Chapter 20
TEN TOES
brEAKING NEWS
Pop sensation Chanel King reportedly rushed to the hospital from an alleged overdose. She is said to be in critical condition. Attempts have been made to get an official statement, but as of now, no one from her team has reached out. More to follow.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Gimme a minute,” he grumbled as his massive frame stalked out of the room. I heard him cussing and ranting into the phone for a solid ten minutes while I sat there on edge. When he came back, his facial expression looked even more pained than before.
“Is… everything okay?” I asked apprehensively. Honestly, after the shit she did to him, I didn’t give a fuck what happened to her, but I knew that the guilt he would carry if something really happened to her was something we would never recover from.
“I… I don’t know. Her mom refuses to go to the hospital or take any calls from them. I really don’t fuckin’ know.” He rubbed his hand over his face slowly. I took a deep breath, nearly choking on the next words that came from my mouth.
“Do you need to go?” I asked, words laced with the feelings I tried to conceal.
“Baby,” he started softly. I held my hand up.
“Chase, if you need to go, just go.”
“I… shit,” he grumbled. I could tell he was really struggling with it, so I tried my best to play the supportive girlfriend.
“Baby,” I said softly, placing a gentle kiss to his lips.
“It’s okay, I promise.” He pulled me in close as he sent out a text, presumably to Niko to get him a flight.
I hugged him back as I tried to settle the sinking feeling in my stomach.
I knew I had no reason to be jealous, or worry, but I couldn’t get over the overwhelming sense that something bad was about to happen.
Two days later, I pulled up to my parents’ house.
Mona and I were summoned there to hang out with them under the guise of my mom’s peach cobbler, so of course we pulled up.
We would have showed up without the sweet bribery, but it was always a plus.
I grabbed my obligatory store bought items—flavored popcorn and ginger ale—and quickly hurried inside.
“Hey, whose car is-” I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the 6’5, chiseled, disgustingly handsome NBA player that I used to love sitting on a barstool in the middle of my parents' kitchen.
“What the fuck?!”
“Amaya! Girl, watch your mouth!” My mother quipped, clearly not picking up on the fact that her only daughter was one wrong action away from a grippy sock vacation.
“Why are you here?” I asked, voice shaking with nerves. There weren’t too many people walking the face of the earth that I feared, but the crazy nigga in front of me was undoubtedly one of them.
“Me and Pops were talking, and I asked him if I could come by. I miss you, baby.” My stomach churned at the thought of him calling my dad Pops. My family accepted him with open arms, and I knew they would be heartbroken if they found out the truth.
“Please leave,” I squeaked out, words barely audible as I looked anywhere but into his menacing eyes.
“Gorgeous, don’t be like that,” he said, laying his game on thick as he made his way over to me and tried to reach up to touch my face. My body finally reacted as I jerked away from him quickly, remembering the damage those hands did the last time they touched me.
“May! Girl, I texted you to come help me with the—what the fuck?!” Mona hollered as she walked in the door behind me. Every bag in her hands hit the floor and she was between me and Malcom in a heartbeat. “What the fuck are you doing here, Malcom? You need to go!”
“Mona!” My mom yelped in shock again. She was used to me turning up, but Mona always tried to keep it cute around them out of respect. My dad’s eyes drifted from Mona to Malcom, before settling on me.
“What is this?” My dad asked. His first words since I walked in the door. At that moment I realized that he had been silently surveying the situation. Mona turned, body still between mine and Malcom and looked at me with a pleading expression.
“Tell them,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“I can’t,” I whispered back, tears filling my eyes.
“May.” She grabbed both of my hands and looked me in my eyes. “I am right here. It’s okay.”
“Tell us what?” My mom asked, looking between us curiously.
“Mona,” Malcom grubbed. “Mind your business!”
“She is my business, bitch!” she snapped without even looking over her shoulder. Having her there gave me the security I needed to slowly turn to my parents and start talking.
“We- um…” I started with all the confidence of a small child who just knew they were about to get in trouble.
I cleared my throat and spoke a little louder.
“When we broke up… I found out he was cheating, with multiple women, one of which was pregnant. I packed my things to leave, and he came back to the house. When I confronted him about the women, he choked me.”
“What?” My mom asked with the saddest look on her face. I immediately went into defense mode.
“Mommy, I swear I didn’t hit him. I never touched him.
I tried to leave like you taught me, but he just went crazy,” I said, big tears rolling down my cheeks immediately.
I realized that was part of the reason I never told them—I knew I did some wild shit in the past and I didn’t want them to blame me or be mad at me for it.
“Baby, I didn’t say that. I never assumed that,” she said, making me cry even harder as it felt like the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. She turned to Malcom with a look that made me shiver.
Nobody even noticed my dad slip out of the room.
“That is a lie Amaya! I never touched you!” he said, throwing his hands up. “Y’all need to stop telling people that lie!”
“You’re the fuckin’ liar, Malcom! Now, it’s not about to be too much more discussion,” Mona snapped, turning around with her finger in his face. “You can leave or be carried out.”
“By who?” he teased as he looked down at her. “You?”
“Nah nigga, by me.” My eyes widened when I heard the click, and Malcom turned and put himself eye to eye with the barrel of my daddy’s pistol.
“Oh shit!” Mona hollered and ducked out the way like he had it pointed at her. Dramatic ass. You would think she would be used to this by now with the way her nigga liked to pull guns on people.
“Andre! Put that away!” My mom demanded, stomping her foot like that was really doing something. My tongue was currently somewhere in the pit of my stomach, and I was unable to get any words out.
“Andre, come on man. Put that up. We’re better than this!” Malcolm said, trying to keep up his usual confident demeanor, but I saw right through it.
“Are we?” Daddy asked, finger still on the trigger. “Look me in my face and tell me what the fuck is up, Malcom.”
“I never touched her,” he said with a straight face, too straight, it was obvious he was lying.
“So you callin’ my girls liars?” he asked, stepping so close that I was sure he could feel the cool steel on his forehead. If there was one thing I could count on in my life, I knew my daddy would have my back, no questions asked.
“N-No! You’re just confusing me man! I can’t think! Put the gun away!”
“Either you did it, or you didn’t, nigga! And you know you did! Shoot this nigga, Uncle Dre!” Mona spat. I swore that girl was turning into her man more by the day.
“Mona, shut the fuck up!” I whispered, then stepped between Malcom and my dad. “Daddy, please?” I begged with tears in my eyes. Malcolm had already taken so much from me. If my dad lost his freedom for killing this man in his kitchen, I could never live with myself.
The dummy looked at me, searching for some sort of reprieve, like I would be the one to plead his case and save him from a bullet. All he had to do was stay the fuck away from me like I begged him for the past two years, and we could have let this secret die between the three of us.
“Malcom, sweetheart. You have five seconds to get the fuck out of my house. I’m not gonna let my husband shoot you, but if I call her uncle, you know how it’s gonna go.
Your choice.” The eerily calm way the words flowed from my mother’s mouth made everyone take heed.
The scariest part was that I knew she wasn’t lying.
My uncle would pull up, put a bullet between his eyes, call one of his associates to clean it up, then whip us up some crab boils…
Actually a crab boil didn’t sound too bad at the moment, but I knew watching Malcom get his cap peeled back would probably ruin everyone’s appetite at least a little bit.
Malcom finally realized that he was playing with his life and turned slowly, backing towards the door.
“Amaya, if you ever change your mind—”
“Nigga, get the fuck outta here!” My dad snapped.
“Hoe ass nigga!” Mona yelled as she popped him upside the head on his way out.
He turned back to her like he was about to do something, saw the gun still pointed at him, then sighed and walked off.
There wasn’t a word spoken for probably five whole minutes, my sniffling serving as a buffer for the dead silence throughout the house.
“Why don’t y’all go sit down and talk?” Mona finally said. “I’ll clean up this mess, and just order us dinner.” She ushered us into the living room then disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving the three of us standing there staring at each other with teary eyes.
“We’re so sorry, Baby Doll,” my dad muttered as he tried to force back his tears.
“Daddy, you didn’t know,” I sniffled.
“But we should have,” my mom interjected, holding my face as Daddy held us. “You’re our baby! We should have known, and we should have been there with you.
“I j-just…” I couldn’t finish my thoughts as my tears took over. I was still in genuine shock at what just happened. I was fully prepared to take that to my grave, and the way they were looking at me made me cry even harder.
“And we’re sorry that we didn’t respect your boundaries.
You said that you didn’t want him around, and we should have honored that.
It didn’t matter that we didn’t know. I’m so sorry, baby,” my mom said sincerely.
All I could do was bite my lip and look at her.
They didn’t push or ask any more questions, they just held me as I stood there wrapped up in between them and soaked up all the much needed love that they gave me.
They refused to let me leave, and Mona wouldn’t go either, so after dinner, the two of us ended up in my room.
It wasn't the room that I grew up in, but it might as well have been. My mom moved everything over from our old rooms and set it up in the exact same way, so we would always have somewhere to come home to. Luckily, she upgraded the furniture, so I wasn’t sprawled across the same mattress that I snuck around and lost my virginity on back in high school.
After we sat together in silence for half an hour, with Mona putting two French braids in my hair like the old days, I had enough.
“Say something… Please?”
“Something like what May?” she asked softly.
“Tell me something MoMo, anything to take my mind off this shit, please.” I wanted to talk to Chase, but my pride wouldn’t let me call him.
Since he left, I reached out twice with no response, and I refused to do it again.
I watched Mona’s eyes dance around nervously before she opened her mouth and closed it again.
“Mona! Please!” I whined.
“Okay! Okay! Umm… I-…” She dropped her head and mumbled something incoherent.
“What?” I laughed, leaning in closer.
“I…” she mumbled again.
“Girl, what are you saying?!”
“I sucked Tah’s toes last night,” she whispered with her head hung low.
“I—what?! Mona! What the fuck?!” I was usually the one with the wild anecdote, but I was floored as I looked into the eyes of my best friend in the world—who apparently liked putting niggas’ feet in her mouth.
I promised myself to never eat or drink after her ass again.
I mean I knew we all sucked a lil’ dick every now and then, we were grown… but a nigga’s toes?!
“Now hear me out, he was fresh off a pedicure, then a shower, and we had an edible… You know he don't smoke. I was loose, he was loose, and he has pretty ass feet for a man. He does it to me all the time and he asked what it felt like… so I showed him.”
“That nigga be sucking your toes?” I asked with my brows stuck to my forehead.
“That man has made it clear on multiple occasions that he will put any part of my body in his mouth at any given time,” she said, fanning herself like she was having a freaked out flashback.
“Well… did he like it?” I asked with my brows raised.
“He… nutted,” she whispered. “Somewhere between the arch of his foot and the space between his toes got to be too much for him. Then he passed out cold for the rest of the night,” she said with a guilty looking shrug.
“Bitch… What the fuck?” I asked again.
“I know, right? And I feel so powerful. Usually, I'm the one climbing up the walls, but he been looking like he's terrified of me since last night.
I'm Big Mama for real!” she said with bright eyes.
My friend was crazy as fuck… but also real as fuck because the way I fell out laughing made me forget my troubles, even if just for a moment.
“Aight now, it ain’t that fuckin’ funny!” She side eyed me, making me start up all over again. “And if you tell anybody—”
“Girl, hush! Your lil’ freak nasty secret is safe with me!” I said, finally able to stop my laughter.
“And while you’re laughing, you should let him try it. Tah loves sucking on mine.”
“Please. Chase is such a neat freak that I don't think he would be into that. He's not boring by any means, but I feel like toes would for sure be where he draws the line,” I scoffed, wondering how hard he would cuss me out for suggesting it.
“Just try it… Next time he’s on top, you know, just creep your foot up there. If he lets you then he's into it, if he turns away, no harm, no foul,” she shrugged.
“He is not gon’ let me sneak my toes in his mouth,” I chuckled.
“If that nigga loves you, he’ll be suckin’ your damn toes off the bone,” she laughed. “Trust me. I didn’t think I would like it either, but girl.”
“Yeah, okay!” I laughed, rolling my eyes. Her and Tahmir were too freaked out for me. When my daddy came to the door to playfully scold us for our loud giggling, we decided to call it a night and went to bed.