~~~Chapter 27~~~
“My brother just can’t get right,” Big Baby vented, now that we were tucked away in our room.
“I know, right,” I responded, while feeding Khari a spoonful of mashed potatoes at two in the morning, no less.
It was made clear that childcare was round the clock, but I couldn’t see myself going to bed without my baby, while some women she barely knew were watching her. A few hours here and there was enough. Especially if the sitters weren’t Ms. Shelia or Tia.
Khari was about to be one, and was a very particular baby. She was a bit spoiled and demanding, so I knew the level of patience that had to be practiced with her, and not every person had that. In childcare of not.
“That’s why her fat ass is spoiled now,” Jaylah tittered, as she was casually laying across the bed. “You give her everything she wants.”
“Then I’m doing my job,” I rebutted. “My baby is supposed to be spoiled.” I leaned forward and kissed Khari’s forehead.
“Right,” she agreed, before going silent for a while.
In the meantime, I finished feeding Khari, before changing her diaper, and pouring her a cup of apple juice. Then we finally scooted back into the bed to get more comfortable. Knowing that my baby was sleepy, I laid her on my chest, and patted her pamper, which was sure to put her to sleep.
“Khamere,” Jaylah uttered softly.
“What’s up?” I yawned.
“I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but I love the father you are for Khari. You’ve really exceeded my expectations, and I just want you to know that I appreciate you.”
I lazily smirked. “Thank you, baby. I appreciate you too.”
“And…that’s why I get so passionate about things.
I want our baby to have a daddy like I had.
So, I get fearful when I feel like you’re doing things that could potentially take you away from her.
No matter what happens between me and you…
I wanna see you win. Because you winning means that our child wins. So…I want you to give me a number.”
I turned to look at her. “A number?”
“Yes. Give me a number that you have to have in order to walk away from the streets.”
I frowned in confusion. “For what?”
“Because. Either I can help you make it, as soon as possible…or I can just give it to you.”
“Huh?” I uttered, struggling to process the conversation, because there was no way that she could’ve been saying what I thought she was saying.
“What’s the number?” She reiterated. “If it’s five or under, I can wire you the money tonight.”
“Five? Hundred thousand?”
“I wouldn’t insult you like that. Five million.”
I gulped, realizing that I’d never experienced the likes of a woman like Jaylah Braxton in my entire fucking life.
“Baby…I appreciate that…I really do, but I got that much in the bank.”
She lightly smiled. “I’m not surprised. But you still didn’t answer the question. How much money would it take?”
Sighing, I turned to stare at the ceiling, knowing the numbers had been readjusted too many times to count. First, it was two million, then five. When I got to ten, I kept saying that I’d stop in a year. Now, a year had come and gone.
“Maybe I’m not asking the right questions,” she guessed, breaking into my thoughts. “I should probably ask what will you have to lose.”
I sighed, while stroking my goatee. “Let me…let me square away the loose ends back home. Then we can sit down and discuss the possibilities. Okay?” I turned to look at her, realizing that her eyes were now closed.
She gently nodded.
For a long while, I laid there, studying her, as she drifted off to sleep. All the while, I knew in my heart that however things played out, I couldn’t lose her.
Jaylah
“Umm,” I moaned, as I felt his tongue flickering over my clit.
It was now morning, and we had the perfect view of the turquoise water and clear sky from our room. I had woken up smiling when I took that breathtaking view, and seconds later, Malice was all over me.
With the sounds of crashing waves as the background noise, he was smacking on my pussy, driving me wild.
My toes were curling, as I was on the verge of an explosive orgasm.
Then right when I was there, he pulled back, before crawling between my legs.
After getting in push-up position, he thrusted the big dick into my opening.
“Huuuuh,” I sharply inhaled, as I felt that pressure, while he ventured deeper.
“Ummmm,” he moaned, while my pussy was loudly smacking, as he dipped in and out of me.
No, lie, I was beginning to believe that I was dickmitized, because I’d gone from swallowing Plan B’s left and right, to just letting the chips fall wherever they may.
Silently, I was chastising myself, because we were still super fresh, and were supposed to be getting assimilated into each other’s lives.
However, I think that I’d fucked up, and was too scared to even address it.
So, instead, I kept focusing on getting him to the right places in every other aspect.
Clamping my walls around his erection, I greedily milked him for all that he had. Then we messily kissed, as he went limp inside of me.
“Baby,” he huskily breathed out. “Why’d you that?”
I leered. “Do what?”
“That thing you do with your pussy. You know that shit’s my weakness.”
“Then you answered your own question.”
“So, you wanna make me weak?”
“Just for me.”
We both stared at each other for a long moment.
“Jaylah,” he uttered, eventually breaking the silence. “You know I love you, right?”
My lips formed a smile, while my heart did the same. “You know I love you too, right?”
He grinned. “Now, I do.”
“Yeah,” I huffed out, as he rolled off me.
“What do you think about looking for a new house when we get back to Houston?” He suddenly questioned.
“A new house?” I frowned in confusion.
“Yeah.” He grabbed my hand, and interlocked our fingers.
“But we both already have houses.”
“Right. But that nigga used to be in that house, and Paisley was in mine. So, both houses are tainted. I feel like we should sell them both. Or you could rent yours out. However you wanna do it. But I want us to live in something that belongs to the both of us. Something that we’ve never shared with anybody else. ”
I took a deep breath. “I’m not opposed to that…but let’s address the elephant in the room, Malice. Do you want to move because of the beef with Paisley’s family?”
He sighed. “To be honest, once muthafuckas start pulling up unannounced to wherever I’m laying my head, then I’m gonna be uneasy.
And this shit is the latter. Even if they pose no threat.
I just don’t like the idea of being that accessible.
But we aint running. I’m just not giving my enemies no type of advantage. ”
“I hear you. But…I could just tell my daddy—”
“Nah, I got it,” he immediately interjected. “But I promise…I promise to God that if I can’t handle it, then I’ll call your daddy my damn self.”
***
Two weeks later…
Things had been moving at lightening speed.
As soon as we came back to Houston, our feet hit the ground running.
We immediately began house hunting, and found the perfect house after two days into our search.
Then after getting the house inspected, we closed on it five days later, paying cold hard cash.
Well…I’m not going to lie and say we . Yes, we both closed on it.
We were both on all the paperwork, but only Malice had opened his wallet.
Thankfully, when I told my parents about the move, they actually thought that it made sense, being that we were starting new, with something that was never attached to either of our exes.
Personally, I usually preferred getting a home built from the ground up, to have it customized to my liking.
However, I was satisfied with the new house, because it had been newly built, was very modern, had three floors, multiple balconies, and a pool out back.
It was in a gated community, and I was now closer to my parents.
During the whole process, I kept thinking about how I had been underestimating Malice’s wealth, tremendously.
Sure, he had nice cars, dressed well, and even had a few properties.
But I knew several d-boys with those same things, and all it took was one loss or two, and they were flat on their asses.
Because accumulating all those things didn’t amount to what they actually had in cash.
Malice had a nice amount of legal money, I realized, but had three times that amount in actual cash.
So, when I asked him for a magical number for him to stop hustling, I think that he couldn’t answer that, because he didn’t even know, anymore.
As I accepted that my man was rich-rich, I also had to reexamine what I’d been asking of him.
I wanted him to walk away from moving dope, without looking back, when things weren’t that simple.
I didn’t know what type of agreement he had with his connect.
I didn’t know everybody that ate with him.
Didn’t know if he paid certain people to do certain things to keep the vultures away.
I knew nothing. I was just in love, and wanted things my way, after knowingly getting involved with a hustler.
So, now, I was trying to take my own advice.
I’d told Paisley to meet her man where he was at, or leave.
And as much as I talked shit, I knew that I was weak in the knees, and wasn’t trying to leave that man.
Therefore, I had decided that I’d stop applying so much pressure on him.
No, I wasn’t abandoning the topic of him retiring, completely.
But I wanted to step away from the badgering, while allowing him to clear his head, and deal with whatever was in front of him.
With everything going on, I didn’t really know what the status of me and Paisley’s beef was.
She hadn’t tried to call me, and she no longer knew where I lived, so there’d been radio silence.
Or so I thought. I realized that Malice could really hold a poker face, when he took his sweet time mentioning that two of his trap houses had been robbed, and the streets said that Drop was behind it.
The nigga dropped that bomb on me casually, as we were in my Maybach truck, headed to Sin J’s boxing match.
“What do you mean that he robbed you?” I pressed, while gripping the steering wheel.
He sighed, while nonchalantly leaning with his elbow on the armrest. “That’s what the streets is saying.”
I frowned in confusion. “Okay. And there’s no emotion behind that?”
“Nah. Not really. Nobody got hurt, and those two spots brought in the least amount of money. Keeping it real, the shit really been maintaining itself. I been wanting to shut it down, but the people who hustle there had been pleading with me not to. So, I just closed shop.” He yawned.
“And that’s it?” I bucked my eyes.
“Either way, it’s nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.”
I pursed my lips. “Don’t patronize me, nigga. I got every reason to be concerned. I’m literally always attending public events. My family has businesses that I’m known to frequent. I have to know the severity of this to move accordingly.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Let me ask you this, Jaylah. Since we’ve been back from vacation, where have you been alone?”
I thought about it. “Nowhere.”
“Exactly. When you go to the store, I’m there. A food run. To even get your fucking hair done. I’m there. And that never dawned on you?”
I bit the corner of my lip. “Not really.”
Smirking, he shook his head. “And that’s why I said not to worry about it. I do what I do so efficiently that your brain be going into autopilot.”
“Whatever. I still wanna know how you plan on handling this situation.”
He licked his lips. “Look, just know this. While they know some things about me, I know everything about them. So, either they think they’re that big and untouchable or just simply forgot who the fuck I am. But they’ll soon see that I’m that same nigga.”
“Same nigga? What does that even mean?”
He gave me a stern look. “What do they call me, Jaylah?”
My eyes brightened. “Malice.”
“Exactly.” He winked
I drummed my nails on the steering wheel. “O-kay.”