Chapter 7
Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
POP IT!
Iwas down in the basement, getting a workout in.
My phone was hooked up to the speakers, and it was so loud in here that it sounded as if I was at a club.
Loud music kept me hyped during my workouts.
Usually, my son would be in here, getting a workout in with me, but he was with my parents for the night.
Brooklyn was with Karina, and Toni was upstairs with Lani.
Before coming down here, Lani had been resting in bed, taking a nap, while Toni was up, grading papers.
Toni didn’t like working out with me. She loved being in the gym, but she would only come down here when I wasn’t working out.
She said that it was never fun when we worked out together because I didn’t treat her like she was my fiancé.
She said that I was too hard on her, and I would treat her like one of the boys.
The music suddenly stopped playing because I had a call coming through. It was Nolan hitting me. I hit this nigga days ago, so that I could get in his ass about the shit that he did to Ivory’s eye, and he was just now hitting me back.
I rushed to get to the phone, sliding the bar across, and I placed the call on speaker. Sweat was dripping down my body because before he called, I had been using the jump ropes, and it was going on five minutes that I had been jumping.
“Yo,” I accepted the call.
My tone didn’t sound friendly with him. Nolan wasn’t a stupid nigga, so he knew the reason why I’d called him a few days ago. He knew what I wanted, and that’s why his ass was just now getting back to me.
“What’s good? You called me?” he asked, his energy matching mine because again, this nigga knew why I was calling him.
“I called you like four days ago. What you got going on?” I spat.
“Life nigga! I’m busy just like the next man. Steel, what’s good? You hit me, so I figured you wanted to talk, so what’s going on?” he asked.
He knew that he was dead ass wrong for blacking Ivory’s eye.
He knew that’s the reason I called him in the first place.
He knew that I had plans on checking him because of it, and that’s why he was trying to beat me at being angry.
Weird ass nigga. Prior to this, I never had any issues with Nolan.
Like I said, in my boxing days, I knocked him out a few times, but he took it like a champ, and we were able to go on, and be cool after it.
“Take the fake confusion out of your voice, nigga. You know fuckin well why I’m calling you.
The fact that you chose to hit me back four days later, lets me know that you been dodging me because you knew what I wanted to talk to you about.
What the fuck Ivory did to you to make you black her eye?
” I asked, getting right to the point, thirsty to hear what his response was going to be.
“And I apologized for that shit to her, Steel. I been texting her ass since it happened, telling her how sorry I was for doing that, but she got a nigga blocked, so my messages aren’t coming through.
I know that I’m dead ass wrong for putting my hands on her, but Ivory fuckin mouth be getting too reckless at times, man.
She was saying some wild, off-the-wall shit.
Naming all the crazy shit that she was going to send to my wife about us, so I stooped low, and I snapped.
If I could take that shit back, I swear to God that I would,” he let me know, and I sucked my teeth at that bullshit.
“I just don’t understand you, man. You knew fuckin well that you didn’t have any plans of truly leaving your wife. Why get other people wrapped up in the middle of your bullshit—”
“Ay man, Steel you my dude, and I fuck with you. I got a lot of respect for you, but you the wrong nigga to be in my business about this shit. You ain’t my daddy, nigga.
No disrespect to Sapphire, but she not here no more, so why the fuck you care about what I’m out here doing with her sister?
Ain’t you about to get married in a couple of weeks?
Your soon-to-be wife don’t have no sisters that you can defend?
You care a little bit too much dawg!” he snapped at me, and I had to laugh at that shit, just to keep myself from spazzing.
I had to laugh because if I didn’t, I would be hitting up Manuel, telling him to fly me over to Atlanta, so that I could find this nigga, and beat the breaks off him.
“I ain’t trying to be your daddy, nigga!
You obviously lacked having a daddy in your life because he would have schooled you about putting your hands on women, pussy!
No son of mine will ever go around putting their hands on a fuckin woman.
It don’t matter that Sapphire not here. If she was here, and you had put your hands on her sister, Sapphire would have told me to handle it, so I’m doing what the fuck I know she would have wanted me to do.
It don’t matter what my situation is, homie.
Keep your hands to yourself. It won’t be a second time that I have this conversation with you.
I would hate to have you limping like I did when we were in that ring together,” I was firm, speaking every word clearly because not only did I want him to hear me, but I also wanted him to feel me too.
“Yeah man,” was all he said before he hung the phone up on me.
I wasn’t a psychic or no shit like that, but I could bet my last dollar that this would be the last time that I ever had to have this conversation with him again.
Nolan knew that my hands were lethal. I might have retired, but these hands still worked like they used to when I was in my prime.
He felt these punches before. Fighting against me years ago, I had that nigga down for weeks, trying to recover, so he knew as well as I knew that I was the last nigga that he wanted to put hands on him.
I went ahead, and I finished with my workout.
I was down here for about an hour. I cut the music off, cleaned up any mess that I made in here, and luckily for me, in the next room over, there was my man cave, where I had a bathroom inside, so I was able to shower, get all that sweat and shit off me, and while inside, I even washed my hair.
I stepped out, wrapping a towel around my waist, and I went over to the sink, so that I could wash my face.
In the middle of me putting lotion on my body, so that I could slip some lounge clothes on, a text came in from Toni.
I picked my phone up, going to her message, feeling like she was texting me, wanting to know what I was doing, and when I would come back upstairs.
Unfortunately, that’s not what she texted me.
She sent me a sad face emoji. I knew that sad face wasn’t because she was missing me and wanting me to come upstairs.
If that’s what she wanted, she would have simply texted that over to me.
I quickly slipped on a pair of briefs, some sweats, applied some deodorant, and I headed out of the room, so that I could go upstairs, and see what was going on with her.
When I made it to our bedroom, Lani was still sleeping in the bed because that girl carried on like she had a couple of full-time jobs, that always kept her tired.
Toni had the TV on in the bedroom, but it wasn’t playing loudly.
There was no more paperwork surrounding the bed, so I figured that she must have finished grading papers.
She had a sad look on her face as her phone was resting in her hands, and she looked up at me.
“What’s wrong?” I wanted to know, stepping closer to the bed, so that I could be closer to her.
“My skin is usually thick, and I can handle a lot of things, but I’m not going to lie Steel, they kind of getting to me on social media with the videos, and the comments.
At first, I didn’t care, but that shit is starting to hurt my feelings a little bit now,” she voiced, and I could hear the sadness in her voice to know that it was really getting to her.
I didn’t have to ask Toni what she was talking about because I already knew.
It’s like ever since the countdown started with our wedding, all kinds of trolls have been fuckin with Toni on social media, making these long ass videos, speaking on shit that they didn’t know anything about.
Motha fuckas really got on social media, as if they lived in my house, and they knew me well enough to speak for me.
They were running with this narrative that Toni would never be with me if Sapphire never passed away.
Granted, if Sapphire never was killed, I knew that the two of us would still be together, but that was nothing for people to get on social media and continue to say.
“Why you reading that shit, baby? Why would you willingly sit there, and watch people talk shit about you?” I wanted to know.
I’m not sure what video she might have saw, but her eyes watered up a little bit, and when she blinked, a couple of tears fell.
Toni has never cried over some bullshit that people were saying about her on social media.
Her skin was thick. She knew how to allow that shit to bounce off her shoulders, and continue to go on about her day, but this evening, she was allowing it to really upset her.
“I posted a picture of Lani sleeping on my Instagram story, and a bunch of people started sending me this link to a TikTok video. Watch this. Listen to what this girl got on social media, and said,” Toni let me know, picking her phone up from her lap, unlocking it, and she moved her fingers quickly, trying to navigate to the video.
Once she got a hold of it, she handed the video to me, and an ugly bitch popped up on the screen. I wouldn’t have looked her way if she was the last bitch standing. Her video had well over 30k likes, and already over a million views. Damn near 15k comments on it too.