Chapter 3
Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
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“Steel, stop! Your hands!” Toni snapped, putting her hand back on me, slapping it out of the way.
She was holding Zaylani in her arms, and I walked in the room, just to hug her from behind, and during that, I tried to slip my hands inside the black leggings that she was wearing, but she stopped me from doing it.
We had a whole camera crew in our house because we were back in Miami and were back to filming our reality show.
The whole reality show thing was cool to me, mainly because we got to control the narrative, but on the downside, I hated that I was limited to what the fuck I could do when we were filming, especially when it came to Toni.
I was handsy as fuck when it came to my fiancé, loving to stick my hands in her pants, under her shirt, shove my tongue down her throat, but when the cameras were rolling, she would want to hold back, telling me that I needed to keep shit PG between us, but I couldn’t help myself.
“This shit going to air, and they going to feel like you hate a nigga,” I replied, slapping her on her ass, and then I sat down at the foot of the bed.
She laughed at what I said as she stood there, patting our daughter on her back, as she was dozing off.
Lani was so spoiled. She loved being patted or rocked to sleep.
“A blind man can tell that I don’t hate you. Where’s Zayne? I told him to come in here so that I can plait his hair,” she said, never missing a beat when it came to anything that involved either of the kids.
Toni knew how to multitask like a motha fucka, and she was so hands on, always feeling the need to take care of everything on her own, barely giving me the space to get anything in.
Even right now, she had papers that were spread across the bed that she was grading, Zaylani on her shoulders, putting her to sleep, and now she was asking for Zayne, so that she could finish with his hair.
Brooklyn was home from dance practice, and she’s already been in the room with her, checking over her homework, and finding out from her how her day in school was.
Mind you, dinner was cooked. The kids wanted spaghetti, so that’s what she made.
My woman didn’t have to be superwoman though.
I didn’t mind stepping in right now, taking the baby from her, so that she could focus on one thing at a time, but I already knew how she was, so I would let her hold onto Lani for a little while longer.
Before I could answer her question, and tell her where Zayne was, he was swaggering in the room, holding onto his Nintendo switch.
Brooklyn washed his hair, and blow dried it for him, so all Toni had to do was style it.
My son had so much hair on his head. These days, it has grown out to his waist. I was still in his ear, trying to bribe him to cut it because it entailed too much work, and he hated to sit and get his hair done, but he didn’t want to cut it.
I told him years ago when he was a little boy that when his mama was pregnant with him, she would say how she wanted our son to have long hair like hers, so that she could keep it styled in braids, and till this day, he was living by that.
He kept his braids in honor of Sapphire, and I couldn’t do anything but respect it.
Knowing that Toni had to do his hair, I reached for Zaylani, and she passed her to me.
I cradled her in my arms, looking at her with so much love in my eyes.
She was my twin, but she had some features of her mother.
Big ass hazel eyes like Toni, moody as fuck like her mommy, naturally arched eyebrows, full lips, and the same button nose as her mom.
Her little ass was spoiled rotten too. When I’m home, I like to walk around the house and hold her.
I was the daddy towards my little girl that I knew that I would be.
“Come here, man. What’s that you got on your face? Am I seeing a little peach fuzz on you man?” I asked Zayne, motioning with my free hand, that wasn’t holding his sister for him to come over to me.
Zayne was six, and he was getting so big.
He was tall, and because he liked to be in the gym with me, this lil nigga was walking around here with an eight pack, and muscles.
Still scrawny as hell, but the muscles were there.
For him to be so young, he worked so hard when it came to football.
He was enrolled in all kinds of private lessons, he was in the gym with me, and he didn’t play that shit when it came to being to practice on time.
He’s always been headstrong when it came to football, but a couple of months ago, Rico Briggs, one of the biggest college wide receivers in Miami, signed with the Patriots, and that shit motivated my son, and damn near every other young football athlete out here, so Zayne has really been putting in that work.
“You see it, pops. You don’t have to squint. It’s right there in your face,” he responded, sounding like a grown ass man, making Toni laugh.
The camera crew was inside the room, filming this moment. I was holding Zayne by his arm, squinting, trying to see if it really was a peach fuzz that I saw on his upper lip.
“Nah. Never mind. That ain’t a peach fuzz,” I said, fuckin with him, and he sucked his teeth, and then turned his head, so that he could look up at Toni.
“Toni, don’t I have a little mustache coming in?” he asked her, and I knew she would agree with him because she was his biggest cheerleader.
“You do, baby. I told you the other day that I saw it. Your daddy is just hating. When he turns 40 in a few years, he’s going to start balding, so he’s just hating on you,” Toni told him, putting her hand on the top of my head for emphasis.
Her comment had Zayne cracking up, while I just shook my head at the bullshit she was talking.
“Yeah aight,” was all that I said in response to that.
Toni disappeared out of the room, and she cut over to the bathroom, so that she could grab everything that she needed to do Zayne’s hair.
She came back a couple of seconds later, and she was holding onto everything.
Because the cameras were rolling, she had her pixie cut out, and it was still styled from earlier.
Any other time, she would have been walking around this bitch with a scarf on her head, in one of my favorite elements to see her in.
We had the kids in the house, plus the cameras were rolling, so she had clothes on, and her ass wasn’t hanging out, like how she would do it, when it was just us two in the house.
She had on one of my white tee’s, and a pair of gray joggers.
She was comfortable, and as laid back as she was, she was still the prettiest to me.
“Lay her down in the bed, Steel. You’re the reason she’s spoiled like that and thinks that everybody is supposed to hold her all the time.
We just took her to the doctor the other day, and the doctor specifically told you to stop holding her all the time,” Toni fussed at me, while pointing at the ottoman chair that she brought over to the side of the bed for Zayne to sit.
They were right next to me. She had all the hair products on the nightstand, so it would be easy for her to grab what she needed while she styled his hair.
“I seriously think you say that shit because you be jealous. What? You mad because I’m not holding you? Chill out. It’ll be your turn tonight,” I said to her, and I blew her a kiss.
Acting as if she didn’t even hear me, she started brushing through Zayne’s hair. Zayne liked to rock his single plaits, and usually, that would take Toni about an hour and change to knock it out. I was going to sit here and keep her entertained the entire time.
Probably ten minutes into her doing his hair, Brooklyn walked in the room.
Our door was already opened, so she was able to walk right in.
She came in with her phone in her hands, and I could already see from here, that she had some kind of flyer pulled up on the screen, and was getting ready to ask Toni if she could go somewhere.
Something good, or something bad was going to come out of her asking.
Toni was either going to say yes, or she was going to say hell no.
There was never any in between. Brooklyn was seventeen, and it was that time in her life when a lot of her friends were starting to turn eighteen, so with that, Brooklyn had been getting invited to her friends 18th birthday parties just about every weekend.
Toni would allow her to go, but it all determined who the friend was.
Toni was tough when it came to that shit, but I never faulted her for it.
I was a seventeen-year-old before, and I liked to be up under the girls my age that were fast for their age, so I understood that Toni was just trying to keep Brooklyn away from that shit.
“What you doing?” Brooklyn asked her aunt, going over to her, and standing right on the side of her.
I shook my head because Brook was starting the shit off wrong already.
Asking Toni what she was doing, when she could clearly see that she was doing Zayne’s hair was the quickest way to annoy her, and have her saying no to whatever she was asking.
“Brook, you can literally see what I’m doing. It’s right in your face what I’m doing. What’s up?” Toni asked, giving her the kind of answer that I knew she would.
Brooklyn laughed, and then she lifted her phone, so that she could show her aunt the flyer.
“Okay well Audrey just sent out the invitations for her 18th birthday party. It’s in two weeks.
Can I go?” she asked, and while Toni had the end of the comb in her mouth, holding it there until she had to part Zayne’s hair again, she continued to plait down the braid.
She squinted with her eyes, so that she could look at the flyer.