9. Marcel
Koi had me fucked up. Whoever that nigga was that pressed me had to come see me.
Yea, he had caught me off guard, but the next time I was gonna handle him.
Right now, Koi had me looking like a fucking fool.
Between her family running down on me, and now this new no named nigga, I was gonna have to play dirty.
See, I wasn’t trying to catch another charge, but with a chick like Koi, who played with fire. I felt like that was what I was gonna have to do. She had been quiet for too long, so it was only a matter of time before she showed her true colors.
Then for me to check her location on her iPad and find out her ass was in The Marriott.
“A hotel?” I couldn’t wrap my head around why the fuck she was staying at a hotel when we had a perfectly fine condo right here in Yonkers.
The two bedrooms should have worked if she felt the need to keep her distance from me.
She had already dropped my son off to his stupid ass grandma, so I didn’t know what more she wanted.
But then again, I see I had underestimated her.
I didn’t think Koi would turn away a baby. That wasn’t in her nature. She was a nurturer. I saw it in the way she cared for her Godchild anytime she was around. So why couldn’t she put her differences aside for Ashton was iggin’ at me.
“She’s fucking someone, ma. We ain’t even been separated for a week, and she’s laid up in a hotel, fucking someone.”
“A week? Boy please. You may not have been single in your mind, but the minute you stepped out on that woman, you portrayed yourself as a single man. So what? She’s getting new dick.
You’ve been sampling pussy all over the Tri-state area and now got a kid with her cousin!
” My mother yelled in my ear. I expected her to have Koi’s back.
They were tight like that, but shit, she didn’t have to act like I wasn’t her son.
“I hear what you saying, ma, but you don’t think it’s too soon?”
“Too soon? Fuck no, in my eyes, it’s about time.
Koi stupid. I would have been made your chest cave in from playing in my face.
She’s too good of a woman.” My mother chuckled.
“Let her have her fun. If she loves you like we know she does, she may be back, but I don’t know, Marcel. This some grimy shit you pulled.”
“I know, ma. I’ve heard it from everyone already. What do you suggest I do?”
“For starters, keep that baby away from Koi before she kills an innocent child. Second, you better get up out of that house before your ass find yourself burning up in some flames.” I could hear her let out a long sigh.
“She’s hurt, and a woman hurt is a dangerous one.
I can come talk to her, but you know how she is when she’s upset. There is no talking to her.”
My mother knew firsthand how crazy Koi could get when she was upset.
There were plenty of times when we were younger, and Koi and I would have arguments while I still lived at home with my mom.
She would try to step in until one day Koi turned to her, slammed my bedroom door in her face, and told her to worry about the nigga she was fucking and not me.
We both were taken aback by her outburst. Koi was quiet and didn’t raise her voice. But this time she had caught me red handed in the act of setting up a meet up with the neighborhood head doctor.
“I hear what you saying, but I need to get him away from his drunk grandma.”
“Then it’s time to go look for an apartment. Shit. I don’t know.”
“What if I came to visit you for a few days?” It was a long stretch, but something had to give.
“With a baby? A fresh out the coochie baby? Boy, you trying to have me babysit. I ain’t stupid.”
“No. I actually need help.” My mother had me when she was young.
We acted more like siblings than mother and son.
My grandmother was raising both of us until my mother found her own place when I turned eight.
Before then, we were both answering to my grandmother as if she was both of our parents.
In the long run, it worked, but at times like this, I needed her to step up and be a mother, not a friend.
“Argh, fine. You lucky I love you and want to meet my grandson. But Koi is still my girl.”
“I hear you, ma.” A slight chuckle escaped my lips. “I’ll be there later, and you need to talk to ya’ girl about calling her fam on me. “
“You lucky Duke waited this long. Shid, my brothers would have tore your ass up long ago.” My uncles didn’t play about my mother.
They were older than her and treated her like a princess.
They had a helping hand in raising me as well, but they told me I was foul long ago for the way I was playing with Koi, so calling them would be pointless. They were raised on logic.
“Man, listen, ma, just listen out for the phone. I’ll be there before seven.”
I packed up as many items out of the apartment as I could.
Koi wanted to show her ass; cool, she could figure these bills out until she came to her damn senses.
I had a responsibility that didn’t concern her, and as much as I wanted to go knock her head between the refrigerator and the counter.
I opted against feeding more into the bullshit.
Koi was gonna come around sooner or later.
If she thought the next nigga was about to step up and fix her, she had another thing coming.
“It’s about time you came and got him. I told you I’m not raising no new kid and whatever problems you and Koi have don’t have shit to do with my grandson.
” Belinda sucked on the straw from her ice cup.
Halfway through a bottle of E&J, I shook my head, picked up the car seat with Ashton inside, and looked around for the baby bag.
“Where is his bag?” Highly upset with Koi for dropping him off here, I continued to look around the cluttered living room. Belinda was a hoarder and had the nerve not to clean up behind herself. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a roach run across the coffee table.
“Hello,” I snapped.
“Nigga relax with all that snapping. Shid, you should be thanking me for keeping his crybaby ass.” Disgusted, I kicked the sofa she was sitting on.
“I ain’t got all day. I’m trying to get him outta here.”
“It’s in the fucking kitchen on the table.” She smacked her lips. “And don’t bring him back when he gets on your nerves.”
“Belinda, I wouldn’t leave him with you if you were the last person on earth. The way you raise these kids should be a crime.”
I left the apartment in a hurry. Traffic was gonna pick up soon, and the last thing I needed was to be stuck on I-95 with a crying newborn.
I rushed out the building, nearly stopping in my tracks when I spotted Drew walking up.
“Nigga don’t fuck with me. I got my kid, and I don’t have time.”
“I ain’t worried ‘bout your pussy ass. I did my cousin a solid. Take that as a warning. Play with my family, and Ima come see you every fucking time.” If I didn’t have Ashton with me, I would have probably stalled off on him.
“Whatever yo. You fighting for your cousin when your sister is the bitch behind this shit.”
“If you weren’t holding my nephew right now-”
I walked off on him mid sentence. I didn’t take light to threats. Drew was only big and bad if he was with Duke or like right now, where I couldn’t press him. Either way, he was gonna see me soon.
I strapped Ashton in the car seat, secured him, and drove off. New York was too hot right now. A change in scenery and pace is what I needed, while Rika laid her foul ass up in ICU and Koi laid up under some no name nigga.
“These bitches are wild,” I mumbled to myself, cutting on my car stereo, zoning out.
Two hours later, I was pulling into my mother’s driveway. She must have heard me because she was outside with her AirPod in her ear, rushing off the phone.
“Yerr, who you on the phone yappin’ with?”
“Ya ex,” she laughed. I ain’t see shit funny. Her calling Koi my ex was grounds to get cursed out, but I respected my mother too much.
“That ain’t even funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. I hope you ready cus between me and you, she ain’t coming back, Marcel. You done made her reach her breaking point.”
“Listen, I’m gonna let her cool down for a few. Me and Koi are locked in. She knows what it is.”
“The thing is you don’t know what it is.
She’s done. But scratch that, let me see this baby.
” She walked over to the side of the car where Ashton was.
He had fallen asleep about fifteen minutes ago, and the last thing I needed was for her to wake him.
I warned her, but that shit fell on deaf ears. “He is so cute. Looks just like you.”
I looked over my shoulder as she took him out of the car seat, cradling him.
“Yea.”
“And Koi saw him in person?”
“Yea. Why?”
“That’s why her ass is done. He is the spitting image of you, and well, that wack ass chick gave you something that Koi hasn’t.” She pursed her lips together. “I don’t blame her. That shit gotta hurt Marcel. Place yourself in her shoes. What if Koi came home pregnant by another man?”
“I ain’t thinking about that shit,” I huffed. “I fucked up, I get it. You ain’t gotta keep telling me in multiple ways.”
“I’m just saying, anyway.” She turned on her heels. “I’ll be in the house.”
I sat out front for a while, lit a blunt, and leaned up against my car. Part of me wanted to call Koi, but I already knew she wasn’t gonna answer. But just knowing she had called my mother had given me some kind of hope.
Did I expect her ass to come around right away? Nah but we both did wrong. This wasn’t a hurdle that I didn’t think should or could break us. I’d keep Rika and Ashton away from her as much as I could.
My phone chimed with a message. A weak smile showed when I saw Koi’s name pop up on my phone.
Koi: I’m moving out. You can keep the fucking condo since you won’t leave. I hope your karma bites you twice in the ass and snips ya dick off too.
With a raised brow, I had to reread the text a few times.
Koi was definitely not the same girl I had met and watched grow into a woman.
She was lethal, and this aggressive side to her was pissing me off.
Whatever that nigga was whispering in her ear to make her feel like she was this crazy bitch was gonna be her downfall.
Easily influenced and na?ve, I could only imagine how that nigga was playing my baby. Vexed, I ran my hand down my face before thinking of a response. I fucked up but at this point God was punishing me. I didn’t expect Koi to want to move on this fast. She wasn’t giving us a chance.
Instead of texting, I tapped her name, waiting for the call to connect. She declined my first two calls. When I heard her voice on the other end I wanted to pump my fist in the air.
“Marcel leave me the fuck alone. I said what I said. I will be packing this weekend so stay out of my way before I have Duke pull up on you again. Do what you want with that condo, but I removed myself from anything regarding it!”
“Why are you leaving? You didn’t have to go and you know that. I hate what the fuck this has come to.”
“Bye Marcel. I got plans to sit on a dick tonight, go prep a bottle for ya’ seed or visit ya comatose baby mama in the ICU.” She ended the call.
“Oh, this bitch showing out,” I mumbled, ashing my blunt.
“Marcel hurry up and come in here. I said you can stay, I didn’t say I was babysitting!” My mother yelled out of the window as if I was down the block and not standing in front of the house.
“Aight. Damn.”
Five days in Pennsylvania and I was ready to take myself out.
My mother was getting on my last nerves with her slick ass comments about me having a kid on Koi, and refused to step in when I needed her.
It’s always “you did this to yourself. I’m the grandmother but not the mother”.
I wanted to come back and tell her I was raised by my grandmother because your ass was out living your best life, but the respect I had did her wouldn’t allow me to.
Belinda continued to call as if she didn’t just drop this baby off in my lap asking if he was good.
Shit was eating at me. I hadn’t heard from Koi, but somehow her family was on my line.
If it wasn’t her sister sending me a message about how stupid I was, it was the call I had received from her mother.
Long story short, I was banned from her immediate family, yet I had no choice but to deal with the other muthafuckas. All because of my dick.
“What?” I picked up the phone with Ashton in one arm and the phone in the other hand on speaker.
“You need to come back to New York with the baby,” I sighed heavily. “Just be here as soon as possible.”
“Whatever yo.”