Chapter 15 #2
_____________________________
That Same Night.
“Hold on!” I yelled ambling towards the front of my skoolie to open the door for whoever insisted on interrupting our girls' night.
We were just about to make milkshakes with food coloring in them. Sunshyne loved to make milk shakes; she swore the colors made the vanilla ice cream taste different. After the milk shakes we were going to paint our nails and then binge watch princess movies until we fell asleep.
“Hiii Ms. Lana,” Mason and Mallory yelled at the same time when I opened the door to my skoolie. I was confused seeing their faces at first then I looked at Marlo behind them with a sneaky grin holding three pizza boxes.
“Daddy said you invited us for a girls’ night so we can play with Sunshyne.” Mason snitched on Marlo and I gave him a look of death.
“Heyyy girls, what a surprise,” I calmly said, stepping to the side to allow the girls to run past me. Blocking Marlo’s path, I squinted my eyes at him to show my annoyance with him.
“You aren’t slick.” I gritted out through clenched teeth.
I wasn’t even mad about them being here. I really didn’t mind. If I was honest, Sunshyne needed more friends around her age. I just wished Marlo would drop his girls off and leave. His presence was going to knock me off my square. My skoolie wasn’t big enough for both of us.
“Mooom! my fwends are here!” Sunshyne happily yelled from behind me.
Mallory, Mason, and Sunshyne had gotten close over the last couple of months.
Especially Mallory and Sunshyne since they were in the same class together.
Mason was my little helper since she was a little older.
Both girls were really well behaved, and I never minded when they were around.
Marlo had the biggest eat ass grin on his face as he asked. “So can I come in?”
Giving him one last dirty look, I turned on my heels ready to get this night over with.
“Alright girls,” I put a big smile on my face as I made my way over to the girls. “Who wants to make milkshakes!”
“Me!”
“Me!”
“Me!”
All three girls yelled excitedly as they jumped up and down as they waved their arms in the air.
“I want pinkee mom,” Sunshyne said holding up the food coloring she’d been talking about since we got back home. “Pink makes my ice kweam taste like strawberry,”
“I want that too!” Mallory said standing next to Sunshyne.
“Can I do blue?” Mason asked shyly.
“Nooowa, mama blue is for boys. Member, you can’t have that.” Mallory sassily said with her hands on her hips rolling her head from side to side. My heart dropped seeing Mason’s little face drop.
“Mason, you can have whatever color you want. Blue isn’t just for boys.
Did you know blue used to be for girls and pink…
” I said, cutting my eyes at Mallory. “…was for boys. Mallory I think you should say sorry to your sister. It’s okay for everyone to like different things. ” I gently reprimanded Mallory.
I knew Mallory was only repeating what Fallon said to them but to a degree she knew what she was doing when it came to putting Mason down at times.
I don’t think she was doing it to be malicious, necessarily, but because Mallory was so used to seeing Fallon do it that she started to do it too.
That was something Marlo stayed getting on Mallory for, she was a miniature version of Fallon because she spent so much time with her.
While Mallory wasn’t a bad child she just imitated her mom and if Marlo didn’t get that under control soon it was going to start affecting Mallory and Mason’s relationship.
“I sowrrie,” Mallory said, walking over to Mason pulling her into a hug.
“It’s okay,” Mason said once they finished hugging. Then she turned to me. “Blue really used to be for girls?” Mason asked with curious eyes.
“Mmhmm, gotta learn your history.” I winked at Mason as I went to get the ice cream out of the freeze, but Marlo was blocking the freeze.
“I wanna make a milkshake, too.” Now if I wasn't mistaken, lust was dripping from each of his words so much that my legs clenched to quell the tingling sensation in my stomach.
“Sure, if you move I so I can get the ice cream.” My voice came out shaker than I wanted it too.
“But you ain’t ask me what kind of milkshake I want,” Marlo had a sly grin as his eyes roamed my face.
Sighing, I groaned, cutting my eyes to the sighed annoyed. Marlo was already on his bullshit. “What kind of ice cream do you want Marlo?”
“Chocolate with a caramel swirl. That’s my favorite.”
Marlo was hell bent on making me sweat. “Vanilla and food coloring is all I got. Now move.” I said as I pushed him out my way and he cracked up at my unease. This night needed to hurry up and be over.
The night actually ended up being a lot of fun. Marlo wasn’t as bad as I thought he was going to be. The girls had a ball with no more incidents. I painted all their nails assorted colors, and I couldn’t help myself being a little messy influencing the girls to get Marlo to paint his nails.
I cracked up as I watched him cave into the girls begging to paint his nails.
He sat their mugging me the entire time they were painting his nails.
The girls basically painted his entire hands with how uncoordinated they were.
I loved it and although Marlo was frowning he was enjoying himself.
We’d made it through Princess and the Frog, and we were midway through the second one.
All three girls were on my bed while Marlo and I sat on the couch.
The girls had fallen asleep and I was into the movie like it was my first time watching it.
“You really watchin’ this movie?” Marlo asked me and looked at him out of the corner of my eyes debating if I wanted to answer him or pretend like I didn’t hear him.
“Yeah,” I finally replied after a brief moment of silence.
“Maaannn,” He drawled out snatching the remote from my side, cutting off the movie.
“Marlo! Turn that back on.” I snapped trying not to be too loud I didn’t want to wake the girls up.
“Nah, I wanna talk to you. We ain’t talked in forever.”
“What you wanna talk about Marlo?” I asked with my lips poked out.
“Shit, I don’t care. Let’s just talk.” Marlo said, turning his body to the side facing me.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I watched as Marlo pulled my legs from in front of me up onto his lap.
“Making it so we both comfortable,” Marlo casually answered as he stretched his legs out with my legs resting on top of his.
“Your wild,” I chuckled, shaking my head watching Marlo rub my feet like it was normal.
“I’m chilling. I appreciate you for checkin’ Mallory earlier. She be gettin’ certain shit from her mama and I keep telling her ass that shit ain’t cool.” Marlo said, looking frustrated.
I chose to keep my mouth shut because I really didn’t have anything nice to say about Fallon or their situation.
“No problem. You know Mason is my little boo.”
“Yeah, she talks about you all the time.”
“Aww, you can bring her around whenever. I don’t mind.”
“I hear you. What you been up to?”
“Nothing just working. You know I’m saving up to find a place and a car eventually.”
“Yeah, I know this bus,”
“Skoolie,” I cut him off, correcting him.
“Skoolie, is ya baby or whatever but it’s small as fuck. I can’t imagine living in this bitch for so long.”
“It really wasn’t that bad when Sunshyne was a baby but now that she’s bigger and wanting to play all the time we need more space. I’m trying to get rid of my skoolie though. So, either I need a big ass garage or driveway.”
“I mean you can leave it here. I ain’t bothering nothing and honestly you can keep one of the company cars. Nobody uses them for real."
“I don’t know about the company car, and I don’t want to have to drive here every time I want to go inside my skoolie.” I appreciated Marlo’s offers, but I felt like that was depending on him entirely too much.
Marlo mugged me like I said something rude to him. “Why you always wanna make shit difficult?”
“I’m not being difficult, but I don’t want to depend on anyone too much and I be somewhere looking stupid in the long run when they're sick of helping me.”
Scrunching his face up at me, Marlo was clearly appalled by my words. “You take me as that type of nigga?”
“I don’t take you for nothing besides what I see and what I've experienced in the past. Let’s be real, you have a girlfriend who would probably lose her fucking mind if she saw you helping me with so many things.
" I explained to him. Marlo wasn’t in the position to be offering to do certain things for me and nor was he obligated to.
“Ion know what you experienced in the past but I ain’t that nigga and can’t nobody move me or shape my decisions. I do what I want and if muthafuckas don’t like it they move the fuck around.”
“I hear you, Marlo.” I sighed, what he said sounded good, but I still was leery because words were just that until they had actions behind them.
“It’s settled then; you can use the Mitsubishi Outlander. Matter a fact, Monday we can go put that shit in ya name. If that will make you trust me more.”
“Alright, you doing a lot. That’s a nice ass SUV.”
“I can and you can’t stop me. Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
The smile that spread across my face as I felt giddy about the thought of having a car in my name. It may haven’t been a luxury car, but it was still my favorite car to drive and I loved it.
“Thank you Marlo. For everything. You helped me so much and you didn’t have to do anything. I’ll never be able to show you how much I appreciate you.” I sincerely said looking him in his intense eyes and my heart started beating so loudly I could hear it in my ears.
“I ain’t did shit. Trust me if you was shitty a nigga would have fired ya pretty ass.” He snickered at me then he smiled big showing off his pearly whites.
“I hear you Marlo.”
“So, this mean we best friends again?”
“Just friends, I suppose I can make room for a friend.” I giggled as he scowled at my words.
“Like you had a choice I was finna be here every night until you became my best friend again.”
“I can do that for now. Or at least until I get a nigga. Then you might have to be demoted to just my boss again.” I couldn’t help but to tease him.
“And if that’s the case you don’t need a nigga cause we finna be besties to the end. The fuck you thought?” Marlo mugged me and I busted out laughing.
“Imma get a nigga eventually. Just no time soon.”
“That’s what you think,” Marlo grumbled as he continued to grill me.
I wasn’t stuntin’ his territorial ass. He was talking out the side of his neck. For now, Marlo could be my bestie or whatever he said.