Chapter 3
“Does everybody have their outfits together?” I questioned my crew, as we were all on a group chat video call via IG.
“Yep. My skirt was just delivered today. So, I’m good,” Asha responded.
“Yeah, I have mine too,” Tarin chimed in.
“Me too,” Shilo added.
“I’m wearing the one you picked out the last time we went to the mall,” Renny claimed.
“Okay, good,” I sighed, while jogging downstairs in my home.
My girls were all falling in line. We were known around school as the girls who were always dressed to the nines, and we always pulled up to events dressed similarly.
So, it was my duty to ensure that we were up to par for the upcoming basketball game that was the following night.
“And Shilo, are you still wearing a ponytail?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Well, you need to come get this edge control I have over here. It works for all hair textures and will give you the extra hold you need. Cause the edge control you used last time was not it.”
“True,” Renny and Asha co-signed in unison.
“Okay. Can you bring it to school in the morning?” Shilo requested.
“I sure can.” I nodded.
I know that it might’ve been weird that I would micromanage my friends, but they appreciated my efforts.
They all knew how to set their ego aside, and allow me to guide them, when it came to their appearances.
I think nobody complained because they saw the social benefits of following my directions. I hadn’t led them astray, yet.
“Anyway, Summer,” Tarin spoke up. “Where is my future husband?”
I rolled my eyes. “You just don’t quit, girl. You still don’t even have the boy’s number. So, I really wish that you’d stop trying to flirt. We don’t chase nobody. You’re gonna bring our stock value down, with this thirstiness.”
Everybody tittered, including Tarin. At this point, her pining after Breeze was a running joke.
After she’d basically thrown herself out there, and he hadn’t taken the bait, she’d accepted that he wasn’t interested.
And now, her interactions with him had been nothing but cordial.
Still, she’d joke about him being her future man, amongst friends. A girl could always wish, I guess.
After now sharing a space with Breeze for a little over a month now, he was still somewhat a mystery to me.
He was always on the go, so he didn’t linger around the house much.
Even in the middle of the week, he’d often drive out to his mama’s house to kick it with his siblings.
Then he played basketball and had a bunch of friends.
So, he was always on the phone or headed out the door.
And now, I saw why Tricky Ricky had never brought him over to get acquainted with us, prior to them moving in.
Hell, even he probably had to get penciled in to spend time with his busy son.
“Summer, you gotta stop hating. You just didn’t notice how he walked past me in the hallway today. He didn’t even speak. But tomorrow, he’ll probably wave,” Tarin goofily joked. “We're making progress. The fuck.”
We all exploded with laughter, while I was shuffling through the living room.
“You play too much.” I snorted and laughed. “I gotta go eat,” I randomly grumbled, as my stomach growled. “I am starving.”
“Your mom cooked today?” Renny asked, as I moseyed into the kitchen.
“No. I grabbed some Popeyes—” I got out, before realizing that Breeze was in the kitchen. Shirtless. Jeans slightly hanging off his ass, revealing his Ethika boxers.
The greedy nigga was standing at the island, stuffing his face, biting the damn gristle of a chicken wing. My damn chicken wing.
“Hey. Are you eating the Popeyes wings that was left on the counter?” I quizzed.
He paused, before gradually nodding. “It’s for the house, aint it?”
Angrily, my lashes fluttered. “Why the hell would a six piece of ghost pepper, which is technically three damn pieces of whole wings, be for the whole damn house?”
“Well, shit.” He lifted the last wing, and bit into it. “My bad. I was hungry.”
I was so heated that the back of my neck grew hot. In all my years, I’d never had to deal with leaving my food in the kitchen, and then somebody eating it.
“Your bad?” I growled. “That was my fucking dinner. Now, what the hell am I supposed to eat?”
“I mean…it’s a bunch of food in the fridge—”
Hearing the exchange, my girls were all hooting with laughter.
“That nigga got some nerve,” Renny giggled.
“And he’s greedy as fuck,” Asha added.
Tossing my phone on the island, I was incensed. “I know one muthafuckin’ thing.” I loudly clapped my hands. “You better go hop in that raggedy ass car and go get me some food, before Popeyes closes!”
He nonchalantly sucked his teeth and shrugged. “I aint doing shit. Especially not after the way you just came at me.”
“Oh, you gone replace my food, you fucker,” I snarled.
He shook his head, before laughing. “You big girls is always doing the most over some food. Shit, looking at you, I know that I did you a favor. The last thing you needed was some fried chicken—”
Losing my composure, I leapt at him, tackling him down to the floor.
“You gone pay for my food, bitch!” I seethed, while bopping him across the head.
Furiously, I straddled him, while throwing blows. I didn’t stop, because the muthafucka was laughing at me.
“You think this is a fucking joke?!”
Somehow, even with me on top of him, Breeze managed to maneuver his body, until he was fully laying on his back. I was still busting him in the head, until I felt something hard press up against Ms. Kitty.
“What the fuck?” I grumbled, as I realized that I was feeling the bulge of his hard dick. “You nasty muthafucka,” I gritted, as I glowered down at him.
Gazing up at me with tight eyes, he chuckled. “Aint nothing nasty about that. It’s just hard, baby. But I can show you something, though. And it’s real nasty.”
See. I think that Breeze had shit twisted. He’d been running through the girls in the area. They were mostly green and didn’t know what to do with a boy from the hood. But I was nothing like those girls. And he couldn’t intimidate me with his brazen vulgarity.
“Nigga, please. If I gave you this pussy, you wouldn’t even know what to do with it.” I rolled my hips and humped him.
“Oh, shit.” He bit his lip, while gripping my hips.
Abruptly, I dismounted him and stood. “This aint that. Now, go get my food, before I kick your nasty ass in the balls.”
While he was still climbing to his feet, I snatched my phone off the counter top, and switched out of the kitchen, knowing that he was watching me walk away.
“Un-un, Summer,” Renny spoke up, reminding me that I still had my girls on the phone. “What the hell were y’all just doing over there?”
Breeze
“Daaaamn,” Kezzy stressed, as he peered around the living room, before we both sat on the sectional. “Aye, I thought that the house y’all was living in before was cool, but this shit is amazing. The fuck does your daddy’s girlfriend do for a living?”
I smirked. “She’s one of the highest paid nurses at a hospital.”
“For real?”
“Yep.”
“I mean…is she cool? Mean? Or what?”
“She’s cool as hell. I can’t lie. Now, I see why my daddy is with her. She got a easygoing personality and can cook. She’s real nice. Then a lot of times whenever she doesn’t cook, she be ordering DoorDash for everybody. Especially since the time me and her daughter got into it over some Popeyes.”
Kezzy furrowed a brow and laughed. “Over Popeyes, nigga?”
“Hell, yeah. That was her ole hungry ass. She literally jumped on me,” I recalled with a smile. “Was rubbing that fat pussy on me too.”
I was talking about Summer freely, because Kezzy wasn’t connected to my boys at school like that. He was one of my best friends from 5th Ward, and had driven his mama’s car out to Lake Houston to kick it with me.
Kezzy was one of the few people my pops didn’t have a problem with me keeping in touch with.
Overall, he considered him a good kid, because Kezzy was still going to school, and was a star athlete at Wheatley high school.
So, he’d regularly come chill at the house, and this was obviously his first time visiting since we’d moved.
He cut his eyes at me. “So, yo new step sister is official?”
I whistled. “Nigga…she finer than a muthafucka. She just mean as hell.”
“I’m saying.” He eagerly licked his lips. “Put me down, then.”
I sucked my teeth. “Man, hell nawl.”
“I’m saying. Why not?”
“Cause—”
“Hamburglar, is your daddy home?” Summer enquired, as she came flouncing into the living room.
I hooded my eyes, peeping the dig on me stealing her food. “You real funny. But nah. He at work.”
“Really?” Her eyes brightened. “I thought that he was off on Wednesdays.”
“Nah. That man works for himself. So, he works whenever,” I let her know.
Since we kinda all did our own separate thing, I doubted that she really even knew what my pops did for a living.
He was unquestionably a natural born hustler and a jack of all trades.
He was literally a carpenter, certified electrician, painter, and a mechanic.
He’d gotten all those trades while I was a baby, swearing that as long as he had those trades, and could use his hands, then he’d never be broke.
And now, he owned a auto repair shop, a tire shop, and personally ran a home remodeling company. Pops literally had several people on payroll, and worked on site whenever he felt like it.
For years, I honestly believe that he’d been living severely below his means, and had a bread truck put up.
I’d glanced at one of that nigga’s checking accounts, and there was a cool quarter million there.
And that was just one of many accounts. So, I knew that if he wanted to, he could’ve gotten his own house like the one we were in, but he preferred to cohabitate with his woman, and help her pay her house off.
I just hoped that the nigga was smart enough to have something in writing, just in case she decided to abruptly toss our asses out, one day.