Chapter 18
JOSIE
At my big age, I had done something I said I wouldn’t.
Visits, phone calls, and letters were a part of my regular routine as I held a man down that was in prison.
At the time that Huncho was sentenced, I didn’t love him.
I was in deep like but not love. That being said, I wasn’t sure if I would have held him down if he’d been sentenced to anything more than two years, and that was just me being real.
I was too old to wait years for a man to be released from prison especially when I couldn’t even be certain that he’d come home and do right. Nah. Right idea wrong chick.
But over the past ten months, I’d fallen hard for Huncho.
In prison, all his sexy ass had been doing was reading and working out.
The man had gained about fifteen pounds of muscle.
And while he’d never been dumb, the fact that he had been researching everything from investing in the stock market, real estate, various religions, and even holistic healing was admirable.
He told me that once he was released, he wanted two good meals and then, he was going on a ten-day detox where he’d only eat fruit and raw vegetables.
Absolutely no meat. He also stated that he had no plans to go back to drinking, but he was more than ready to hit a blunt, and I wasn’t even mad at that.
Huncho had been housed at a prison almost forty minutes from me.
He could only have two visits a week and sometimes, I wasn’t able to see him because his biological mom, sister, and Hymn might do one visit and sometimes, his father or the woman that raised him would do the second visit.
I was fine with not seeing him those weeks because my businesses were booming, and I was also glad that he had the support from his family.
Huncho’s mother was still sober and each time they had a visit, he revealed to me when he called that the visit had gone well.
I loved that for him. I hoped he would let his guard down and stop waiting to see if she was going to relapse and disappoint him.
All he could do was enjoy the time he did have with her while she was sober.
Once I picked him up, I had a surprise for him, then I knew he’d want to eat, kick it with his family, and all that good stuff.
I’d let him get all of that out the way before I took him to bed and took his ass down.
The season had just ended for Hymn, and his team had won the Super Bowl.
He had previously wanted to give the NFL one more year, but he was so in love with his twins, Hiram and Henley that he had played his last season.
Hymn was officially retired and about to start working toward his real estate license.
He wanted Huncho to get his as well and that way, Huncho, Hymn, and Divine could all work together at the firm that Hymn planned to start. Brion said she might even get hers too.
My graphic design business was doing great.
My YouTube baking channel was doing so well that I started a separate channel to give people interested in graphic design tips.
They could learn very basic things for free while watching my channel and if they wanted to learn more, they could take my class.
Even if they didn’t take my class, they watched my videos for free, but their views got me paid.
Just off my two YouTube channels alone, I was earning around $12,000 a month.
I only opened my dessert website once a month for twenty-four hours.
I still refused to be stressed out by having to spend hours upon hours baking every day.
My supporters were very understanding of the fact that I was a one woman show.
I made it clear on the website that orders could take two to three weeks to ship.
I still wanted their orders to be of good quality, so I put a cap on how much I baked in a day.
If I got two hundred orders in twenty-four hours and I got my mom to help me, I could typically fulfill every order in a week or so.
Especially for the people that only ordered a three or six pack.
If I baked twelve cookies at a time, that was four orders for three packs.
So, it wasn’t that bad. The cookies were pretty large so for some people, three was plenty.
I had been parked for ten minutes when I saw a figure in the distance.
Dressed in a white shirt and gray sweats, a grin stretched across my face as I recognized that familiar swagger that only Huncho had.
My grown ass was bursting with excitement.
The closer he got, the wider I smiled. By the time he was only a few feet away from my car, I got out and ran toward him.
Huncho’s grin matched mine as he picked me up and spun me around.
“There go my Big Mama,” he joked before placing me on my feet and gripping my chin. “I missed the fuck out of you.”
Seeing him on visits wasn’t the same as seeing him in the free world.
They barely wanted us to peck one another on the lips, so long, passionate tongue kisses were out of the question for sure.
But my man was free, so he slobbed me down in that parking lot like he was kissing me for the last time. Finally, he pulled back.
“Let’s blow this joint,” he smacked my ass as I tossed him the keys. “You can drive. I’m ready to go back to being a passenger princess.”
Before I started dealing with Huncho it had been years since I was serious with anyone.
Being single was something I was used to, but in the short time we dated before he had to serve his time, I got spoiled.
Having someone to drive their own car and not mine.
Having someone asking me what I wanted to eat almost every day instead of expecting me to cook for him all the time.
Having someone to drive my car to the gas station and fill it up.
Keep it clean. Yeah, I had missed all that.
Not to mention, being able to have good ole nasty unprotected sex without being too worried.
I didn’t put anything past anyone, but I trusted that Huncho wasn’t out sliding up in hoes raw while dealing with me.
“You said your stepmom was cooking for you, right?” Huncho’s father was no longer married to the woman that raised him, but he still called her his stepmom. She was in town for a few days.
He looked at the time on the dash. “Um, she said she should be done around three. Since it’s only noon, I can just stop by the condo, so I can get my car. I want to take a shower and shit, then you can ride with me if you want to meet her.”
“That sounds good. You hungry now? Divine told me to bring you by. She cooked too. My man has everybody trying to feed him.”
“You need to be trying to feed me too. I need that,” he licked his lips while looking over at me.
“What about if I give you some head while you drive? Can you handle it without crashing my car?”
“Hell nah,” he laughed. “I took a shower this morning, but I don’t want to touch you until I shower at home.
I don’t even think the water and soap in prison are clean,” he frowned.
“I swear I don’t see how niggas do years in that joint, get out, and are right back within a year or two. I learned my lesson. On God I did.”
“That’s good to know.”
Huncho reached over and grabbed my hand. “I’m not going nowhere else. I’m about to register for night classes for next semester. I’m working during the day and doing school online at night. I’m taking the real estate class too.”
“You can do all of that at once?”
“Yeap,” he bobbed his head confidently. Hymn sent me the real estate book they use for the classes three months ago.
I read that joint front to back at least five times.
It got to the point that I was acing the practice tests in the back.
The class won’t be shit but a refresher of things I already taught myself.
There are a few things I’m not certain on that I can grasp better when a teacher is breaking it down for me versus me just reading it myself, but most of that shit, I know. ”
“I love a smart man. It turns me on so bad.”
“Chill man,” he groaned. “My dick is already hard.”
“Okay, I’ll chill.” I promised.
I put an address in the GPS. “Stop by here before you go home.”
“Where’s this?”
“You ask too many questions. Just drive. You know Hymn already got a private jet booked to take like fourteen of us to Hawaii next month. Brion, the triplets, the twins, the nanny, our parents, us, Divine, your mother, my parents, Isaac and London.”
“Isaac and London aren’t bringing the baby?”
“No. His mother had knee surgery the day before Iman was born, and since she’s recovered and gone to rehab, she’s finally ready to come visit. She doesn’t want to fly all the way to Hawaii though, she told them to leave the baby there with her since we’ll only be gone for four nights.”
“Man, I could definitely use some sun and the beach but real shit, I don’t even know if I want to go four days without working.
I’ve had almost a whole year off. I know Huncho doesn’t have any more investment properties, but you already made my business cards and website, so hopefully jobs will come. ”
“They’ll definitely come. Oh here.” I reached in my purse and handed him his phone.
He gave me the money to pay the bill while he was gone, but I kept it shut off.
I hadn’t had the urge one time to try and cut it on and go through it.
It wasn’t that deep to me and if he was smart, he had deleted everything anyway.
“Thank you, baby.”
On the way to our destination, Huncho and I talked about any and everything.
Finally, we pulled up in front of a nice sized brick home in a nice quiet neighborhood.
The house sat on a large lot of land that had an enormous backyard.
It was easy to tell from the outside that the home needed work, but it was still pretty nice.
Huncho gave me a curious glance. “Who lives here?”
I simply shrugged. A car pulled up, and we both looked to see that it was Hymn. With a smile on his face, Huncho emerged from the car. With a smile that mirrored his brother’s Hymn held his palm out for Huncho to slap.
“Welcome home, nigga. I had to put my babies in the car and ride them to sleep,” Hymn jerked his head toward the car that was still running.
Huncho and I both took off toward the car to get a peek at our niece and nephew.
They were only two months old but chunky as hell.
No one would think that just two months ago, they’d weighed four pounds each.
“Damn for one to be a boy and one to be a girl, they’re damn near identical.
They both had full heads of hair and lil’ bean heads,” Huncho observed.
“My babies do not have bean heads.” I whispered tapping his arm playfully.
“You can finally tell somebody else what to do and leave me alone,” Huncho jested facing his brother.
“Nah, I’m still gon’ tell you what to do, Lil’ Nigga.”
Huncho frowned. “You just gon’ son me like that in front of my lady?”
“Nigga please,” Hymn chuckled. “Look, I bought this crib for ma. The owner had to go into a nursing home, and she doesn’t have any kids.
She lived alone for a shit load of years and was on a fixed income.
The place needs a lot of work, but it’s nothing you can’t handle.
You think you can have it ready in about two months? ”
The way Huncho’s eyes lit up melted my heart. “I mean I have to look at it, but I think I can fuck with it.”
“Bet. Here are the keys. Take your time and look around. Let me know how much you need for materials, and I got you. Welcome home.” Hymn tapped Huncho’s shoulder. “Let me get this car back moving before the boss babies wake up cursing me out.”
“You knew about this?” Huncho asked me.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Let’s go. I want a shower now ‘cus that ass is mine.”
While Huncho was locked up we’d discussed everything from marriage to babies.
He had money sitting while he was locked up, but we were in agreement that he would live with me until he had an amount saved that he was comfortable with.
Once he did that, he told me marriage and kids were on the table for sure.
He was younger than me, but I still had time.
I didn’t have to rush to get married or have kids.
I was fine with letting things flow however they flowed.
In my opinion, that was the best way to do things.