Chapter 16 #2
Adding a pinch of salt to the second round of scrambled eggs I’d made in the last five minutes, I lifted my head to see Bahati entering the kitchen.
As always, her smooth skin was as shiny as black marble.
I didn’t know whether it was her skincare routine or her natural glow, but she always looked ready to grace somebody’s magazine cover, even back when she was just my language tutor.
Her braids hung over each shoulder, and I wondered when she’d step out to get them redone.
She complained that she wanted to take her hair down, but the broken arm made it impossible for her to do so.
She’d swapped out the oversized shirt for Gucci shorts and a Gucci T-shirt, tying the T-shirt at the waist. Her feet were bare, showing the hot pink polish on her toes.
The last time we’d encountered each other, more than three years ago, she’d been wearing the same color polish.
“With the way she was screaming, I don’t think waking you would have worked if her lungs didn’t.”
Shya and I had been in the kitchen for more than half an hour, her watching me while I made chicken sausage, pancakes, and now the eggs.
She was on the island, working on the pancakes since she’d already downed the meat.
Removing the eggs from the skillet, I opened the freezer and stuck the egg-covered spatula inside.
I’d seen Ezio do the same shit for his junior not long ago.
It didn’t take eggs long to cool, so I removed them from the spatula onto Shya’s syrupy plate.
She only had a few pieces of the triangular-shaped pieces of sliced pancake left.
Her round, watery eyes rested on my face for a beat, then she dropped her gaze to the eggs and scooped them into her hand.
She hadn’t attempted to use the spoon I’d given her; I guess it was easier to go straight caveman-style.
“You not eating?” Bahati’s sultry tenor broke my stare from Shya.
It was clear that designer brands weren’t made for black bodies, especially ones like Bahati’s.
The shorts were too big at the top, so she’d folded them at the waist, leaving a gap around her stomach, while the canvas material barely covered her ass cheeks because it was too tight at the bottom.
To fit her properly, she would need to get them tailored.
If I’d known she was going designer, I would’ve just given her the name and number of the many reps who were always calling and texting me about pieces they swore I needed.
I was an easy mark for them because I rarely, if ever, declined a sale.
“I had my breakfast earlier.”
I’d had a protein shake and avocado toast on sourdough before my workout, and I already had my lunch and dinner ready.
The owner of the company I used for housekeeping had a daughter who was a chef.
She sold meal preps, and I’d used her services a few times before.
I liked to prepare my own food when I wasn’t eating out so that I knew exactly how many calories I was consuming, but her meals were good.
I bit the bullet and decided to order for this week and asked the housekeepers to bring them when they came yesterday.
Everything had been so hectic between the two women, Hobo, the mob, and the actual work runs that I’d fallen off the wagon.
I’d been consuming bullshit while avoiding the house.
It was bad enough I had tripled my marijuana and alcohol intake, so I needed to shake back and get on my routine again.
Weed was one of the only things keeping a nigga sane, though, so the heavy food and emptying bottles had to go.
“So I’ll assume this is for me?” Bahati pointed to the plate of cheese eggs with some extra chicken sausage I’d made.
I shrugged. “Help yourself.”
I had cooked the eggs for Shya, but she pulled the left-right headshake while pushing the plate away. As her little face assessed the plate of cheese eggs, I assessed her and decided to try something. Now that she was eating the eggs without cheese with no problem, I had some questions.
My eyes followed Bahati as she stood across from me.
The elbow of her free arm was firmly planted on the counter as the shorts that barely covered her ass looked like they were cutting off her thigh’s circulation.
Instead of pivoting to warm the plate of food in the microwave, she stabbed the fork into the eggs.
The fork disappeared inside her mouth, and when she slid it out, melted cheese rested on her full lips.
She licked it away with her eyes on me. Bahati was sexy then, and she was sexy now.
Motherhood looked good on her, and although I should have killed her ass during our last encounter, God saw fit that she lived to tell the story.
And have my baby.
It was challenging coming home to soft legs every night and not breaking dick off in her, but I’d done it with Solana and damn sure could do it with Bahati. I still had time to pick my wife between the two, but I was no closer to making a decision than I was when Don gave me the ultimatum.
“Why didn’t you tell me Shya doesn’t like cheese?”
The little display of cheese seduction she was doing ended as her face crumpled in confusion. “Hunh? She eats cheese. She eats everything.”
“Nah. She acts as if she’s lactose intolerant or some shit.” I paused to study Bahati, and when she shrugged, I sneered a little.
“Shyla’s not lactose intolerant, Shio. She probably just didn’t want the cheese eggs.”
“And the milk the other day?”
Bahati rolled her eyes and sighed. “Maybe she didn’t want the milk either. I get you’re trying to get to know her, but questioning me about the very child I’ve raised for the last three years is off-putting.”
“Almost as off-putting as you calling her Shyla instead of Shya. But you got it, Bahati.”
Not giving her a chance to respond, I picked up Shya since she was done eating.
We went back to the half bath and washed her syrupy hands.
I wasn’t about to go back and forth with Bahati.
I may have missed the signs of Solana being coked out, but I wasn’t letting up from my gut telling me Bahati had some shit to her.
I felt bad about her and Shya being caught up in my shit with the Rodríguezes, but her shit wasn’t clean enough for me to choose her as my wife yet.
I wasn’t sure if my feelings were based on our past or my current intuition, and I would need to sort through all of that first before deciding to make this situation permanent.
Once baby girl’s hands were dry, she looked up at me with sleepy eyes. Pulling her back into my arms, her head found my chest, and I could see her long lashes constantly tapping her cheeks. Her lips were glossed with maple syrup, but I didn’t bother with it.
“You can use the card to get you a phone, Bahati.”
I kept my voice low since Shya was headed to the land of the dreamers.
I could tell by the way her breathing pattern had changed.
I needed the phone back that I’d given her since I wasn’t about to go grab the one from Solana at Jisei’s spot.
I had gone from three phones and two burners to one phone and two burners, plus Solana’s phone.
I looked up to see worry etched across Bahati’s face as she pushed the plate away from her. “I… I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ve been toying with getting another phone, but… they took my phone. If I get another with the same account, that could be a way for them to track me here.”
It was like a fucking light switch had gone off in my head.
I was usually the nigga to think everything through thoroughly when I was in the midst of putting a plan in motion, but my thoughts had been cloudy as of late.
Bahati and the events surrounding her kidnapping had taken a back seat to the shit happening in Jagoda Bay, and it was my fault for missing the obvious piece on figuring out where them bitch-ass niggas were hiding.
I’d been so busy trying to get at them niggas using Solana’s phone that I hadn’t even thought about them niggas having Bahati’s.
My tech guy had told me that if I had a phone number that was connected to them, I’d have better luck with getting their location.
I knew he would be able to track them now as long as they still had her shit.
Shya had fallen asleep on my chest, so as I reached into my pocket to retrieve my main phone, I was careful not to wake her.
I didn’t want her to go back into a screaming spell before I had a chance to finish my workout.
I swiped past notifications from Vello and Ezio.
Those twins had been keeping Vello up for forty days and forty nights, and since I was the only person he knew who was up before the sun, I had become his go-to person to call in the morning.
I hadn’t been answering the last few days because I didn’t want to talk about my bullshit or hear them loud-ass twins.
Those infants had lungs that were just as strong as Shya’s.
I didn’t mind her cries, but them little niggas sounded like stray cats.
“What’s the number?” I asked while my eyes shifted from the phone to Bahati.
“Um… About that.”
My eyes slanted at her as she wore a look on her face that said she was about to say some shit to piss me off. She straightened, and one side of her shorts became caught in her crotch, but she made no moves to fix it.
“I don’t know the number?”
I ran my tongue across my teeth. “Bahati…”
She rushed in front of me. The smell of shea butter and the sprays she used back then knocked me in the face.
She’d ordered every damn thing she wanted and needed, down to the body butters she had imported from her homeland.
Some shit had never changed, and Bahati was a creature of habit.
Just like then, she still had a badass habit of throwing me all the fucking way off.