Chapter 18 #4
“Sounds like it’s some trouble over on Chantilly. They better be treating you right over there.” He tosses his head back, exposing his Adam’s apple bouncing as he laughs.
My tongue grows heavy as if I just finished running it across it and picking up the traces of salty sweat that lingered on his skin.
His laugh drifts off into a chuckle, and he slides his hand lower…and lower until it grazes the center of my ass.
He pats it. “You better shut Smitty up.”
“Huh?”
He pats it a little harder. “Ball that fist up and shut him up while I go move the rest of this wood. You gotta stop letting these stupid ass men call you names.”
He steps back, leaving me on the porch with hard nipples as he tramples down the steps and strolls toward the pieces of wood. He picks up the big 4x4s like they’re weightless and marches across the yard toward the shed.
I glance over at Smitty, who’s already staring at me.
“Faye know you be hanging around this cat?” He lazily points his thumb at Rich.
“What’s wrong with me hanging around Rich?”
“Rich?”
“That’s his name, isn’t it?”
He holds his hands up as if I’ll really ball my fist up and sock him with it. “Don’t nobody call him that but Faye and his mama.”
“LaTanya?”
“What you know about LaTanya, girl?”
“Well, now I know she calls him Rich.”
He belts out a raspy laugh, pulling a cigarette out of his crumpled Newport box. “I like you.”
Warmth spreads across my cheeks. “What’s he building?”
“A wheelchair ramp for all those decrepit niggas down at Beatrice’s.” He sticks the Newport between his lips, then pats the pockets on his worn Levi’s.
“You know, you could easily become one of those ‘decrepit niggas?’ Time doesn’t stop for anyone.”
He cuts his eyes at me with a smirk. “Girl, do you know what I am?”
I eye the puckered scar above his lip and his crooked middle finger as he pulls his hand out of his pocket after not finding what he was searching for.
I glance over at Rich walking across the yard, then back at Smitty while his eyes scour the porch, even though what I think he’s looking for is right next to him on the banister.
“You’re the same as Rich…and Senior…and all the guys at Beatrice’s.” I reach out and pick up the red BIC. “You’re a fighter.”
“Mhmm,” he hums, glancing up at me, smirking at his lighter in my hand, then tugging it from my grasp. “So then you should know it’s two types of fighters in this world then, right?”
I shake my head while he lights his cigarette and takes a deep drag. “There’s the type that clings onto ‘what if,’ and then there’s the hell-raisers. The type that live fast and die even faster—the ones that ride solo all the way to the end.”
Rich tosses a block of wood off to the side and swipes his tattooed forearm across his wet face. Smitty eyes me while I eye him.
“Oh yeah? So which one is Rich?”
“Shit, I like to think he’s the last hell-raiser around here. The rest of these niggas been running with their tails tucked.”
“Maybe they want different. There’s nothing wrong with wanting something different…something outside of a life they didn’t plan for themselves.”
He throws his head back, howling out a loud laugh. “Oh. I see what this is.”
“Wha…what do you mean?”
“I’m interrupting a pussy appointment. That must be all the shit you tell Pup when y’all in bed, huh—”
Rich’s heavy footsteps make Smitty’s mouth close mid-sentence while heat swallows my body.
“Didn’t I tell you not to talk like that in front of her?” he asks.
Smitty holds his hands up again, shrugging.
The rain had soaked through Rich’s white T-shirt, making it cling to his hard chest. He eyes Smitty up and down, then reaches around me and grabs his phone from the banister.
“Hm…” he hums, pushing it into my hands.
All of my smart-aleck comments get lodged somewhere in my throat as he brushes his thumb against my chin while I look at his pristine black iPhone like it’s a bar of gold.
“What’s wrong? I know you know how to work it,” he huffs under his breath, waiting for me to show him I still know how to put my number in a man’s phone.
“I do,” I mutter.
“Well…work it.”
I gingerly tap the screen.
There’s no passcode, so I swipe up.
His phone is as impersonal as his house. The wallpaper is still set to the trippy blue default one. There’s hardly any apps downloaded besides the ones that came pre-installed, but there are conversations happening.
Red (Whole Foods)
Knotless boho braids? You like those on me. Shelly said she’d do them for $300.
Red (Whole Foods)
***
Rasheeda
I need the money to pay the fees for that basketball league. Jarell won’t send it and Ky’s the only one that ain’t paid yet. Now he crying about it. He thinks he won’t get to play.
My stomach turns.
I can’t believe I was silly enough to think Rasheeda and Beatrice were the only ones, or maybe I was too caught up to realize that men like Rich are kryptonite to women—especially fragile, broken ones.
My thumb hovers over the screen until he nudges it out of the way to do what he said grown-ass men like him did.
He sends an Apple Pay to “Red” for her stupid knotless boho braids, then he sends another to Rasheeda for Ky’s basketball fees while I covertly read their texts.
His nickname for me is sandwiched in the middle of a long paragraph Rasheeda sent.
She wants to know if he fucks me when they’re not together. He didn’t even respond to the question.
He swipes out of their text thread before I can read all of it and my palm sweats underneath the phone while he peers down at me.
“What?” I rasp with a frown.
“You said you wanna keep up with me, right?”
That wetness comes back, soaking my mouth and panties.
“And I told you I’ll always give you what you want as long as you open your mouth and tell me what it is…” he murmurs.
As soon as his voice drifts off, a text from “Red” pops up. It’s bold and I don’t know how to compete with it.
“Red said ‘thank you for the braids…Daddy,’” I blurt, lifting his phone in front of his face.
He chuckles. “Okay?”
“Who is she?”
He raises his eyebrow, pushing the phone down. “She somebody that ain’t tell me ‘happy birthday,’ get me a gift, or run over here ‘cause she knows I’m scared of the rain. She ain’t nobody for you to worry about.”
My face heats as Smitty blows a cloud of smoke out into the rain, staring up at the wet sky as if we don’t exist.
“Take my phone in the house and get us right. I’ll be in there after I clean this mess up.”