JAMAR
“You have to support her head.” Ebony watched me like a hawk.
“Chill, Eb.”
I didn’t even look her way, my eyes were glued to the eight-pound, twelve-ounce baby girl in my arms. Her cheeks, arms, and thighs were thick and juicy reminding me of my baby pictures I’d seen countless times in old photo albums of my mama’s.
From her dimpled chin to the thick wavy hair on her head, I knew without a doubt she was mine.
“Nigga don’t be telling my cousin to fucking chill. She just pushed out yo baby and you barely even made it on time to be present for it.” Quasia snapped.
“Why the fuck you here? I can’t even enjoy meeting my daughter for the first time without hearing you and yo bullshit.”
“Can y’all please just shut up? I mean just try to get along?” Ebony asked. “That’s her starting with me.” I nodded towards Quasia.
“Whatever.” Quasia flipped her long weave and rolled her eyes.
Silence filled the room for a few seconds before my daughter, Gabriella began to cry a little. I stroked her face and hair a little as I walked around the room slowly.
“Give her to me, maybe she’s hungry.” Ebony reached for the bottle beside her.
“You don’t want to try to breastfeed her again?” I stopped to glance at Ebony.
She was sitting Indian style on the hospital bed with the blankets bunched up at her waist.
“I need a break, my titties hurt already.” Ebony crossed one arm over her breasts as she squirmed under my glare.
“You heard the nurse say that breastmilk is healthier for babies than formula?—”
“She already weighs eight pounds; how much healthier you want her to be?” Quasia chimed in.
“You need to have some fucking kids so you can have somebody to voice yo fucking opinions to.” I shook my head.
“Qua, can you give us a few hours or so, we need to talk some shit out.” Ebony finally stood up to her nosey ass cousin.
“You serious?” Quasia glanced from Ebony and then back at me before she rolled her eyes hard as she forced her body from the chair she sat in. “Whatever, call me when this nigga leaves so I can bond with my little cousin.”
“Eb, on some real shit, I don’t want this bitch around my baby.”
“Nigga fuck you! You can’t dictate who can come around her, fuck you!” Quasia went off.
“Qua, please I’ll call you in a few hours.” Ebony spoke up interrupting the argument before it could really take off.
I didn’t give a fuck what Quasia was saying or how she felt, I meant what the fuck I said.
I never had a problem with Quasia when her and Kyrie were hot and heavy, but now me and her had major issues.
Whatever her and Ebony wanted to do ain’t have shit to do with me, but if Quasia thought she was gon’ dictate what happened when it came to my daughter she had to have been smoking dick.
“Why would you even start with her?” Ebony groaned.
“I didn’t start with her punk ass, she started with me. Fuck her, hand me the bottle.”
“Jamar, you held her damn near all night and all this morning too. Can I hold my daughter now?”
I glanced down at my daughter before looking back at Ebony, I made my way back over to her and put Gabriella in her waiting arms. I watched as Ebony manipulated the bottle until she was pushing the tip of the nipple into my daughter’s anxious mouth.
“You don’t have to stare; I know how to feed her Jamar.” Ebony rolled her eyes.
I said nothing as I took my seat and got lost in my phone for a few minutes, while Ebony avoided my eyes.
“You don’t think we need to talk?”
I looked into her face when I heard her voice. Of course, we needed to talk, it was a lot of shit that was left hanging in the air, but after going back and forth with Quasia I was trying to chill.
“What’s up?” I looked at her waiting for her to speak her mind.
“First of all, I don’t want you to have my daughter around no other woman?—”
“Eb, I wouldn’t do no shit like that. Right now, I ain’t serious about nobody, so ain’t nobody gon’ be hanging around our daughter.” I shook my head.
“Yea, okay. What about the skinny girl you was stuck on a few months back?” She frowned and rolled her eyes.
“What about her? If I’m serious about somebody then I’ll let you know before I have somebody around her.”
She patted Gabriella’s back while she focused on me.
“Why can’t we try to make us work now that she’s here? She deserves a family, is that too much to ask?”
I exhaled a heavy breath as I shook my head, “nah, I don’t think that’s gon’ work.” “Why not? We need to?—”
“It don’t matter what we need no more, Eb. It’s about her, she needs both of us and we bring out the worst in each other. Where you been staying?” I changed the subject.
“With my parents.” She looked away.
“Why would you move back in with them when you had a whole house to yourself?”
“Why would I want to be in that house by myself? It’s filled with memories of me and you and clearly that’s not something you care about anymore. Just tell me what I did? If you tripping on how things were the past few months, I was pregnant and emotional.” She tried to explain.
“It wasn’t just you being emotional, honestly, it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Right, it was the skinny bitch.” She nodded.
“It was me. I ain’t the same nigga you knew two years ago—hell, a year ago—after my mama died and then my Pops...shit just ain’t the same.”
“Alright, Jamar.” She shook her head.
It was a lot of shit I wanted to get off my chest, but I decided now wasn’t the place and it damn sure wasn’t the time.
“On some real shit though, you gon’ have to talk to Quasia about her mouth, yo.” “You need to watch how you talk to her too, she’s my family.”
“And?” I narrowed my eyes at her.
“And she’s only trying to protect me.”
“Protect you? Man, you a grown ass woman, that bitch just nosey as hell.” I blew her off.
“Stop calling her out her name, Jamar.”
“Look, she only going hard on me cause my brother didn’t look twice at her ass last night. She ain’t have shit to say last night when you was getting yo epidural and shit.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes.
“Aw, mommy’s baby need a diaper change?” Ebony grinned at our daughter and started talking to her in baby talk.
“Why you talking like that to her? She needs to hear real words, not that shit.” I shook my head.
“I can’t hold her; I can’t feed her and now I can’t talk to her either? You want to write down the rules for how to raise our daughter?” She glared at me.
“I wouldn’t have to say shit to you if you would have read some of the books I bought you about babies.”
“Oh, I’m a horrible parent for the goo-goo ga-ga, but you can cuss all you want in front of her? That’s cool?” She rolled her eyes and neck at the same time.
“Look, I ain’t saying you doing nothing wrong, I’m just saying?—”
“That you a control freak and you want everything done your way or no way. Jamar, she’s half of me and half of you so you’ll have your way when she’s with you and I’ll have my way when she’s with me.” She shrugged and finished changing our daughter’s diaper.
***
“Baby girl good?” Kyrie asked as I stepped in the house.
“Yea, she eating everything in sight?—”
“Damn, shame Ebony got that baby greedy as fuck already.” He cut in.
I laughed and sat down across from him on the couch.
“Aye, yo when she come home from the hospital with Gabriella I’ma prolly kick it at the house with her for a minute, you know help her out and shit.”
I glanced at Kyrie as he stopped rolling his blunt and focused on me, “What?”
“That ain’t smart.” He shook his head.
“Why not? I damn sure don’t trust Ebony alone with my baby so I’ma stay over there and make sure everything straight.”
“If you say so.” He smirked.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It ain’t supposed to mean shit, it means exactly what the fuck I said. You know just like I know if you go live with that scheming ass hoe long enough you gon’ be back eating out the palm of her hand.” He shook his head.
“Man, I ain’t fucking with Ebony like that.”
“Nigga, who the fuck you think you fooling? I seen that damn twinkle in yo eye last night, you can talk all that shit about being around Ebony for Gabriella all you want, but I ain’t convinced.” He shrugged. “All I’m saying is don’t get caught up in Ebony’s shit again.”
“I’m good. What’s up with you and Blaine?”
I watched my brother smother a smile and I shook my head.
“That’s why you got all the advice, cause you falling for Blaine. How she get yo mean ass to give her a second chance?”
“What you mean?” he laughed.
“You was just popping shit about all these bitches out here being the same, now you sitting here grinning like you just won the lottery.” I called him out.
“You wildin’.” He laughed a little. “We good, she dope. I just keep telling myself she too good to be true.”
“Oh shit, you in love now nigga.”
He sparked the blunt and shook his head, “Real niggas don’t fall in love, that shit ain’t real.”
“I want that love my parents had, I don’t give a fuck about hood love.”
“That shit mama and Pops had is some once in a lifetime shit, I don’t think we gon’ find that out here.” Kyrie passed me the blunt and rose from the couch.
He poured two glasses of Hennessey and passed me one, “Here.”
I took the glass from him and we tossed the drinks back.
“You was supposed to say something, like toast or something, right?” he asked. “What the fuck?” I laughed. “To Hood love nigga.” I poured another drink. “Yeah, whatever.”