6. Rakim
SIX
rakim
“Dr. Conrad,” the doctor answered, sounding stressed just the way I wanted his ass to be.
“What’s the update?” I got right to it, uninterested in any formalities or anything else other than a refresher on my cousin’s condition.
“Well as you know, one surgery was completed, but the second one will be this morning,” he explained, making me nod as I leaned back in my office chair while staring out into the barren land surrounding the large home.
“Cool. Hit me when it’s done—”
“Please, . . . can I please speak to Day?”
“Nah, nigga.”
“I need to go into this surgery with a clear mind. I-I am not threatening you or your cousin in any way, but I don’t like doing surgery with stressors on my mind. I hope you understand that.”
As much as I wanted to hang up on the nigga, I knew what he was saying was partially true.
Not to mention, it wouldn’t hurt anything to allow him to say two words to his fucking daughter.
At the end of the day, my goal was saving my cousin.
I couldn’t care less about Daylin and her father’s relationship.
“Aight.” I rose to my feet and tread out of my office and into the downstairs bedroom harboring Daylin.
Upon entering, she sat up but slowly so she wouldn’t injure the wrist cuffed to the bed or her fucked up ankle. Low-key I felt bad for her ass since she didn’t have shit to do with this, but it was what it was. If my cousin had to suffer, so would she. Plus, I liked her and wanted her here.
Despite my thoughts, I kept a stern expression as I neared her, doing my best to appear to be unmoved by how pretty she was, especially up close.
I’d noticed it at Ayan’s party and in the file I’d been given, but Daylin in the flesh—even sans makeup—was some other shit for a nigga.
I couldn’t rid my mind of how soft her skin looked, or even how pretty her toes were, something I’d noticed while tending to her ankle.
“Who is—”
“Daylin? Daylin, baby, are you alright?” Her father cut off her question, answering her.
“Hi, Daddy. I am. I’m fine,” she answered, dropping her head some and toying with her shirt which I watched.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, and luckily for me, I could pretend it was so she wouldn’t make any sudden moves. Even from a few spaces away, I could smell the scent of her hair, causing me to run a hand down the bottom half of my face.
“Good. Good. Uh—”
“Aight, nigga, you got what the fuck you wanted.” I took the phone, giving Daylin my back.
“Yes uh, the surgery should take me about five hours to complete if you want to reach out to me then since I can’t ever reach you,” Dr. Conrad explained.
“I’ll hit you with a number. You’ll see it in ya missed calls. And remember, no funny shit, my nigga.” I ended the call and immediately began disassembling the phone like always.
“Aren’t you worried he can trace the call? My dad is rich as hell and has connections,” Daylin announced, pulling my attention from what I was doing and forcing a nigga to take her pretty ass in.
“I’m not. Other than the fact that ya pops is a smart man and wouldn’t risk his family or his own life, he can’t track this phone. I swap ’em out regardless, but still.”
“I see.” She nodded as I trashed everything. “How did you know what size tights to get me?”
“I had some help,” I responded curtly, not wanting to have too much conversation.
Daylin was too pretty and got my dick hard just from the way she pushed her long hair behind her ears before she’d braided it up.
In other words, a nigga wasn’t safe. I’d been doing well not engaging in or falling into anything serious since LaMia, and getting to know or even kicking it with Daylin on any level was a dangerous territory I wasn’t interested in treading.
“Help like a girlfriend?” she queried, saying the word girlfriend as if it tasted of shit.
I smirked inwardly at her tone, laced with disapproval and a hint of jealousy.
“Nah, I haven’t had one of those in a long ass time.” I dumped what used to be a phone into a wastebasket and started toward the bedroom door to leave.
“I’m bored down here. Do you have any books?”
Commotion upstairs interrupted what would’ve been my response, impelling me to dart out from the room while simultaneously removing my gun.
Rushing upstairs, I found Josias in the living room, sunken down while hyper focused on rolling a blunt.
“Nigga, what the fuck,” I mumbled, walking off to fetch a book for Daylin to read. I would have to handle my brother in a second.
After grabbing one of the few books lying around that I hadn’t even bothered to read, I ventured back down the stairs and into the bedroom holding Daylin. Like always, she adjusted her posture and kept her eyes trained on a nigga with every step I took toward her.
I didn’t know how to feel seeing a woman so fearful of me, but at the same time, she needed to be afraid in order to be sure she complied with whatever the fuck I’d told her to do.
Already I could tell that Daylin was a rule breaker, and if she witnessed any bitch or softness in me, she would do her best to get the fuck on and ruin all my damn plans.
Though Daylin was the worst type of person to kidnap—rebellious and with a mind of her own—romantically, I found that shit attractive.
Something about a woman who had her own fucking opinions and couldn’t be easily swayed did something for me.
Could be because I was used to being with a woman who wasn’t as strong-minded.
“Thank you.” She frowned deeply, taking the tattered paperback to read the title. “I was hoping more for a romance book—black or urban romance, specifically.”
“Is it truly segregated like that?”
“Isn’t it always? Not just with books but music too,” she informed me, and I nodded.
“So if I go to the bookstore, one side is black romance and the other is white?”
“No. Black romance books are usually under fiction with no indication of any type of romance. But that’s if you even see them on the shelves.”
I nodded again, this time frowning a bit. This was a foreign subject to me, as I only really read non-fiction, and the last time I read that shit was probably over a year ago.
“Aight, well that’s all I have.”
My comment plucked Daylin from reading the back of the book, making her smile in a cunning way at me for whatever reason.
“I’m surprised you’d be reading this.” She held up the book which was Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.
“Why?”
“It’s about a man dealing with his sexuality, dating men, and his relationship with another man named Giovanni.
” She couldn’t hide her grin, and though I was low-key mortified by the fact that I even had a book such as that laying around, I found it difficult to hide my fucking smirk because of how humorous she found the shit.
True enough, I was comfortable enough with my sexuality to read the book, but I could tell Daylin was getting the wrong fucking impression from me having it, especially since it looked as if I’d read the shabby ass paperback hundreds of times.
“I actually have never read that shit. It was something my mama left behind,” I had to admit. “I would read it though. Long as it ain’t too graphic.”
“I’ll let you know.” She winked before scooting closer to the headboard she was cuffed to in order to use both hands to start reading.
I turned around to leave her to it, knowing that wink wouldn’t leave my damn mind for the next few fucking days.
As I re-entered the den where Josias was, already engulfed in a cloud of smoke, I sat beside him, watching him cough his damn lungs up.
“Damn, muthafucka! I couldn’t get a pat on the back or some shit?” Josias bellowed once he’d gathered some composure.
“Look like you had it.” I chuckled a little bit, seeing how baffled the nigga was by his hacking fit. “Why you here, Jojo?”
“I need to stay the night. Shouldn’t matter since you got all this fucking room and a guest already.” He nudged me, causing me to shoot him a look.
“Stay the night for what? You got yo’ own spot, nigga.”
“Right, but Tarin’s stupid ass caught me up with another bitch. I don’t even know how she found the ho house, but she did. Crazy bitch yanked her all outside and started fucking her up. I ran to my whip and sped the fuck off. I know she went straight to my crib, so I came here instead.”
“Nigga, you left them there fighting?” I tried not to laugh.
“Hell yeah! Nigga, Tarin was tearing that bitch a new asshole. I ain’t wanna be next. I don’t hit females, but I would’ve fucked her ass up tonight.” Josias took in another inhale. “Would’ve had to.”
“I just can’t believe you got her ass pregnant twice, dummy.” I shook my head, pulling out my metal case holding my own pre-rolled blunts that I’d put together earlier.
Josias had three kids, two of them by Tarin and one by a woman named Kasia. After having one child with Tarin, his stupid ass got Kasia pregnant, and to get back at her, according to Josias, Tarin had his baby again.
I couldn’t understand what the fuck he saw in Tarin’s crazy, toxic ass, especially enough to knock her ass up multiple times.
“You’ll see once you get a baby mama, nigga. It be hard to stay from between their legs. She gotta be the one to stop you. That’s why I ain’t been able to fuck on Kasia as much as I want to.”
“I won’t ever have a baby mama, so I won’t ever know what that shit is like,” I stated truthfully as he blew out smoke.
Beforehand, when I wanted a relationship, I vowed not to bring any children into the world until the woman who would carry them already had my last name.
Then, after the shit with LaMia blew up, I made a new vow to never get lost in a relationship again, and therefore, kids weren’t ever gon’ happen.
By saying that, I would never find myself in the situation Josias had.
I didn’t want one baby mama let alone two.
“You say that now, Rah.”
“And forever. Plus, the kids you and yo’ brother got is enough for every-fucking-body. I like being the uncle,” I half joked, referencing Josias’s three kids and Ayan’s two with LaMia.