my ears.

I would just sit and listen to her ass talk. I learned a lot of shit about her by doing that. She was adopted, moved to the city for a fresh start, and she planned to attend ACU when she graduated because her parents wanted to be close to her and her sister, Geri, who was already there at the time.

Even though I felt a way about her, and thought she might’ve felt the same, I never acted on the shit.

I was too afraid that she might reject me and it would ruin the friendship that we’d built.

The day that I finally got the courage to kiss her, she pulled back and let me know that she was in a relationship, and when she told me who it was, the shit shook me to my core.

She told me that her and Brock decided to see where things go, and that shit broke my heart.

Not only because my apprehension got in the way and allowed me to miss out on what could have been something great with her, but my closest nigga, the one that knew without a doubt how I felt about her, moved in and beat me to the punch.

I didn’t even have time to be pissed with the nigga because I lost my mom right after that, and got custody of AP, so I locked in and focused on that.

Our friendship changed after that though.

I couldn’t really trust Brock like that moving forward, so after two years of trying to keep the business shit up, I fell all the way back.

He always blamed it on me being jealous about him bagging Jru, but that wasn’t it.

For me it was the principle. If he didn’t get that, I didn’t give a fuck.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the infamous Don G.” Brock grinned, tossing his arm around Jru’s shoulder. “We saw baby bro in the store, so we knew mama stork wasn’t too far behind.”

That was Brock’s MO. He always wanted to get a rise out of me, and he knew mentioning AP was the quickest way to get that.

I never paid him any attention because beating Brock’s ass would be no fun.

He couldn’t fight to save his life which was why he always kept a group of niggas with him.

I wasn’t afraid of him or any of his niggas because they all knew how I went about shit, but he also knew I was laxed when I had AP with me.

Ignoring him, I focused my attention on Jru who was watching me intensely. She was dressed in a white button up shirt and some black slacks that hugged her curves perfectly.

“What’s up, Jru?”

“Nigga, don’t speak to my bitch.” Brock snapped, roughly pushing Jru behind him causing her to stumble.

I took the few steps required to close the distance between us, getting in his face.

“Only bitch I see out here is you, and if you push her again, I’m gon’ show her and all these niggas you be totin’ around with you just how fuckin’ much of one you are.”

He held my glare before tucking his tail like the hoe ass nigga that he was and retreating. I kept my eyes on Jru the entire time, and she held contact for a while before reluctantly tearing her eyes from me.

“He ain’t gon’ be satisfied until you wreck his ass, bro.” AP said when he exited the store.

I peeped him standing there, but he knew not to come out when I was pressing a nigga. AP’s safety was priority for me, so I was always cautious when he was around, but I wasn’t gon’ stand for Brock disrespecting Jru in my presence.

There were rumors circulating that he was putting his hands on her and shit, but anytime I saw her she looked fine, and on the rare occasion that I spoke to her ass, she always said that she was good, so I believed her.

Seeing him push her with no regard for whether or not she fell pissed me off.

If we weren’t in such a public setting and my brother hadn’t been there, I would have bodied his ass right then and there.

I slapped AP on the back of his head when he walked past me.

“Get yo’ ass in the car, and don’t fuckin’ curse again when speaking to or around me,” I chastised him.

I wasn’t his parent, but I was his guardian and didn’t play that disrespectful shit. I wasn’t his lil’ ass friend or his equal in any way, so I wasn’t going for no funny shit.