Top Five
Rico, age 14
“Y’all getting out this weekend, huh?” Peanut asked.
We were sitting on the bleachers. One of the few times Ma wanted to leave the crib, this nigga got fresh with her. Fredo and I beat the brakes off him right there at the mall.
Of course Pooh pulled strings and years away turned into two months in the camps, and even got us in the same one. First day, we saw Peanut, and our original plan to wreak havoc was changed to laying low.
No one would ever come before Fred, but Peanut was a very close second. Our teachers always sat us next to each other since I didn’t talk and he talked too much, and we just clicked. We were always down for whatever scheme he cooked up that day, whether we were fighting or picking who was it in tag.
Pooh and Ma were sad as fuck when his mama died and he never came back to school. When Fredo said he saw him in the camps a year later, he had to talk me out of getting into some shit just to see him, too.
Now, here we were, and even though we were on lockdown, the past two months had been fire.
“Yup,” Fredo answered for us. “Someone gotta make sure yo crazy ass cousin is straight.”
Peanut pulled a corner of his mouth up. “On baby, that nigga got some screws loose. He got niggas in here shivering. I’ma come fuck wit’ y’all when I get out of here.”
“Man, hell naw. You get hemmed up again and you gone for three years. Ain’t worth it.”
Peanut sighed and rubbed his palms up and down his buzz cut. He didn’t talk much about his home situation, but it had to be something if he kept doing shit to get sent back here. Peanut was loud, and had hands, but he could buckle down when need be. He hadn’t been in one fight since we’d been here.
“I’ma figure it out. I’m out right before my birthday, then they talking about putting me in Storm Academy in some bullshit program.”
“You ever think about running away?” Fredo asked. “You know we got you.”
“I’m not tryna put Auntie Yani in no bullshit. Speaking of,” Peanut reached over and slapped the back of Fredo’s head. “Y’all dumbasses need to control y’all selves. Leaving ya mama all alone.”
Fredo got up in an instant, and now these fools were slap boxing.
I stood and dusted off my pants. “I’ma go check my MyRoom.”
Peanut pushed Fredo off him as they both laughed. He was the only nigga I’d ever let get that close to my brother, and only because I knew how he was coming behind us at all times.
“You need to leave that old bitch alone,” he scowled.
“She ain’t that old,” Fredo laughed. “Ask Set how Ty-Ty doing.”
“Old enough to catch a charge for sucking ya dick,” Peanut spat.
I waved him off and jumped off the bleachers. Fredo and Peanut kept bickering about it, but I paid them no mind.
Pulling bitches was in me, not on me. And for whatever reason, older bitches loved me.
Well, I got it, to be honest. I was five-eleven, had long hair, and didn’t speak much. That mystery shit unnerved bitches my age, but the high school and older bitches ate it up. I didn't care either way, but times like this, where I needed access to a computer, it came in handy.
I made my way through the block until I got to the nurse’s office and knocked three times.
The door opened and Nurse Monica opened the door. I slid inside as she closed the door and towered over her short frame.
Nurse Monica wasn’t that cute, but she had ass and titties out of this world, and the nurse’s office had a computer that connected to MyRoom.
She licked her thin lips before pushing them into a pout. “You and Frederick are getting out this weekend?”
I nodded and curled a piece of her hair behind her ear.
“I can use the computer?”
She locked the door to the room. “Yeah.”
We walked over to her desk and I sat down in the chair while she got on her knees. The deal was I could use it as long as I could last. Her head was mediocre, so it was nothing to hold my nut in to make sure shit was cool on the outside.
I’d lost my virginity before I hit double digits; perks of having a pimp for a daddy. Maybe that’s another reason older bitches fucked with me. They could see I had more experience than the niggas their age who couldn’t even get them off.
Nurse Monica only wanted to give me head for some reason. She said I had the perfect dick, but it worked out for me, since I wasn’t trying to do all that with her, anyway.
Giving her dick could have had her trying to show up on the outside, and then my actual bitch would have to body her.
I opened a new window on the browser and signed into my MyRoom.
Fielding through the messages of bitches, I found my chat with Set and updated him on Peanut before asking him about Ty-Ty.
He’d been kind of vague, so I didn’t tell him we were getting out, since my gut was telling me he was hiding some shit.
My blood cousin Ty-Ty had been a month out of a six-month stint in the camps when we got picked up. Before that, he’d spent almost a year in foster care after his mom, my aunt Aree got killed, and his pops went to jail.
He was fragile as fuck, even if he did have the height of a future ball player. I worried about him and his best friend Reem more than I cared to admit, and Set was the type of nigga that didn’t care about shit, not even himself.
He knew I didn’t want Ty-Ty anywhere near the Birch Babies, but if Tiny came around sniffing, he’d put him on himself in the name of protecting him. And to me, that was worse than going to the camps.
This shit was for life, I had learned. There were no outs.
Set stayed true to his word, keeping us separate from the older niggas, but we still got called on to do shit, since he was Tiny’s right hand.
We made the most money, we hoo-banged the most, and that nigga’s body count was increasing at an alarming rate.
That lil’ stint away was like a vacation, and I was dreading getting thrown back into the line of fire.
“Ay, no fuckin’ teeth,” I hissed. This bitch.
A message came in as I exited out of the chat window, and I clicked on the profile picture.
Her school was listed as that school we pulled up on when we saw Ty-Ty, but she wasn’t my type.
Looking over her top five friends, my eyes paused on the second girl.
“Damn,” I whispered, clicking on her profile. Nurse Monica started moaning and going harder, and I rolled my eyes at her extra ass.
Snowflakes rained down on her page as a Nivea song began to play. Ice Princess was her name, but she was smiling in every picture.
Or trying to.
It wasn’t genuine. Not in any of the pictures she had on her page. It was hollow as fuck, worse than when Ma tried.
Other than that, she was beautiful. Freckles covered her face, and her orange hair was long and in a variety of styles, from zigzag cornrows to crinkly braids to pressed out.
I requested to add her. It was a couple guys in her top five, but I wasn’t tripping. Most girls made their page all about whatever bullshit relationship they were in, so I knew Lil’ Miss Ice Princess wasn’t stunting no niggas.
I expanded her friends list and paused when I saw Set on it. He was listed as her seventh top friend, right after his friend Turkey.
“Interesting,” I whispered, adding Turkey, too. Tired of the song playing, I exited out, and busted in her mouth.
“Good lookin’,” I said, standing up to tuck myself in.
“Wait,” she said, but I was already out of there. Maybe Peanut was onto something. At least with her ass.
I knew I needed my hair braided when it was windy outside but my scalp couldn’t feel it.
My plaits were fuzzy, pulled out of my face into a half ponytail. I cut my eyes to my brother as we walked down the alley toward the trap.
“Why you never get braids?” I asked, looking at his wind whipped hair.
He smirked, keeping his eyes on the swivel. “Nan’s arthritis don’t fuck with it. I don’t want no random bitches playing in my head like you. Fuck around and put a root on me.”
“Sound just like her ass, too,” I chuckled.
“Nan be speaking that real shit. I’m knowing Kisha done did some shit to you.”
I smiled, thinking about my new bitch. Kisha from Tower One. She had to have been the baddest bitch in the Birch; twenty-one, slim thick, long, natural hair that she kept done, since she did it herself. That’s how I met her; her braiding me up when I was fresh out.
I didn’t even think her fine ass would give me play, but she did. And unlike Nurse Monica, I couldn’t hold in my nut with her.
“Kisha fine ass ain’t on that. Besides, that’s my main bitch, but she never gon’ be the only. You know that.”
“But do she know that?” he chuckled. “Shit, here go another one of ya fans there.”
I looked and saw Tiny standing from the front stairs of the trap. Fredo nodded to her before going inside.
I stopped in front of her, holding in my smirk when she licked her lips.
This bitch is overly going.
At first, I was gonna take her down as a fuck you to Set. It took a while for my black eye to fade, and every time I looked in the mirror I wanted to make him feel it.
But he proved to be more solid than the sucker punch suggested. So I decided to spare him seeing his adopted mama be thirsty over me.
“Set’s unavailable this weekend, so you riding with me.”
“Fasho,” I muttered, walking past her into the house.
Even that early, the fiends were sprawled out in the front room, getting high off some shit they bought. I stepped over a few and banged my fist on the kitchen door.
The locks disengaged and I was face to face with Ty-Ty.
I still wasn’t used to seeing him in the trap, nor was I used to the murderous aura coming from him. He’d always had a temper, no doubt, and loved to fight. And again, he’d changed after juvie and foster care, but getting put on changed him like it changed me and Fredo.
I beat his ass as soon as we got home and got word he did what he did. We only started back talking after Ma had a good day and sat us down.