Chapter 5 #2
“Nobody eats everything in sight but you,” Jaylah jabbed at him.
Just as expected, they went back and forth, until everybody was in the sitting area, after freaking on the bunk beds.
Me and Riah remained right next to each other and her brothers were so freaked-out with their girls that they didn’t pay us no mind. We just all laughed together and before we knew it, we were pulling up to the camp site.
***
Yo, I never thought that something like camping could be so lit. We were out by the lake. I was literally having the time of my fucking life. We’d been kayaking, water skiing, and they’d rented out these party boats that night, where we danced and laughed the whole time.
Honestly, I was kicking myself for waiting so long to make the move.
This lifestyle was completely different and I never wanted to go back to anything else.
The way Lil’ Jah’s people had orchestrated everything down to the letter was impressive.
We were in the outdoors, but had every accommodation known to man.
At the end of the night we had a campfire and we couldn’t stop laughing.
“Lil’ Jah,” Jhyrah laughed, as we were all sitting in lawn chairs. “Let me find out that you’re trying to reenact one of those horror movies, boy. Got us out here on some white people shit.”
Everybody laughed harder, probably all having similar thoughts.
“Nah, chill out, girl,” Lil Jah chuckled. “I just wanted to kick it with family. Sometimes I get busy and just miss being with my people. And this is intimate. Aint no rooms to duck off in, and we gotta be in each other’s faces.”
“Right. I aint gon lie, this shit is cooler than a muthafucka,” their cousin Keyasia’s man Wale chimed in.
“Yeah, this is dope,” I admitted with a nod.
Lil’ Jah glanced my way. “So, you been enjoying yourself, Champ?”
I laughed, because that nigga had been calling me Champ ever since I’d knocked out Jules’s bitch ass. “Yea, I have.”
He nodded with a smile. “I see that you been getting real cozy with my baby sister. Like…everywhere I see her, I see you. She’s all but sitting in your lap, right now.”
Sitting right next to me, Riah sucked her teeth, probably not liking the way he’d put us on the spot.
“Yea, we cool like that,” I responded.
“Cool, huh?” He lifted his chin.
“Yea.”
“Alright…Champ. We know you got them hands and shit, but we don’t play ‘bout her. So, we’ll be alright as long she’s smiling.”
I looked at Jahreiah. “She looks happy to me. I think she’s in good hands.”
“Oh, shit,” Keyasia giggled, probably full of those tequila shots they’d been guzzling down. “Somebody better watch them. Put Riah’s ass on birth control or something. Cause when niggas get to talking with their whole chests like him…its some raw fucking going on.”
“Key,” Josairah snickered, while lightly shoving her shoulder.
“What?” Keyasia opened her arms. “I’m just saying.”
“Mann,” Lil Jah scratched his head. “Let’s change the subject, cause Ion wanna think about that shit. Plus, I aint got a opinion. I know what I was doing at that age. They’re about to be eighteen too. So, shit, they’ll do whatever they want, anyway. So…I just don’t wanna think about the shit.”
“Yeah,” Jahrae added. “Peep how she aint Lil’ Ugly no more.”
Jaylah tittered. “She was only Lil’ Ugly because she had broken up with him.”
“Whaaat?” Jhyrah sat up in her chair. “So, this didn’t just happen?”
“Nope,” Jaylah snitched while absently examining her nails. “They’ve been a thing. Pretty much since we were first introduced to Sin J and Sunny.”
Riah stared at her sister. “Really?”
“What?” Jaylah opened her arms. “Sin just told me that he wants everybody to know. It ain’t like mama and daddy is here.”
Wale shook his head. “This must be some type of thing with y’all. Everybody gets with the same muthafuckas they grew up with. Including you, huh?” He glared at Keyasia.
Key’s eyes ballooned. “I don’t know what you talking about, boy. I didn’t grow up with you.”
“What about the nigga before me?” He lifted his chin.
She waved him off. “That don’t count. Nobody counts before you.”
“Yeah, that’s what you better say,” he scoffed.
Everybody laughed, knowing that she used to be with Amir Junior, who had grown up around the family.
“Look, I get it,” Cocoa, Chubby’s shorty spoke up.
“Y’all got a unique story. The family, I mean.
No matter how big the houses are, the hood is embedded in y’all.
So, y’all don’t relate to them people in the burbs.
Then when it comes to the hood…you gotta wonder what their true intentions are.
So, it’s easier to be with somebody from the same background.
Y’all speak the same languages. It aint hard to tell. ”
“That makes a lil’ sense,” Lil’ Jah admitted. “But it also probably got something to do with the fact that our daddies was them niggas in the streets. So, they got with the finest the hood had to offer. Then they had kids. So, naturally beautiful people will attract beautiful people.”
“Really, Jahrein?” Josairah cut her eyes at him. “That was so damn vain of you.”
“It really was,” Jhyrah agreed.
“But it probably got some truth in it,” Cocoa claimed. “It is a bunch of overly pretty muthafuckas around here. And then a bunch of yall had babies. Y’all don’t never think about the fact that a lot of y’all are in the same family? Even you, Wale. Your cousin is literally with Key’s cousin.”
“That is crazy when you think about it,” Rye admitted. “With all these muthafuckas in Houston, we end up basically getting with the same circle of people.”