Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Jruelle.
“If you don’t marry this man already.” Rhea said after I told her about my appointment with Adonis. “I mean my God, he is a man, honey.”
“Yes, he’s sweet.” I blushed.
“He’s been like that, Rhea,” my sister said. “We been begging her to dump her loser of an ex and get with Don G, but she’s a glutton for punishment.”
“Shut up, Gerica.” I playfully rolled my eyes. “Derrick showed interest in me first. If Adonis gave me even an inkling that he wanted to be more than friends all those years ago, things would have turned out differently.”
“Hell, I don’t know what else the man should have done back then to show you that shit. He was literally always up your ass when you weren’t up his,” Cam chimed in and laughed.
“I guess he need to tattoo the shit on his forehead and walk around with signs, bestie.” Geri added and laughed.
“Fuck both of you.” I giggled, hugging my pillow closer.
I was about to tell them to start the game back up since we got off topic, but Apollo ended up coming into the living room to ask me something.
“Ay, Jru, you’ll call Bre’s mom and ask if she can come through for a lil’ bit?”
“No sir, I won’t.” I smiled at him. “You know you brother said you can’t do anything this weekend.”
He’d gotten into trouble again at school, vaping with his friends in the bathroom. Adonis was furious and had taken all of his things. I felt bad for him, but he knew better, and he knew his brother would flip out when he found out.
I was having a little impromptu girls’ night at my house which was the reason my sister, Cam and Rhea were over, but Adonis had some stuff to handle and didn’t want to leave Apollo home alone, so he asked if it were cool for him to come over.
I said yes, of course, but he laid down strict rules.
Apollo couldn’t be on any electronics, he couldn’t have company, and he couldn’t leave the house for any reason at all unless I was going out.
At that point he’d have to go with me because he couldn’t stay alone.
“Come on, Jru, I don’t have nothing to do,” he groaned. “He even took my T.V. out of my room here.”
“As he should. You knew fucking better than that shit,” Geri fussed. “You better be glad that I wasn’t the one that caught you in that damn bathroom.”
“You can’t even go in there, Ms. Geri,” he smirked.
“Had I known you were in there I would have. And would have dared anybody to say something to me,” she sassed.
“Chill.” He laughed then turned his attention back to me. “Can I at least use your iPad to call her?” he pleaded. “She’s my lab partner and we gotta put the final details on our assignment.”
I went back and forth with myself for a few seconds before I said yes and told him where it was in my room.
I knew there was a chance that he was lying about the schoolwork thing, but even if he was, it wouldn’t hurt to let him call his little girlfriend.
I would just make sure that I got my iPad back from him before Adonis came back for the night.
Once he was gone, we got back to the drinking game that my sister had brought over with her. They stayed for another two hours before we finally called it a night. I was tired and a little tipsy, so after I checked on Apollo, I showered and got in bed to watch T.V. until I knocked out.
The sound of my phone vibrating jarred me from my sleep a couple of hours later.
At first I was a little delirious because it was pitch black in the house, but I became more alert when my phone began to ring again.
I grabbed it and noticed that it was a number that wasn’t saved.
I contemplated about answering it for a second, thinking that it could have been Derrick’s ass starting his shit back up, but then again it could have been Adonis calling since he hadn’t made it back yet.
“Hello?” I answered groggily.
“Jru.” Apollo’s voice flowed through my phone in a panic.
“Apollo?” I asked confused, looking toward my door. “What the hell? Where are you?”
I quickly tossed the cover from over my body and rushed down the hall toward his room. When I opened the door, I confirmed that he wasn’t in there.
Shit.
“I’m at the police station,” he mumbled. “C-can you come down here?”
“The police station?” I repeated in disbelief. “Why the hell are you there and when did you leave this house, Apollo?”
“Earlier,” he answered. “Can you come? They won’t let me leave without a parent and I ain’t trying to call Donny.”
“Who won’t let you leave?”
“Ma’am, this is Officer Collier with ACPD. We picked Apollo up in the Northwood community where one of my officers found him hiding behind a car after he and some more boys around his age fled when officers approached. If you can come down to the station, we can give you more details.”
I nodded as I quickly slipped on some leggings and stuck my feet inside of my Birkenstocks that were by my bedroom door.
“I’m on my way,” I let him know before disconnecting the call.
I rushed out of the room, grabbing the car keys from the counter after disabling my alarm, then out of the door.
I quickly hit the lock button on the keypad before I hurried inside of the car, bringing it to life, then quickly backing out the driveway.
In the rearview mirror I saw the lights from Greg’s car come on, so I knew he’d follow me.
I didn’t have time to slow down for him or to stop and let him know where I was going.
I just floored it across town to the police station.
When I got there, a sergeant came out to get me and take me to the interview room that Apollo was in. He had the nerve to be sitting there looking angry at the world as if his little ass wasn’t here because he snuck out of the house.
I took a seat next to him and asked if he was okay. When he confirmed that he was, I turned to the officer that was seated across from us.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked.
He went on to tell me that Apollo and his friends were all caught and brought in after someone called to report that they’d broken into a few cars at The Foundry Townhomes.
Apparently, they’d all been caught on a few doorbell cameras, which was how they were located so quickly.
One of the residents actually came out of the house and trailed them until the police responded to the call.
Once Apollo and his friends realized the police were there, they ran. Each of them was caught in different places. I was absolutely floored after hearing the information. Apollo was very well taken care of, so there wasn’t a reason in hell that he should have been breaking in anyone’s car.
They read him his rights again after giving me the rundown and tried having him sign some documentation for it, but I shut that down because he was able to verbally accept and verify that he understood his rights.
They had me sign a release form and gave me some charging documents that I had to sign in order to release him into my custody.
Almost two hours later we were walking back to my car.
As soon as I was inside, I noticed that my phone was lighting up.
I’d been in such a hurry to get inside to Apollo that I’d left it in the car.
I noticed that it was Greg calling, so I let the call go to voicemail since I was on the way back home.
The entire ride back was quiet, and that was honestly what was best. Apollo wasn’t my child or my biological sibling, but that didn’t make me love him any less. I was infuriated with him because he knew better and anything could have happened.
Greg was in my driveway when I pulled up, so he rushed to the door to open it and immediately questioned me about where I was and fussed about trying to follow me, but I was driving too fast. I let him know what happened and that I had to go get Apollo.
He visibly relaxed then shook his head when he looked at him.
I pointed for him to go ahead and go inside. He knew the code so he could let us in. As soon as we entered, he tried going to the back, but I stopped him and pointed to the couch, telling him to sit his ass down while I turned the lights on.
“Apollo, are you out of your damn mind?”
“Man, I didn’t even do nothing,” he mumbled.
“Y-you didn’t do anything?!” I repeated. “I just picked you up from the police station! These papers say you did a lot!” I held them up in the air.
“Bruh…”
“Bruh?” I frowned.
I wasn’t used to this side of Apollo. He was always respectful and well-mannered with me, so I didn’t know who was sitting in front of me right now.
Just as I got ready to tear into his ass, the front door was opening.
I closed my eyes briefly because I knew that Adonis was about to go off when he found out what happened.
“What y’all doin’ up?” he asked, closing the door slowly. “And y’all dressed,” he examined us both. “Well sort of.” He chuckled looking me over, but his smile faded when he noticed that I wasn’t returning the gesture. “What’s wrong?”
Sucking in a deep breath, I said, “I just picked Apollo up from the police station.”
His brows dipped immediately, and he zeroed in on his brother.
“What?!” he barked. “Fuck you was doing at the police station?”
“Man, they bogus.”
“No, Apollo, you’re bogus.” I fussed. “They had you on camera.”
“On camera? What the fuck is going on? What happened?”
“Apparently, the police got reports that Apollo and his friends were in The Foundry breaking into cars.” I confessed after a heavy sigh. “He called me with an officer and they asked me to come down and get him, then they gave me these.”
I held the papers out. He accepted them and began to look through the stack of nine sheets for breaking and entering, malicious damage, and interfering with the police.
“Ain’t this ‘bout a bitch.” He chuckled humorlessly, still reading over the paperwork then turning his burning gaze to his brother. “What the fuck were you doing breaking into cars?” he growled. “Matter of fact what the fuck was you doing out of the fucking house?”