17. Marcel
Iknocked back a double shot when my doorknob twisted. With my hand on the shot glass, I reached for my gun when Koi walked in the condo. Her face was twisted up before she started crying in the doorway.
“Marcel, why the fuck did you play with me? Why did you hurt me?” She yelled out. “I loved you. I loved all of you, and you- you had to fuck Rika?” She wiped her nose. “Why?”
“Koi, calm down,” I tried to reach for her when she spotted the gun.
“You were gonna shoot me?”
“Woman, no. I was gonna see who the fuck was at my door though,” she sniffed.
“Oh.” She brushed past my open arms, heading to the bar. “Why you ain’t with your kid and baby mom?”
“I’m home. I keep telling you that’s not where I want to be.” She drank a shot of Don Julio, twisting her lips; she let out a sound. “I miss you.”
“Well, you should have thought of that when you played in my face. The years I put in, the pregnancies that I lost, and her, Rika?” I didn’t know if should go stand next to Koi or not. She was confusing me, but I did know I enjoyed her being back under the same roof as me.
“Koi, I never wanted her. She isn’t who I want, and it was stupid. I fucked up, got drunk-” I paused. “Can I tell you everything? Will you listen?”
“Call that bitch right now!” Koi demanded. “I want to ask her something.” I didn’t want to call Rika’s ass, but since Koi was requesting it, I had to make the call. The bitch had left me in prison, so all that being cordial was out the window.
“What Marcel? You finally decided that me not coming to get you from jail wasn’t my fault?”
“Nah bitch! You should have gotten him from jail. That’s where you hoes tend to lose at.
You wanted my nigga, got pregnant by him and then had the nerve to have his kid.
And for what? To leave him locked up when he needed you.
” Koi was loving the exchange. “And now I’m here and well, it’s fuck you.
You will get a check every month, but other than that, it’s dead.
” My eyes lit up. If Koi was coming home tonight, I was ready to do whatever she wanted.
“What? After we fucked? You still will take him back?” Rika sounded hopeless. “Why can’t you just let me have him?”
“Pitiful hoe.” She hung up. “And that’s who you chose?”
“No. I didn’t choose her. I was fucked up, I was thinking with my dick, I don’t know how I let her touch me.”
“I do.” She stopped, poked out her bottom lip.
“You are a weak minded nigga, and while I came over here to get even with her, I-” I pulled Koi in kissing her.
She tried to fight me, but I knew her spot.
I pressed her up against the wall, sliding my hand in between her legs.
The heat that I felt had my dick at a full attention.
Koi moaned, throwing her head back, closing her eyes. “Shit, I miss this.” My finger grazed against her wet pussy. Koi spread her legs, inviting me inside. I wasted no time circling my finger over her pussy, dipping it inside.
“Argh.” She squinted her eyes, breathed out and pushed me back.
“I can’t do this.” She closed her legs. “I’m stupid.
This is stupid.” She marched around me, fixing her clothing, and grabbing her purse.
“I don’t even know why I decided to stoop this low.
I don’t love you. I don’t want you, and I damn sure shouldn’t even let your funky ass hands or nasty dick near me. ”
“So what? You just gonna leave?”
“Marcel, you left a long time ago. I’m just shutting the door completely.” The door slammed shut, and it felt like Koi took all the love with her.
“Shit! Fuck!” I kicked over the end table, knocking everything on the floor. “My woman really gone,” I leaned up against the wall before sliding down like a dramatic scene in a video.
A grown man crying over a chick was unheard of.
But when you had a good woman, that shit hit different.
The years I played in Koi’s face had finally come back to bite me in the ass.
No, I didn’t want no other bitch, but I just couldn’t help myself.
My dick was loose, and no matter how many nights I left her home crying and wondering when it would stop, I still didn’t stop.
Fifteen years down the drain behind a rotten tooth hoe. While Rika probably thought this was the best news she heard, I was livid. For the next eighteen years I was stuck with her.
“Stop blowing up my phone!” I finally picked up Rika’s call.
“Well, I need you to meet me at the hospital. MJ fell off the bed,” she yelled erratically into the phone.
“Fuck you mean he fell? He can hardly roll over!” I jumped up, opening and slamming my door shut. Phone now on speaker, Rika stuttered while trying to tell the story.
“Are you drunk?”
“Huh?”
“Yea bitch, I’m on ya’ ass.”
Two hours later, I was sitting with the doctor and nurse while Rika laid her head back when a social worker approached us. “Mr. White?”
“Yes,” I looked up, confused. “How can I help you?” Rika popped her head up.
“I need to have a word with you privately.” The social worker looked from me to Rika. “Your wife-”
“Baby mama and she ain’t gotta know what we talking about.” I made it known there was nothing between us. Whatever needs to be said can be said.
“Okay then.” She walked off with me following behind her.
“I don’t know how much she has told you, but this is the second incident that your son has been involved in while in her care.
” I ran my hand down my face. “First she said he got scratched by her nail by mistake, and now she says he rolled off the bed.” She swallowed hard.
“Normally we wouldn’t look into it, but both times she has reeked of alcohol and marijuana. ”
“Yea, tonight she is definitely tipsy, but I didn’t know about a cut.” Livid, I tried to keep my cool, but I was burning up on the inside. Rika was about to make me act a fool and put my hands on her to show her that I’m not playing about my son.
“Yes, and we are not releasing the baby to her. Are you able to take him, or should we place him in temporary care?”
“Fuck that. Give me my son.”
“Okay. No need to get upset. We are on your side, and we will support you along the way. But as protocol, because there is now an open case on Ms. Johnson, you should have no contact with her unless we set it up.”
“That’s not a problem.” I didn’t know how I was going to do this shit alone, but he was not going to Rika or her mother. I figured I’d probably call Koi and see if she would budge for the baby’s sake, but even that was risky.
“You taking my son from me and that nigga lives with a crazy bitch!” Rika shouted as the police lifted her from the chair. “You need to believe me!” The foam on the side of her mouth had my stomach turning. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking a year ago, fucking with her.
“Mr. White don’t engage. But I do have to ask, who is she referring to?”
“Ma’am, I live alone at the moment, and when I did live with my ex, who is her cousin, she was an angel. I fucked up by sleeping with Rika.” The gasp that escaped her lips was enough to have me looking away. “I know.”
“Well then I hope you’re a better parent than you are a boyfriend.”
“Wow. I hear you though, and I am.”
After being discharged from the hospital, I took MJ home with me. Drained and fed up, I put him in the crib I had set up in my condo, pulled out my phone and called up Bear.
“Nigga this bitch has fucked up for the last time.”
“What she do?”
“The bitch got an ACS case, and now I’m playing full-time daddy.
But that ain’t it, Koi brought her ass home, and just when I was close to winning her back, she stopped me.
Well, Rika brought up that Koi beat her ass, and now I’m sure they’re gonna be doing random drop by’s,” I said all in one breath.
“Damn nigga. This some fucked up shit, but you know when karma comes. She comes with a vengeance.”
I wasn’t trying to hear what he had to say. He was starting to sound too much like Taj. I sighed heavily and placed my foot up on the coffee table.
“I already know that, but how long I gotta deal with the bullshit? I already lost the best thing that happened to me. Nothing else need to happen.” I was wiped out.
“That ain’t how that work, but I mean if she did come back once, then maybe she just may come back at a later date. Just give her time.”
“Yea.” I ended the call before taking my ass to bed.
I woke up the next day with a plan in motion.
The missed calls and texts from Belinda let me know she had probably spoken to Rika.
Not in the mood to deal with her right now, I deleted the notifications before going to check on MJ.
I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw Koi sitting with him in her arms, feeding him.
“For someone who sleeps hard, I don’t know how you’re going to raise him.” She propped him up to burp him. “And either you were lit or tired, but you didn’t even hear me come in.” She sucked her teeth. “You need to do better, Marcel.”
I couldn’t even respond because I was mesmerized by the way she cared for MJ. I expected her to treat him like shit, but she had a soft spot for him.
“I needed some stuff from here that I forgot, but when I came in, your baby was full of pee and crying,” she chastised. “Why the hell is he not with his mother?”
“Right now, I have custody of him.” I smiled. “You look good doing this.”
“Good, I’m glad. I plan on doing this in the future.” She shrugged, got up from the bed, handing him to me. “I got my shit. I need to go.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t stand the sight of you, but he’s handsome and that’s that.” Her face was stoic. I waited for her to laugh, but she didn’t. “Part of me wants to see you fail, but then I’d be messing up my good karma behind wishing bad on you, so I will just let the universe handle you.”
“Is it because of him? Or wait, her?”
“It’s because you’re a cheater and you decided to stick the dick that I used to deep throat in my cousin. So, no nigga you don’t get to ask me why? You are the why?” She went from nurturing to upset in a matter of minutes.
“Aight, damn. I fucked up.”
“You did more than fuck up, but since you will be a part of the family forever. Then you will get to see firsthand the love I deserve out in the open.”
“Koi. All of that? I know you’re mad, but when will you not be mad?”
“Who knows? You’re a disgrace.” She disappeared down the hallway, returning with a small box. Koi dropped the set of keys on the table. “These are yours. If you are keeping the place, my lawyer will be in touch. If you sell it, we can go to a realtor, but I will not be coming back anymore.”
MJ smiled at her voice. “Look, he likes you.”
“He’s my cousin regardless. But you,” she pointed to me, “are nothing to me but the nigga who broke my heart.”
“I’m sorry,” I said for the umpteenth time. “Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”
“Then go back a year ago and unfuck Rika. But then again, go back to the first bitch you cheated with and think about me.” Her phone rang, stopping her rant. “Oh look, a real man is calling me.”
Koi answered her phone on the way out. I looked down at MJ, who was looking up at me with his big bright eyes.
“It’s just me and you boy, but what did she mean by having a kid in the future? She bugging.” I furrowed up my brows. “Let her try to have a kid on me. Fuck no.