Chapter 5
SEREIA
“Bitches don’ moved to Wildermere and forgot about her peoples,” said Alani before passing the blunt she was smoking to Danielle.
I sucked my teeth, resting against the back of the table behind me. I was sitting on one of the picnic benches. “Bitch if you don’t shut the fuck up. I ain’t forgot about shit. The only off day I have is Saturday. That nigga Exodus is nuts, but he don’t play about the sabbath day.”
“I never understood that,” said Lake. “Them niggas stayed in church but be out here on wild shit. You say he don’t play about the sabbath. He prayed with you. What kind of manic?”
I lightly laughed and brushed a piece of hair from my face, shifting my eyes towards the entrance gate.
I was in The Woods with my cousins, in the courtyard, kicking it.
I hadn’t seen them all week which was weird as hell.
Most of my distance came from me working but a lot of it was because of Sabrina.
The minute I walked through the gates, I was hit with all kind of questions.
Questions I ignored. I didn’t have shit for them.
I wasn’t one of them ones. I didn’t sit up talking about shit like that.
I especially didn’t want to talk about it because talking about it meant thinking about it and well…
hello… who wanted to think about that? So, I walked right by them, over to Lake’s building.
Ignoring them didn’t stop my chest from tightening when I passed my building though.
Tightening because there was so much grief attached to The Woods now.
I didn’t know how much more of these trips I could take, honestly.
Emotionally, it was safer for me to stay in Wildermere.
Speaking of… work had been somewhat of a breeze.
I was worried about changing briefs and showers, but it wasn’t too bad.
First Lady didn’t poop often. Maybe a couple of times a week which I appreciated a hell of a lot.
When it came to showering, not even that was weird.
I’d set up my phone, play some gospel music, and wash her up.
A couple of times, she reached for the towel and did it herself.
I still kept Hezekiah Walker playing at a low level for her.
She seemed to like that. Three thousand a week was easy.
“Y’all trying to go to the city with me?” Alani asked, dancing to Trouble by Southwest Rah blasting from Dani’s phone.
“When? For what? With who?” Dani asked, passing me the blunt.
“I don’t know,” said Lake.
“You just don’t know because you know Five ass ain’t gon’ let you roll,” Alani said in a joking tone. She was serious though and always had something to say about Lake’s situation. I minded my business unless I was asked otherwise.
“Let? Bitch, I’m grown as hell.”
“With a nigga damn near as controlling as Sean,” Lani continued to joke, taking shit too far.
I squinted at her, twisting my face up. “Bitch what? Did you really just say that? Fuck is wrong with you? Dumb ass.”
She tossed her head back with annoyance, growling like she wasn’t in the wrong. Sucking her teeth she turned the corners of her mouth up. “I didn’t even mean it like that. I was—”
“Talking like you want me to beat the fuck out of you the way D-boy use to,” Lake shot back, taking a dig at how she was just in a domestic situation herself.
“Really bitch?” Lani asked, jaw dropped.
“You went low; I went to hell.”
I couldn’t stand it when they argued. And they argued often. All of us did. Nine times out of ten it would be Lani who’d start it, though. She had so much fucking mouth. What she said was really out of line.
“You really did take it to hell, cuz,” I said with a laugh.
Alani squinted at me. “You think that’s funny, but when I said something about Sean—”
“Sean just killed Sabrina. You didn’t have to mention him at all,” I snapped.
“It’s a problem when I do it, a joke when she do it. That’s that fake shit I be talkin about.”
I sighed, looked away and scratched at the back of my head, immediately locking eyes with Vellz who was heading out way with his niggas. He chucked his chin and smiled. I gave him nothing.
“Stop whinin’ bitch. You shouldn’t have said anything about Sean. Period,” Kiara said. “Anyway… what’s going on in the city?”
Alani rolled her eyes.
“Jaybo and Aries having a party. A pool party and they want me to bring some of the baddest bitches,” she said with a smirk. “Dom, you gotta sit this one out, boo.”
Dominique sucked her teeth and flipped Lani off. “Bitch you wish I was ugly.”
My cousins were beautiful. Every last one of them.
Dom included. Alani liked to fuck with Dominique because quiet as kept, she looked better than her and Lani hated for the attention to be off of her.
Dominique’s thick, pretty, high cheekbone, dark skin ass roll up in a two-piece at that pool party, she was for sure going to snatch all of the niggas.
Alani hated that type of shit. She thrived on attention.
Dressed the part and did everything for the male gaze.
The rest of my cousins were pretty laid back and didn’t give two fucks about a nigga for real.
Me especially. I didn’t do anything for the male gaze.
Any time I got dressed and put in an effort to my look it was for me and me alone. Lani wasn’t the type. At all.
Lani laughed. “Anyway, you bitches riding out there with me or what? Emory letting me use his car.”
“To go to another niggas pool party?” Lake asked, brow cocked.
“Everybody ain’t controlling, Lake,” Alani said, taking another dig at Lake. “Nah, but he think I’m going to Gia’s lil’ party. It was yesterday tho’.”
Emory was Lake’s main nigga. Some would call him her boyfriend—we wouldn’t because the nigga wasn’t shit. Hell, neither was Lani, apparently.
I watched as Lake narrowed her eyes to slits.
Her jaw clenched too. She wanted to put hands on Alani so bad and if Lani made another little slick comment, I was sure she would.
We loved each other, right? I mean, would stomp a mud-hole in a bitch when it came to one of us but that didn’t stop us from getting in the field.
I’d scrapped with all of them except for Lake, which was why she was my fave.
We didn’t do that arguing, falling out shit.
However, between all of us, if there was a real problem, we literally took it to the field and scrapped it out just to be cool right after.
Secret animosity had no residency in the Wilson family.
“I’m down,” Kiera said, passing Dominique the blunt.
“What about you, bitch? Or you gotta get back to the ‘burbs?” Alani asked me just as Vellz and his boys walked under the canopy.
“What up doe?” Vellz spoke to us, his eyes centered on me. He eyed me up and down and pinched his bottom lip between his teeth.
“What up, nigga?” Lani said with a smirk, eyeing him up and down the way he’d just done me. “You look nice. Finally making some money, huh?”
Man, Lani had a fucking mouth on her. Not just with us but with everybody. A lot of people couldn’t stand her ass because of it either. She just said whatever was on her mind, regardless of how the other person might feel.
Vellz sucked his teeth. “Shut up, bitch. Been gettin’ money. Fuck you think you talkin to?”
“Bitch?” Lani said with a laugh. “Don’t make me get—”
“Get whoever. Bet I put they ass in the sky. Fuck on somewhere with that goofy shit, Lani, damn,” Vellz dismissed, approaching me. “I said what up doe, nigga,” he said to me, since hadn’t spoken back.
My eyes were on my busted iPhone, but I felt his on me.
My skin crawled. Vellz’s eyes on me did absolutely nothing for me.
I wanted him to leave me the hell alone.
That was my fault though. That last time we had sex, I literally squirted in his mouth, and he drank every last drop.
Shit like that was more than just freaky.
It was spiritual. He’d literally drank from me—of course he was obsessed.
Back in the day, he used to hold my thighs, mouth clamped down on my clit, forcing me to squirt just so I could cum in his mouth. He was a glutton for that shit.
“Hi, Chevelle,” I dryly said with a deep breath before putting my attention on Lani. “I’ma let y’all have it. I’m not about to go all the way out there on your time. Fuck that. When I’m ready to go, I’m ready to go.”
Alani sucked her teeth. “You so bogus.”
“What y’all about to get into?” Vellz asked, sitting next to me.
I scooted over further from him to the edge of the bench.
“We ain’t about to get into nothing. You see yo boo said she not riding,” Lani joked.
I shifted my eyes up at her, away from the Uber app. “Stop playing with me, Lani.”
Before I could get back to booking me a ride back to Wildermere, Vellz snatched my phone and said, “Let me rap with you for a minute.”
I loudly exhaled and scratched at the back of my head. “Give me my phone, Chevelle. On some real shit.”
He stuffed it into his pocket. “Not until you talk to me.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him. I didn’t have the energy to argue with him or fight for my phone. If he wanted to be petty, he could be petty. Fuck that phone.
Shifting my attention from him, I turned to Lake. “Can I see your phone? I wanna get me an Uber real quick.”
“You about to go already? You just got here,” Kiera pouted. “We barely see you.”
“Y’all about to ride to the city. I’ll be back next week,” I said as Lakeland handed me her phone. Vellz sucked his teeth and pulled mine from his pocket, probably annoyed that he didn’t get the reaction I would have normally given him.
I wasn’t myself.
And wouldn’t be for a very long time.
I was pretty numb. Numb to bullshit. Numb to life. Literally just living this shit on cruise control. When I said I didn’t have the energy to give Vellz the attention he wanted, I meant it.
“We not about to go yet, damn,” Lani complained, showing me the bottle of Don Julio she pulled from her Glamaholic tote. “We about to get faded first. Lil’ pregame. I know you need a shot.”