38. Love
LOVE
I spent the whole night at the hospital with mama and came home in the early hours of the morning.
Once I got in, I checked on Baby to make sure she was good.
Immediately after she told me she was, I took my ass to bed.
So, when I was woken from my sleep by the phone ringing, I was pissed the fuck off.
“Hello, who dis?” I mumbled; my eyes still closed.
You have a collect call from...
Hearing that made me fling the covers to the side and jump up. I pressed accept before the operator could finish getting the words out.
“Love?” Valentine’s voice echoed through the phone. I let out a deep breath, a nigga ain’t never been so happy to hear from him.
“V, what’s going on, man?” I yawned, wiping the crust from the corner of my eye. Talking to him like this had me remembering how we got in this situation to begin with.
“Nigga, you should've stayed yo’ ass at the fucking crib!” I spat. He sucked his teeth.
“Man, I went out to look for Tank ass. I needed him to confess what the fuck he did.”
I rubbed my chin. “Did you find him?”
“No. His boys said they ain’t seen him all that day. I only went by Princess’s house to change my damn clothes, when the muthafuckas busted down the door.”
“Did you talk to Trey?”
I heard whispers on the other line. “Yeah, he came through.”
You could tell in his tone how scared he was. I never thought I’d see the day where Valentine got spooked.
“Love, I don’t know what the fuck I’mma do in here,” he admitted.
“You gone keep your head down and stay put. We gone get you out.” I was probably giving him empty promises but, right now, he couldn’t do nothing else besides hope.
“How? Trey said the camera ain’t pick up shit. The man next door saw both of us running out, he doesn’t know what went down inside. The owner still alive?”
Trey was looking into that for me to, from what I understood, the man was still in a coma.
“Yeah, for now,” I said truthfully.
He exhaled. “So, I’mma get a murder charge too? Tank set me up to take the fall for this shit.”
“The police out looking for him. Calm yo’ ass down,” I urged him.
“You got to get me out of here. We both know I ain’t got it in me to take somebody out like that,” he said, panicking.
The phone beeped, signaling that time was running out. Shit!
“Aye, Valentine. I hate I got to tell you this right now, but mama had to be rushed to the hospital yesterday.”
“She good?” His voice was filled with worry.
I shook my head. “Nah, she almost went into a coma. Her blood sugar was real low.”
“When she started having them problems?” he questioned, asking the same thing I did.
“I don’t know, but I’mma make sure she straight though. You just chill out. Don’t do nothing stupid either.” Just as I said that, the call disconnected.
I sat there minutes after the phone hung up, wondering if that was the right thing to do. He was already losing his mind, now I done opened my mouth and told him about mama.
A text message came through the phone, interrupting my train of thought. It came in ten minutes ago, from Baby.
Hey, Love. I’m on my way to work, your girl was about to get beat the fuck up. But I sent you a gift, and I’ll call you soon.
I chuckled, licking my lips. That girl gone be a damn handful. Finally getting up, I went to take a shower. Mama was making progress when I left her, so I was gong run a few errands and go back up there. Auntie Delia ain’t wanna leave her side, so I literally had to drag her ass to my car earlier.
Standing under the shower head, I rinsed off. I made sure to get all the soap from my body before I stepped out and grabbed a towel from the rack.
When it came to clothes, I didn’t do too much.
I grabbed a pair of black jeans, all black Nike Air Max, and a Nike T-shirt.
I took my time to smooth lotion onto my skin, sprayed Ralph Lauren cologne on my wrist, and rubbed deodorant under my arms. Picking up my phone from the bed, I headed out to take care of business.
The first thing I wanted to do was holla at Lauren.
I needed a few days to get myself together before I confronted her.
Because I ain’t want Baby caught in the middle, we had to come up with a plan that wouldn’t fall back on her.
I was cruising down the street, vibing to YG’s Jealous on my Bluetooth when my phone went off.
I hit the screen to pick up. “Sup nigga.”
“Love, what’s up?” Messiah shouted. His ass was hyper early in the morning. I leaned to turn the volume down.
“You heard something?” I checked my rearview mirror, sitting my elbow on the console. He was supposed to be keeping his ear to the streets for me.
“Nah man, not yet.”
I figured Tank was gone be hiding out somewhere. He wasn’t no amateur, he knew how the game went. Finding him now would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
On top of all that, this would be his third strike. If he got caught, he wouldn’t be getting out no time soon.
“I just talked to Valentine,” I made it known, switching lanes.
“Word? How he doing?” he asked curiously.
“He going through it, but he’ll be aight.” His ass was babied by mama his whole life, which is probably why he was reacting the way he was. Valentine was stronger than I gave him credit for.
“Cool.”
Pressing my foot on the brakes, I stopped at a red light.
“I was actually calling you because I got a business proposition.”
“No.” Here we go again with the bullshit. These muthafuckas always tryna get me mixed up in mess.
“Come on, you ain’t gone let me tell you what it is?” he remarked with a playful tone.
“No. Valentine came to me on the same shit, now look where he at,” I reminded him. Sometimes, I wish I had just given him the money when he asked for it. “I’m good.”
“Well, this gone make sure both of us eat. You know I ain’t never steered you wrong.”
I could think of a few times, but that’s neither here nor there. The light changed to green as I gave it some thought. I was still not one hunnid percent sold on it. “I’m listening.”
“You know the connect from Mexico we just got that shipment from?”
His name was Cortez or some shit like that, I couldn’t really put my finger on it.
“Yeah,” I uttered apprehensively, wondering where he going with this.
“Well, he had a situation with the connect here, so he called, and we got to chopping it up. Shit, I said if you ain’t fucking with him no more, why not put me and my partna on.”
“Say what, nigga?” I spat in disbelief, hand gripping the steering wheel.
“Ready to jump back in?” He sounded excited, but I was fuming on the other end. How he gonna decide on something like that without talking to me about it first?
“Muthafucka, is you crazy?”
“Just think about it,” he interrupted. “We ain’t even gotta put in work ourselves. These niggas around here already know how we get down.” He tried to reason with me, but I didn’t know about this.
“Ain’t you tryna get back in with Jayda?” I pulled into the parking lot, turning off the car. “The whole reason y’all broke up in the first place is because you were too busy running the streets.”
He sucked his teeth. “She claimed she got a man, Kevin.”
“So? You giving up?” I raised an eyebrow. Let me find out this nigga a pussy!
“Hell nah. Just gotta play my cards right. If we do this, we gone be bringing in big bank though.”
Fuck a bank, them Mexicans didn’t play about their product.
“How much we putting out?” I needed to dot all I’s, cross all T’s, before I agreed to anything.
“Twenty thousand, we’ll go half,” he claimed.
I had that, but I was real cautious with what I spent money on. “I don’t know, man. Plus, I got to be careful how I move around Baby, you know she still on parole.” I had to take her into consideration, always.
“I get that. I’m still tryna fix shit with Jay too.” But if that was the case, he wouldn’t be going back to the shit that broke them up in the first place. That ain’t my business, though. Running my hand down my jawline, thoughts swam in my head.
“It’s gone be different this time,” I warned him. “We ain’t youngins no more.”
“Fo’ sho.”
I would try this out, but the one thing I was gone do was let Baby know what’s up.
I’d always been able to separate my business life from my personal, but I had to be extra careful now because my woman was involved.
She got months left on parole and, until then, I wouldn’t physically go near that shit.
I’d let Messiah handle it and stay in the background until Baby was free. I ran my hand down my face.
“Move it.”
“Bet, I’ll get at you later,” he spoke with excitement.
“Yeah.” I hung up, sighing.
What the fuck I just signed up for? It had been years since I’d been out there like that, swore to myself I was never going back. However, times had changed.
Mama sick and who knew how much her medicine would cost me. I ain’t counting all the other shit that may come up with her. I got a lil’ nest saved up, but it ain’t gone last forever.
I sat for a minute tryna figure out how I was gonna play this. I left my keys when I came to grab my shit. I didn’t have access to get in without Lauren knowing.
We gotta talk. Where you at?
I sent her a text message and waited for a reply.
I’m inside, come on. I’ve been waiting for you, Daddy.
I shook my head. This hoe couldn’t be helped!
Grabbing my phone and black snapback, I put it on backwards and hopped out. Hopefully, after I set her ass straight, she’d take the hint and find somebody else to fuck with.