9. Bronx’s Tale
brONX’S TALE
“Ezekiel, what you doing here?” Taci questioned when he stepped through the back door, gripping the fob to his whip with his house keys attached.
He’d planned on heading over to the house and setting up a few things he’d ordered for the baby’s nursery.
Prematurely, he’d bought all kinds of boy related baby items for it, including a crib he was anxious to put together himself.
When Lotus arrived later this week, he wanted everything to be perfect for her.
She might drive him crazy, and he still had a slight beef with her over the whole Evren situation, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they were living under the same roof.
Right now, he needed time and space to get everything ready for them to do that.
“You didn’t mention you’d be stopping by now.” Niva leaned back in her chair, and Essence stared at him over the rim of her glass as she sipped her lemonade.
Taci sat across from them at the kitchen table while Summit stood at the counter, making himself a sandwich. He took one glance at his grandson and knew he was with the shit tonight.
“What’s this?” Eazy asked, motioning with his hands.
“What are you talking about?” Essence swallowed her drink and set the glass on the table. “We’re visiting. That’s it. It’s not some big conspiracy against you—”
“I wasn’t fucking talking to you.” Eazy glared in her direction.
“Ezekiel!” Taci hissed, thick salt and pepper brows drawing together as she looked him up and down. “Show some respect! I don’t care how mad you are. That’s still your sister.”
“Tell you what, Taci, you want to entertain this bullshit, that’s on you, and them.” Eazy nodded across the table at Niva and Essence. “I don’t have to. As far as I’m concerned, as long as Essence is married to that nigga, she’s as dead to me as our fucking mama.”
Taci gasped, and Summit paused in the middle of slicing his tomato for his sandwich.
“Eazy, that’s enough.” Summit’s tone was low. Even.
He’d only spoken to him a handful of times like that in his life, so Eazy knew he was serious.
“Nah, it’s okay, Summit.” Essence nodded with tears in her eyes. “I guess my big brother ain’t who I thought he was.”
“You not about to play victim in this situation when you on bullshit with this nigga. And I’m not about to sit around nobody that can sit around my fucking enemy! You put yourself in this position, and you don’t give a fuck about nobody but yourself.”
“That’s not true,” Essence argued, eyes on the salt and pepper shakers on the table.
“No?” Eazy placed his palms against the surface and leaned past Niva toward his sister.
“He kidnapped Toni and her and Bull’s two kids.
He was working for Braxton Andrews this whole fucking time.
He’s the reason me and Jewel almost died.
Why she supposedly died.” Eazy nodded to Niva but kept his penetrating eyes locked on his sister.
“That’s who the fuck you’re laying next to every night.
And I don’t give a fuck about you, Bull, or the past. If you can sit around that muhfucka and live with all the shit I just told you, that’s on you. ”
Essence could barely see past the tears in her eyes.
“Essence, baby…” Taci reached for her hand across the table. “Listen to him. Eazy would never do anything to purposely hurt you, but… you don’t know this man.”
“I love him, Taci!” Essence shrieked. “He’s the first person in a long time who looks at me and sees me.
He listens to me. He encourages me. All I ever am to anybody else is a means to something.
Cooking, cleaning, making sure you and Summit are okay.
Making sure the help I hire for you is doing their fucking jobs, on top of trying to work and build my own life.
Which I didn’t have much of before Marchonne came along. We have fun, he’s romantic—”
“I don’t want to hear that shit!” Eazy stood tall. “He did all that shit because he knew who the fuck you are. And anybody can see you fucking lonely and ain’t got no life, E!”
“Go to hell, Eazy!”
“You know what? You right. Why the fuck am I sitting here wasting my time when I got a new house, a woman I’m pretty sure I’m fucking in love with about to have my baby… my son,” he declared, shocking the room.
Summit leaned against the counter and simpered at the news.
“Some shit I never thought I’d have.”
“Lotus is having a boy?” Taci grinned.
Eazy went into his pocket for the sonogram pictures he’d tucked there so he could share.
Summit came up behind Taci to look at the images.
Now it was time for Niva to get emotional at the thought of Eazy having a child with another woman.
It was enough to make her stomach turn as she leaned forward.
“Congratulations,” Summit voiced.
“Thank you. Too bad my son will never know his auntie.” Eazy took the images back, and Essence peered up somberly.
“That’s not fair,” she whispered.
The idea of never being involved in her nephew’s life rattled her in a way she couldn’t fathom.
When she was younger she couldn’t wait for her and Eazy to have families and build what they never really had with their own parents.
She wanted the Sunday dinners, birthdays, holidays, and family vacations they never got.
“He would never be safe with you with Midas around, and I’m not ever budging on that. So you do whatever you want with that. I gotta go. It’s been a long day, and I have to work tomorrow.”
He turned to go, but Niva hopped up from her chair to follow.
“You don’t miss what we used to have?” Niva’s question stopped Eazy in his tracks in the driveway.
She’d followed him into the brisk night and watched him pause at his driver’s door.
Success poured off him now. He was everything he said he would be, but now, she wouldn’t be the one he shared all that with, and it hurt.
She hated Oracle even more now. He was the reason she and Eazy weren’t on the same page.
If she’d come forward all those years ago when she first woke up, things would be different.
At least that’s what she tried to convince herself of.
“I used to,” Eazy admitted, eyes briefly softening.
“What changed then?”
“Lotus,” he said with much conviction. “This baby we’re having. What we’re building.”
“Mmm, so just like that, you forgot about us? You got this brand new life and now anybody before don’t matter?”
“I see why you and my sister are friends.” Eazy chuckled.
“You both like to play the fucking victim like you ain’t responsible for your actions.
You chose to fake your own death and not reach out to me.
You put all your trust in Oracle and your bitch ass mama!
Essence going against me with a nigga who was involved in almost having me killed, but I’m supposed to play nice with this muhfucka cause she didn’t know and is so in love?
Fuck out of here! I said what I said, and I meant that shit.
You want to keep coming around here, that’s on you. I don’t owe you shit either.”
“Eazy—”
“Goodnight, Niva.” He climbed into his truck, started it, and backed out of the driveway. His headlights flashed over her standing there with glistening eyes and a heaving chest.
Panic. Anger. Pain. A tornado of emotions swirled inside Niva in that moment. She knew he’d checked out. Maybe if she had come back, they could have stood a chance. It was clear now that Lotus owned this nigga’s soul, though, and Niva was never getting access again.
Approximately four years ago…
“What’s wrong with you, man?” Bull demanded, bursting into the room where Toni slept inside his home.
He caught her propped up in bed, remote in her hand, bawling her eyes out and watching fucking Where the Heart Is.
He knew because he’d come in here more than once and caught her on this shit.
Now, it was pissing him off because she wouldn’t even get up and move around.
Even now, pregnant as hell, she sat surrounded by plates and snacks, a bedside table full of cups and water bottles she’d gone through.
“Nothing. Why are you in here? Just… leave me alone, please.”
“You need to get out of this bed and move around so I can clean in here. Go downstairs or outside on the porch. Something.”
“You trying to tell me I’m ugly and I stink?” Toni snapped, eyes stabbing him like two daggers.
“Wh—the fuck?” Bull’s face crumpled into pure confusion.
Lucky for him, he’d been reading up on all this pregnancy shit when it came to hormones and all that other shit.
He thought most of it was bullshit, but now he was starting to reference some of her behavior to what he’d ingested in his research.
He didn’t like fiction. He preferred facts.
Shit had to make sense to him, whereas, from what he could see of her reading habits as he picked up an urban fiction novel off the dresser and skimmed the cover, she preferred fantasy.
He marched over to the curtains and yanked them open, allowing the sunlight inside as he cracked the sliding door to the balcony, too.
Fresh air blew through, and Toni took a breath.
She turned the TV off and rested her back against the headboard as Bull took in the view with his back to her.
She found herself watching this man, so curious about him, every single day.
What was on his mind? What made him smile?
Why was he so damn mean? How did he get the name Bull?
You’d think with him being her husband she could get him to open up a little more.
“Ah.” Toni’s stomach tightened. Her baby boy balled up in the furthest corner of her womb and was making it so uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” Bull rushed over, pausing on the empty side of her bed.
“He’s balled up again.” Toni winced and curled up on her side.
“Lay back. Try to relax,” he urged her, bringing his knee onto the mattress and leaning forward to cradle her bump in his hand. Bull placed his ear against her stomach. Mostly water sounds invaded.