Chapter 5 #4
The rest of the day, we bounced around from shop to shop until my feet ached.
Going for lunch at a small café, we were seated and surrounded by our shopping bags.
After soup and sandwiches, Frequency seemed even more preoccupied by whatever was blowing up his phone.
He finished his soup and slowly brought himself to his feet.
I watched him nod across the room to the security detail that had been trailing us.
The broad-shouldered, big bear of a man came hurtling toward us.
“D, keep an eye on them. I set up an appointment at the nail spa just across the way here. I’ve already paid and told them to give them whatever they want. Do not take your eyes off of them.” His stern tone got the guard to nod in concurrence.
Ivy peeked up interestedly at her father while she continued to eat her broccoli and cheese soup. “Where are you going, Daddy?” Ivy questioned, and he paused.
His gaze drifted back and forth between us. “I need to take care of some business. Just stay with Harbor and enjoy getting pampered. Harbor, something classy. No bright colors. That shit with the white tips—”
“A French manicure,” Ivy and I said in unison.
He seemed to be tripped out by our response as he tucked his phone into his jacket pocket.
“Yeah, that shit. Not too long. Ivy, stick to solid colors. I don’t want to see a bunch of crazy ass designs and nails so long you can’t even wipe yo’ ass,” he chastised her.
I couldn’t help it; I snickered, and my eyes fell on my food.
For a second there, he reminded me of my daddy, and nostalgia hit me.
Somberness was next as I lost my appetite.
I dropped my fork to my dish and leaned back.
Ivy continued to chew her food. She was an intuitive child, and I found myself wondering about her as much as she seemed to me.
“So what’s really the deal between you and my daddy?” All that innocent shit fled as soon as Frequency was out the doors, and both of my brows raised, shocked.
Suddenly, I was hungry again or anxious to fill my mouth with anything but answers to her questions.
“I’m twelve. I’m not slow or an idiot,” she spoke up, narrowing her eyes at me.
“He loves my mama. Now and forever. He told me so himself. He said he could never love another woman because she was his heart. So… whatever you think this is, you should take heed to this reality check.” The nastiness in her tone was appalling.
Gaping at her with my spoon in hand, I wondered, who is this child, and what happened to the fake ass little heffa that was just all up in my face most of the afternoon?
“Have I given you the impression that you are slow or too young for anything today?” I jerked my neck back and asked.
My reaction to her snippiness surprised her.
I guess she was used to closed-lipped women that allowed her to talk to them any kind of way.
I definitely wasn’t the one for that. I could empathize with her because it was fucked up to lose a parent.
My mother wasn’t dead, but most of the time, it felt like she was.
She left one day and never came back. To me, she did die that day.
“There is absolutely nothing going on with me and your father. He’s a business associate, and he’s helping me out. That’s it.” My explanation didn’t seem to go over too well with her.
“Whatever. You see how he is. He had another woman over, and you are living in a separate wing of our house. I don’t know about you, but I can smell the BS.”
“Hmm, and I bet your father wouldn’t appreciate you using that language,” I retorted, digging back into my bowl.
“As you can see, he is easily preoccupied. I’ve been here for two days now, and we haven’t spent five minutes alone together,” Ivy pointed out.
That was it. She was bitter about being neglected. She went around putting on an act that she was fine with her quick lip, but in reality, she was really crying out for some one-on-one time with her father.
“Maybe you should talk to him about it. I mean, what was today about? You were a brat pretty much all day,” I pointed out with a frown.
Her jaw dropped and she gasped. “I was not a brat!” Ivy objected, smacking her lips.
“You kind of were,” I muttered playfully. “The last thing you have to worry about is me and your father doing anything but making money together.”
“Hmm, so do you have a boyfriend?” she asked, grabbing her drink and sipping through her straw.
Midchew, I paused and looked across the table at her.
“Had one. It was a while ago though. We aren’t together, and I haven’t seen him since.” That was true.
I didn’t want to involve Ivy in whatever was between me and Frequency.
She was a kid, and I wasn’t so heartless to use her as a way to get to her father.
She didn’t deserve it, and I believed in karma way too much to have that shit spin around on me.
My life was already taking a different route, one that I didn’t expect.
Somehow, I was going to have to embrace what was happening.
I weighed the pros and cons of the situation, and with me coming out with so much money, who was I to say otherwise?
Sure, I was adding all kinds of embezzlement and fraud to my record if I ever got caught, but old white men had been milking the system since the beginning of time.
Seemed like it was the perfect era for change.
“We aren’t friends, Harbor.” Ivy broke into my thoughts with her spicy ass.
“No, we aren’t,” I agreed. “My friends are a lot more chill than you. You need to relax. That mean girls shit isn’t cute. Neither is being a bully. Do you even have any friends?” I questioned, and she rolled her eyes before abruptly standing.
I hit a nerve with the little wench. For a second there, I thought we were getting along, but clearly, she had some kind of fucking personality defect.
I knew girls like that in high school. They were all snooty, snobby, and bougie as fuck.
Ivy was well on her way. Her father definitely had his hands full.
By the time her little ass turned sixteen, she was going to be giving him gray hairs and the blues to go along with ’em.
“I’m ready to get my nails done,” she quipped and folded her arms while standing behind her chair. “And since my daddy is paying for it, I want to go now.” She didn’t look at me when she said that last part.
I snickered and shook my head. She was trying to flex her little power like I gave a damn about getting on her bad side.
She didn’t know what the hell was going on around her and was still so young and na?ve.
I was already done with my food, so I gradually pulled myself to my feet, hawking her the entire time. She still wouldn’t look at me.
“Okay, let’s go… princess.” I flashed her a fake smile, and she furrowed both brows while looking at me through the tiny slits in her eyes.
The guard, Deviance, held the door open for us.
Ivy took off first, and I was right behind her.
I wasn’t about to let her fuck up my first day out.
A bitch was feeling like she had been free from prison, and I was going to soak in everything.
I brought a pair of shades to my face as the sun beamed down on me, and felt Ivy mugging out of the corner of her eye.
A faint smile fell on my lips, and that kept her in a funky ass mood the rest of the day.
I talked to her on purpose so that she could get tired of the sound of my voice.
Eventually, she put her earbuds in and tuned me out. I talked to the nail tech instead.
Frequency
Ledge had been hitting me all day, telling me that he needed to see me and that we had a few things to talk about.
My day with Ivy and Harbor was draining.
My daughter was one firecracker ass little girl.
Spending time with her, I was starting to realize that she was actually turning into a young lady.
I didn’t like it, but it was pretty much inevitable for her to grow up, unfortunately.
It was hard to watch because I always pictured Ivana with us when she was doing the milestone shit.
Seeing her with Harbor and laughing at that, it wasn’t anything I was prepared for.
My heart was conflicted. On one side, I was glad to know that my daughter was enjoying her life and growing up.
Shit just didn’t feel right that she wasn’t experiencing it with her mother.
Even with Ledge blowing me up every other second, I managed to soak in a few moments of the day that took me by surprise.
I had to keep a close eye on Ivy, of course, but Harbor was also holding a mothafucka’s attention.
There were a few times where I fell back and watched or listened to her with Ivy.
My daughter was vibrant, and she spoke her mind.
She was rude, like me, and very blunt. Harbor didn’t seem shaken or thrown off from it.
She was more equipped to respond and interact with my child than I was.
Ivy was a handful, and I had too much going on to give her my undivided attention right now.
“Bruh, the fuck is going on?” Ledge demanded.
I parked in the trees beyond our hidden headquarters.
Most of those big hills off the side of the highway were in fact occupied.
Many of those facilities are actually caves.
A lot of private agencies within the government often operated out of those spaces.
That location was ours. Ledge tugged on a blunt and shook his head as I ducked through the doorway to allow myself inside.
“I told you we had a job to do.”
“And I told you I was busy. This ain’t the only shit I got going on right now,” I spat at him.
“Well, this shit needs to be priority.” Ledge made sure the door closed behind me. “We still have a fucking job, Free. You remember that, right?” He knitted both brows together, agitated. “Hired guns, the best in the fucking business. Top tier, high priced. This shit is our bread and butter.”