Chapter 27 #2
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh.
She pulled a chair out and sat at the desk. “You’ve been spending a lot of time alone in this office. Ain’t participated in meetings like you used to. Haven’t cracked your usual jokes. I’d say something was very different about you.”
Was it that obvious? I had been chilling.
Hadn’t wanted to participate in anything but the shit I had to participate in; like coming to work and being a father.
I didn’t care for anything in between. I probably should have done a better job keeping up appearances if I didn’t want people to raise a brow.
“Nah…”
“Alright look,” she paused. “You don’t have to tell me your business. At least let me buy you lunch. We can sit here together and eat. If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep you company.”
Juanita was cool. We’d been working together for years, since I started here.
It was all love. When she was married, Mahogany and I went out with her and her husband.
She was recently divorced. I couldn’t remember how long it’d been for her but yeah…
they broke up and she was around here acting different too.
However, the only difference between her and I was that everybody knew about her divorce.
She had to change the name on her paperwork and the news traveled like wildfire.
I wondered if she peeped the changes in me because she’d been here before.
“I’m cool—“
“I’m not taking no for an answer,” she interrupted.
“I know something’s up. Like I said, I won’t pry.
I won’t get up in your business like that because it’s not my place to.
I just want you to know that you have some people around here that really do care about your wellbeing, okay?
” She pushed up from the chair and took a deep breath.
“I’ll get Bucharest instead. I remember you campaigning for it a couple months ago when the bosses came in to treat us. Cool?”
I stared up at her for a second before telling her it was cool.
She gave me a soft smile, nodded, and walked out.
I didn’t know what her angle was. Maybe she was just being nice and wanted to grab me something to eat.
Maybe she was on some flirtatious shit. I hoped it was the latter because I was in no mood to entertain a woman.
Felt like I’d never be there again. I didn’t have a bitter bone in my body about it neither.
I didn’t want women—I wanted one woman and if I couldn’t have her… I was smooth.
“Say it ain’t so,” said Tank on the other end of the phone.
I hopped on the freeway. “What?”
“You and Talia bro,” he said through a sigh.
I brushed my hand down over my waves and let out a deep breath. “Man, what?”
“You heard me nigga. You smashed that messy ass bitch? Bro what was you thinkin? You better hope and pray she don’t go back to NeNe with that shit.”
I was headed to moms crib after work when Tank called me.
I thought he was about to invite me to the game night I seen Char posting about the other day.
I was prepared to decline it too. I wasn’t fucking with Tank’s crib for a minute because of Talia’s ass.
I didn’t want to see her because I knew that the moment we were in the same room together she was going to be on fuck shit.
I didn’t have it in me to deal with that shit.
I was chilling. What I didn’t expect was for him to hit me with the question he hit me with.
I couldn’t even say I was surprised he knew though.
Of course, Talia told Char. Bitch was messy and probably couldn’t wait to brag about it.
“Mannnn,” I stressed. “Don’t matter if she go to Mahogany with that shit or not. We finished.”
I said it with an attitude, like I didn’t give a fuck but deep down inside saying it stung like a muthafucka. I didn’t know when or if I’d ever get to a point in my life where saying those words didn’t sting. Mahogany would forever be the one that got away.
“Say swear?”
I nodded as if he could see me. “Yeah… We done bro. I got my own spot and everything.”
I then went on to tell him about what had been going on. Explaining it to people still made me uncomfortable. Reality was a muthafucka, wasn’t it?
“Say it’s been trouble in paradise for a minute huh? I can’t believe you got another kid though nigga. When am I going to meet my niece?”
“I don’t know fool. I’m chillin on coming through for a minute. I don’t even want to be in the same room with that sneaky bitch. Only reason I fucked is because I was drunk as hell and she sucked my dick. If I see that bitch I might fuck around and smack her.”
“You need to,” Tank said. “She on the book posting little subliminal shit. Lil’ shit about fuckin’ somebody’s husband. High key, I wish you would’ve kept curving her ass. She be walking around with a certain pep in her step now. She feel like she did something.”
I sucked my teeth. “Her ass ain’t do shit.” I shook my head. “I fucked up.”
“Man… you human. And you was faded as hell. I’m talkin shit but if I was you I probably would’ve been fucked, the way she been throwing pussy at you.” I didn’t say anything and he continued. “You alright though? You and NeNe been together for a long ass time.”
I pulled up in front of moms’ crib and parked. Running my hand down my head, I let out a sigh. “I’m alright, dawg.”
“You can keep it a buck with me nigga. I know yo’ chest hurting.”
Chest was hurting like a muthafucka. Especially after catching her the way, I caught her that one time with that one nigga.
There were still nights that I closed my eyes and saw the way she was throwing her ass back on him.
Some nights I stared at the ceiling replaying the night over and over in my mind, wishing shit would have gone another way.
In a couple scenarios I blew dawg away. Put the burner to his head and pulled the trigger then did the same to NeNe.
I know. Fucked up, right? Realistically I would have never turned the gun on Mahogany.
Loved her too much. Would’ve turned the gun on myself before I turned it on her.
“Nah, I’m smooth,” I lied, uninterested in going into detail about how I really felt. “Let me run in the crib and grab my shorty. I’ma put some shit together at the crib one of these days, you niggas can fall through.”
“Aight, bet. Say less.”
With that, we got off and I headed inside to grab Diary.
When I walked into the crib, I found her sitting on the living room floor with her cousins, laughing, playing with dolls.
She looked up at me, jumped up and ran over to wrap her arms around my legs.
I picked her up and kissed her on the cheek.
Her greeting reminded me of the way Sparkle used to be when I would come home from work.
I missed the hell out of that. But getting the same love from Diary did warm my heart.
“What’s that?” I asked, referring to the doll she had.
“Tee-Tee gave it to me.”
Tee-Tee was Amber. I smiled a little, loving how comfortable she was now.
“Oh, for real?” I asked. “What you do today?”
She went on to tell me about the fun she had. Her and her cousins played outside, moms got them ice cream, and she went to Walmart with Tee-Tee. When moms said she would fit in just right, she was telling the truth.
“That sounds like a good day, Diary,” I said.
“It was.”
“Tomorrow we’re going to see Nana, okay?” I told her, referring to Ms. Rochelle.
Her face lit up and she smiled. “Yaaaay!”
Ms. Rochelle was doing all right. As all right as possible with health problems. I made it a priority to take her to see her at least once a week.
Ms. Rochelle was fine with that. Every time we visited, she made it a point to tell me she was glad I was Diary’s pops.
She was proud of me and happy I’d stepped up when it counted the most.
“Y’all about to get out of here?” Ma asked, coming from the kitchen.
I nodded. “Yeah, we about to head out. I appreciate you keeping her.”
“You don’t have to keep telling me that, boy. How many times I’ma tell you, I got you?”
I wrapped one arm around her and kissed her on the top of her head. I didn’t care that I’d told her I appreciated her countless times. I always would. My ma came through in a major way. She said she had my back and she truly did.
“Gone and grab your bag, Diary, we about to head out,” I told her after putting her down.
She ran off and moms looked up at me with a smile. “You so good with her.”
I smiled a little. “Yeah, I’m trying.”
“Well son… you’re doing a good ass job juggling everything. I didn’t think you had it in you, but you proved me wrong. Yet again.”
I nodded. Yeah, I didn’t think I had it in me neither. Just like before with Aubry. But shit, I’d been doing pretty well. A nigga might’ve been depressed but not enough to let shit crash and burn. I guess you could say I was proud, too.