Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“Ok.” Tyler sat back, settling in her seat.
“Cool.” Logic sat up in his seat and started the truck. Before pulling off, he shot Sage a text and dropped the phone in his lap.
“Is everything ok with your brother?” Tyler asked, turning in her seat.
“Why you ask that?”
“You know damn well you live in a shoe box and the walls are thin.” She pursed her lips. “Yall have deep voices and they travel.”
“So, you just gone keep talking shit about my place?” Logic feigned offense, cocking his head to the side.
“I like your shoebox.”
“Yea, ok,” he snorted, focusing on the road. “Pepper was supposed to come get him and she didn’t show up.”
“Oh, hell no. She stood him up?”
“Basically. She called when we were leaving, but I doubt she’s coming to get that lil nigga, and I know he’s in his feelings.”
“That’s really sad…craving the love of an absent parent. Those voids are hard to fill.” Tyler shook her head. “I don’t even know that woman and I want to slap her.”
“It’s just fucking with me that Sage is caught in the middle. Since she came back around, he been on bullshit. Grades slipping and I think he be trying to challenge me. I’mma fuck around and knock that nigga out.”
“I mean he is sixteen though, bullshit comes with sixteen. Mood swings and that whole ‘I know it all' attitude,” Tyler reasoned.
“He sixteen, but he’s a good sixteen. When I was his age, I was smoking, drinking, fucking, and hustling. Sage not like me. He’s a straight-A student, respectful, and his head is on straight.”
“Well, you also have to think about the people he’s hanging with. He might see them running the streets and it probably looks exciting. He’s curious and that’s normal.”
“I guess,” Logic sighed, peering down at the text from Sage.
Bro
She on her way. Enjoy ya lil date, I’ll be back Sunday.
“This nigga,” Logic exhaled, reaching for the blunt in his visor. “Now the real question is are you going to let me play in your throat?”
“Boy,” Tyler giggled. “Are you going to lick me again?”
“Girl, I’m about to lick that thang from the roota to the toota.”
???
Sage waited until he saw Logic’s truck pull off before exiting his room.
Going into the kitchen, he pulled the bills folder off the refrigerator and searched for the envelope with his name scribbled across the top.
He flipped through the bills and decided to just take it all.
Feeling bold, he grabbed a couple of extra dollars that didn’t belong to him.
“Uh, what do you think you’re doing?” Spice questioned, leaning against the doorway.
“I’m about to go out,” Sage mumbled, stuffing the envelopes back into the folder.
“Yo mama on her way?”
“Nah.”
“Then what are you doing? Where are you about to go?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Damn, can you chill with the twenty-one questions?” he snapped. “I could have sworn I was the oldest.”
“And the slowest if you in here yelling at me. You been a lil moody and I don’t like it. Now just because yo mama-
“Stop bringing that bitch up!” Sage roared.
“Whoa.” Spice backed up, putting space between them.
“Ain’t no whoa. She is a fucking bitch, and she fooled my dumb ass into thinking she came back for me.”
“Sage, what happened?”
“She butt dialed me.” He chuckled, dropping his head in disappointment.
“Pepper butt dialed me while she was talking to John bitch ass. She was in the background calling me annoying and said she couldn’t wait until they get back to Vegas.
” He wiped the tears that slipped down his face.
“The only reason she came back is because she was hoping Lo would forgive her and let her back in. They need help. John owes some people money in Vegas and she’s only here because they’re running from them niggas.
She’s going to ask Lo for the money, and if he don’t give it to her, she’s going to take us from him. ”
“Oh my god.” Spice covered her mouth. “Lo will never let that happen.”
“I know,” Sage sniffed. “It’s my fault because I kept acting like shit was smooth and it wasn’t.
I lied about everything! Wasn’t shit sweet.
I gave her my allowance, and she made me promise not to tell Logic.
All they did was drink and fight, just like when we were kids, and I hid it from yall because I didn’t want yall to be right. ”
“Brother.” Spice tried to hug him, but Sage put his hand up to stop her.
“Yall were right.” He chuckled sadly. “I got loose lips, and Pepper used it against me.”
“I’m going to call Lo.”
“Don’t. I’m not a baby anymore and I don’t need my big brother running to the rescue.”
“But-
“But nothing. I said don’t call him. For once, be on my side, damn,” Sage barked.
“Fine.” Spice folded her arms. “So, where you about to go now?”
“I’m about to go hang out with Joey.”
“Lo said-
“I’m not trying to hear all that. I’ll be back.”
“Just keep your location on, ok?”
“Aight,” Sage agreed, placing the folder back on the refrigerator.
Spice chewed on her bottom lip as she watched Sage bop into the living room.
She listened to him lie to Ms. G about Pepper being outside.
When she tried to walk him to the door, Sage told her it was cool and he’d see them later.
From the window, Spice watched him jump in the back seat of a two-door car.
“Where Sage go?” Shugg asked, coming from the bathroom. “And was that him in here yelling?”
“Girllllll,” Spice dragged. Sage told her not to tell Logic, but he didn’t say anything about her twin.
???
Sage sat in the back seat of a two-door Camaro with his gaze fixed on the cars zooming past them.
He didn’t know who the car belonged to, and at that moment, he was just happy to be out of the house.
Sage knew he was dead wrong for leaving the way he did, but he couldn’t shake the mixed emotions he was feeling and he needed some air.
At sixteen, his anger was misplaced, and while he should’ve been furious at Pepper, he was mad at Logic.
He was tired of being treated like a little kid, he was tired of the preaching and double standards, he was tired of sitting on the stoop, and he hated the fact that he couldn’t hang out with his friends.
Sage thought it was bullshit because when Logic was sixteen, he was ripping and running the same streets he told him to stay out of.
He didn’t have a curfew and he didn’t have to answer to anyone, but every time Sage turned around, Logic was in his face.
“Oh, your brother let you out of the house?” Joey taunted as he recklessly whipped the Camaro like he had a valid driver's license.
“He not home.”
“No babysitter?”
“Nigga, are we going to pull up on some girls or nah?”
“My fault, my fault. I just know how Lo is about yall and I’m not even mad at him. I mean who wants their lil brother riding around in a stolen car?” Joey jested.
“Stolen car?” Sage's brows creased.
“I’m fucking with you,” Joey lied. “This my uncle car. He let me use it for a few hours.”
“Don’t be lying.”
“Nigga, I’m not, but if you scared, I can drop you back off.”
“Nah, if it’s not stolen, we good. What’s the plan, who we pulling up on?”
“That man said he trying to get his dick wet,” Joey’s cousin Trent joked, twisting the ends of his blunt. “I feel you, me too.”
“Fuck outta here. His brother is a rapper, and he close with Ty fine ass, I know this nigga getting all kind of booty.”
“Lo being a rapper don’t have nothing to do with me,” Sage snorted, looking out the window.
Contrary to what they believed, Sage was starting to get annoyed with Logic’s newfound fame. Girls who normally didn’t give him the time of day were flirting with him, and niggas who tried to hoe him for always sitting on the stoop were inviting him to play basketball at the courts.
“Shittttt,” Joey dragged. “I wish that nigga was my brother, I’d be using his name to get in everywhere.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“You smoking?” Trent asked, extending the lit blunt to the back seat.
“Nah, I’m cool,” Sage answered, staring at the burning tip. Joey had tried to get him to smoke on several occasions, but he was lowkey scared Logic would find out.
“You know Logic will kick this nigga ass if he gets caught smoking,” Joey taunted. “Lo run the house with a iron fist.”
“I’m not mad at him,” Trent chuckled. “We all need a lil dictatorship.”
“Dictatorship?” Sage frowned. “That nigga is my brother, not my daddy. Give it to me.”
“Period.” Trent passed the blunt.
Joey stared at him through the rearview mirror with a smirk on his lips. He watched Sage inhale the blunt and choke as his virgin lungs filled with the potent content.
“Man, gimme my shit back. You ain’t no smoker.
” Trent tried to snatch the blunt, but Sage blocked his reach.
Placing it back to his lips, he took a smaller hit, held it in until he felt lightheaded, and then released it.
After repeating the process three more times, Sage sat back as a lazy grin covered his face.
“That’s what the fuck I'm talking about.” Joey grinned as Sage took a few more hits.
“Turn some music on, we about to get lit in this bitch!” Trent clapped.
Sage never understood the hype surrounding smoking weed, but the longer he sat there, the more he understood.
His body felt lighter and his mind was clearer.
He no longer cared about what was going on in his personal life.
He didn’t care that Pepper called him annoying or that she was basically using him.
All Sage wanted to do was party and let a big booty girl grind on him; nothing else mattered.
“You drinking?” Trent asked, passing him a brown bag.
“Yea, what are we drinking?” Sage accepted the bag.
“Oh shit, this nigga really trying to do it big. If Lo come around trying to fight for your ass, I'm saying it was your idea,” Joey teased.
“That nigga busy. He ain’t thinking about me,” Sage mumbled, placing the bottle of liquor to his mouth.