Chapter 4 #3
At one point, Amir started telling me stories about his teachers and his friends at school. He told me how he was doing in basketball and asked if I would be coming to his games. Love sat there watching us talk, trying to hide his smile, but it was hard for him.
Every time I laughed at something Amir said, gave him some more food when he asked for it, or made sure he had juice in his cup, Love’s eyes got softer and softer.
Like seeing me around his son did something to him mentally.
And honestly?
Seeing him be a father did something to me.
Not the street nigga, not the jeweler, not the man everybody knew not to play with.
Just him, in his beater and sweats, being a dad.
After dinner, Amir helped me clear the table while Love cleaned the kitchen behind us.
“After the day I had at work, I was thinking about a lot of things,” I said, looking at Love. “This dinner made everything worth it.”
Love dried his hands and walked over to me, kissing me on my forehead.
“Get used to this, it won’t be long before this lil’ nigga is living with us.”
I looked at Amir, and he looked at me like that was a problem.
“I can’t wait! Amir, after the wedding, we’re planning a family trip.”
His face lit up.
“I need that ASAP!”
Love had Amir go take a shower and get changed while I poured myself some wine and took a seat on the couch. Love came back in shortly, sat beside me, and started to roll up.
“You were thinking the worst today, huh?” Love asked like he could read my mind.
“I did.”
He nodded. “I had a talk with buddy, but he’s a clown, and I’ma show him we not a part of his circus.”
I exhaled hard. “What if I talk to him and get him to go back to Cali?” I threw that out there, just to get his response.
“Fuck no!” he flat-out said. “That nigga is not your problem anymore. He’s mine, and I’ma do what is necessary.”
“And what is necessary?” I asked, hearing Amir’s bedroom door open and his feet coming toward us.
“Him being six feet.”
I didn’t get a chance to respond before Amir yelled out, “Let me dust y’all in UNO real quick.”
We played a few rounds, each of us talking shit through different hands. But it made me raise an eyebrow when Love started to win back-to-back.
“Something ain’t right,” Amir voiced.
“Nah, it ain’t,” I agreed with him.
Love didn’t even look up from his cards.
“It’s just experience,” he said, dropping another hand like it was nothing.
Amir leaned forward, squinting at the table like the UNO deck had personally betrayed him.
“Nahhh…” he said slowly. “Pops cheatin’.”
Love gasped like he was offended by the accusation. “Boy, watch your mouth.”
I pointed at him immediately. “But you are smiling.”
He shrugged. “I smile all the time.”
I nodded. “Not like that, though.”
Amir sat back on the couch, arms crossed. “I’ma investigate.”
That made me laugh.
Love threw his head back laughing, then reached over and lightly tapped Amir’s shoulder.
“Just take your L like a man, son, it will be other games.”
Amir looked up at his dad, dead serious. “A man don’t take L’s. A man reviews the footage.”
We both lost it.
“He sounds just like you!” I said, wiping the tears out of my eyes.
Amir shuffled the cards again, like he was resetting his whole life.
“Best of five then,” he declared.
Love leaned back in his seat, looking relaxed.
“Run it.”
We played a few more games, both of them throwing cards like we were playin’ spades or some shit like that.
In the end, Love won three games, and Amir won two.
“That nigga rigged the game,” Amir yelled out.
“You said best outta five, I am the best.”
“Rematch!”
I grabbed my wine bottle. “Boy, you bout to be up all night arguing with your father.”
Amir turned to me immediately. “You on his side??”
I laughed, “I am on the truth side, but I’ma let y’all have this one.”
Love nodded like that was exactly what he expected. “Ya stepmoms learn fast.”
“Come on,” I said, changing the subject. “Let’s watch a movie.”
They both agreed.
Amir picked some shit on Netflix, and I snuggled up in Love’s arm under the blanket while Amir was on the other side in his beanbag.
We weren’t five minutes into the movie when I looked over at Amir, and he was knocked out.
I tapped Love so he could see, and he hopped up, covered Amir with a blanket, and kissed his forehead.
He then walked over to me, pulled me up by my arms, and then picked me up and carried me down the hallway. Once we reached our room, he used his foot to close the door, then laid me on the bed, kissing all over me.
I pulled my head to the side, letting him kiss my neck, and I softly said, “Why come I don’t see that Zone 6 side of you?”
Love pulled away from me slightly, resting back against the headboard while looking at me for a second before speaking.
“My girls know bout you, your son knows bout you…why don’t I?”
“Cause that side of me is not somethin’ I want to bring home to you.”
The calmness in his voice made me pay even more attention.
“I ran the streets in more ways than one,” he continued.
“Not just hustlin’ either. I made it seem like light shit when we first met, but a nigga had workers, movin’ weight and countin’ money.
I was a young and powerful ass nigga and was a no bullshit havin’ nigga.
If somebody said something to me out of the way, I dropped them where they stood, threw niggas bodies on their mommas’ doorsteps.
“I had addicts doing whatever for a fix, street niggas wanting stripes under me. Clubs knew me, the trap respected me, the country fucked with me.” He laughed dryly.
“Hell, I had the police on my fuckin’ payroll and judges lookin’ the other way for me while I took care of their own shit until I got a big head and was doing too much shit for them to look the other way. ”
I sat up in the bed.
“Love…” I whispered softly.
“Nahhh, baby, you bout to be my wife, I’ma keep it G with you.
” He looked directly at me. “I wasn’t no regular ass nigga like yo’ ex-man, I ran the city.
But when I went to prison, that shit changed me for real.
That was the first time in my life I couldn’t act how I wanted.
I couldn’t touch money how I wanted, and being away from Amir damn near killed me. ”
That hit me hard.
Love looked down at his hands for a second before he continued.
“I missed a lot of shit being away from him, birthdays, school shit, first achievements that I had to hear my BM tell me over the phone, no videos. That shit is a different type of pain.”
I reached over and touched his arm gently.
“So I promised my son over the phone that I would never be in the pen again, and I did everything I needed to make sure that I kept that promise. I wouldn’t say I did shit the clean way, but I was smarter.”
“Damn, baby, that’s a lot.”
He nodded once.
“Yeah, it is. But at the end of the day,” he said as his eyes met mine, “the same nigga that survived all that shit still inside of me.”
The room got quiet for a second.
“I just learned how to control him better.”
The way he said it made the chill move across my skin.
He leaned over and kissed me. “You bring the peace outta me, Islah. Amir does too, that’s why y’all get the version of me that you do.”
“And everybody else?” I asked quietly.
He chuckled softly.
“They get whatever version they force out of me, and since I’m being honest with you, I’m glad that nigga is bringing out the old me, to remind niggas that I’m not to be fucked with.”