Chapter 20 #2
She understood why he couldn’t take her there, but she didn’t agree with her rehabbing alone in the basement. Between her, Bella, and me, we didn’t know all the details, but we understood it wouldn’t have been safe for her to be in a facility because of mob-related business.
Solana, as beautiful as she was, had appeared out of nowhere.
One day, Neltz came home and couldn’t stop talking about his Mexi-Mami.
Seeing her up close, I understood why my nephew was so smitten with the Afro-Latina.
Even in chaos, with vomit on her face and clothes, and her hair tangled enough to take us two hours to comb through, she was still gorgeous.
It was quiet until Bella spoke up. “I’m rooting for her. Maybe she can teach me some Spanish. I been thinking about learning another language.”
“I’m rooting for her too. I’ll give her a pass for having her claws in my sugar daddy.” Mahzeyah fretted, fake rolling her eyes with a smirk.
Bella shook her head. “Her and Shio aren’t together.”
She left it at that, not attempting to divulge more. I shifted my eyes from my phone to her and then to Mahzeyah, seeing the silent conversation they were having. Bella would probably go into more details when it was just her, Mahzeyah, and me. For now, speaking on Shio and Solana was over.
My phone vibrated on my lap as I took another swig of the wine cooler. Seeing that they’d talked my brother up, I let it go to voicemail. I didn’t feel like talking today, especially since my brother never wanted to answer my questions.
I’d been trying to get to know our father, but Teo was still at odds with him.
Whenever I asked him about our father, he had little to say, but he kept encouraging me to spend time with him.
The problem was, I had been spending time with Reuchie Rinaldi, and he was every girl’s dream.
I wanted to know how Teo felt about our father, but I got nothing.
I trusted my brother, and without him being more forthcoming, I had my guard up.
I’d been a little envious of Pia and her father’s bond, even though Rio took great care of me when everything was finally out in the open regarding him and my mama.
Everything happened so quickly that we all had no choice but to adapt.
My sister went from working security and struggling to pay her bills while running a household to being given cars, trucks, and boats.
Our mother suddenly could talk, and Pia fell in love with her childhood best friend.
It was something out of a movie, and it was hard to make sense of it all.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t struggling.
Financially, life was much better. My sister had gone from rags to riches, and she had a man madly in love with her and a dad who was smitten with her.
Pia’s life was perfect, and the new baby would be loved immensely.
But me, I was stuck trying to find my place. I knew I was surrounded by people who loved me, but I didn’t feel like I belonged to anyone. I didn’t feel like I was anyone’s number one priority.
Matteo
Pearla
I knew my brother well enough to tell that the text was a warning.
As mean as Teo was, he had a sensitive side too.
He hated being ignored, and while I wasn’t trying to do it on purpose, I was just chilling.
If I answered for him, he’d guilt-trip me into coming to his house by saying Princess wanted to spend time with me.
I loved my pretty niece, but the last time I was over there, I had the worst stomachache ever from eating cereal all damn day.
For some reason, Princess was addicted to it—all different kinds too—and my brother was sure to keep the various cereals in stock.
It was hard for me to appreciate my own wins because life just didn’t hit the way one would think it would in my position.
From what I’ve seen, my daddy was a good man.
His wife hadn’t displayed any hurt about my being her stepdaughter, but I didn’t know them well enough to read the situation accurately.
I’d stayed the night at their house a few times and had my own room there now, but I always found myself back under my sister’s roof within a few days of leaving.
Everybody wanted me around, and while the attention was nice, I knew it was because they were scared of where I’d go mentally if alone for too long.
“Pearla… Who do you think looks good? You can judge the Cuppacios because, like you said, y’all are not related. I’m just trying to see what your type is,” Blayke asked, probing. She reminded me of Bella so much.
“Ion know…” I shrugged. “I guess I’m gonna have to go with what Mahzeyah and Bella said. They’re too old to look at like that.”
Blayke kissed her teeth. “Oh my God! They like… mid-twenties! Maybe late, but they not too much older than us.”
“We’re seventeen,” Mahzeyah gestured to me. “You’re nineteen. To us, mid-to-late-twenties is a long way from seventeen. And it’s nothing against girls that like men in their twenties, but I’m a lil’ too girlish for them.”
I agreed with Mahzeyah, so I just nodded my head. Flexer was twenty, but she was nearing eighteen, so they only had a two-year age gap. Blayke’s eyes bulged, and she took a big swig of her wine cooler, nearly finishing it off.
“Hold up! You fucked with a nigga in his twenties?” Bella asked, almost screaming.
“I mean… yeah.” Blayke picked invisible lint from her biker shorts.
Bella perked up, being nosy as hell. “How old?”
“Not that old. He was early twenty-ish.”
“Oh, that ain’t too bad. These niggas y’all lusting over are damn near thirty. Early twenties is still young. He was probably childish as hell,” Bella said with a shrug.
Blayke shrugged too. “He wasn’t childish, just was an ain’t shit nigga.
I think early twenties, it depends on the type of life a man lives.
You can be a childish twenties, or you can be a mature-ass twenties that lives life like you’re thirty.
The nigga I was fuckin’ with was somewhere in between the two. But fuck him and may he rest in hell!”
Glee rubbed her forehead and groaned at her friend’s protest.
“Wait? He died?” I asked, heart thudding, waiting for her response.
“Yep! Walking ‘round here looking like the living dead since I left his ass alone.”
“Blayke!” Glee gasped.
“Fuck him! The nigga dead to me.”
Bella cackled. “Helllll nawl! You stupid, Blayke.”
“You know how you be so in love, and then boom! You wake up from that dick coma?” Blayke asked, and Glee groaned again, throwing her head back on the sectional.
“Yes, indeed,” Bella responded.
“Kinda sorta. I think Flexer’s the first boy I liked-liked. My first? I was just doing something.” Mahzeyah chuckled.
My first time was with a boy, I was very much “in like” until he told the whole school and embarrassed the fuck out of me. I still laugh at the day Neltz got on his ass. My nephew always rode for his TeeTee. But I didn’t respond to Blayke’s question, and neither did Glee.
“Well, that was my first. He was everything until he wasn’t anything.
It was fun when I was in the moment, but the aftermath?
The aftermath… I wouldn’t wish that shit on my worst enemy.
Now, I’m just thugging. I’m thugging and figuring my life out.
I don’t have time for a nigga unless he willing to finance my whole life.
But I know I’ll have to be careful with those type of men, too, because I can fall in love, and then boom!
I’ma dumb ass all over again. I can’t have that—ever. ”
We all let the silence linger after Blayke’s spiel.
I was lost in my thoughts, and I figured the others were too.
R&B songs played on the TV, with Keyshia Cole currently screaming at us about love.
Love was a strange thing to me. I had never understood that heartbreak felt exactly what it was called until I went through it.
There were still days I couldn’t eat, still days I couldn’t sleep.
It had been six months since that night—the night that changed everything.
It was almost hard to look at my sister’s engagement ring because it brought me back to that day.
I could still feel my own screams in my throat—the guttural cries scratching my vocal cords, almost cracking them and leaving me hoarse for days.
The broken glass. The gunshots. The blood—so much damn blood—as the look of life slipped from a person’s eyes.
And not just any person, but the one you thought was everything, only to find out they weren’t anything at all, as Blayke said.
“Pearla!”
Blinking, I’d noticed Italian had come back up the stairs, and behind him were Gal and the others.
“Hunh?” I asked Italian, who was looking at me as if he was awaiting an answer.
“I said, ‘If y’all mind if my nigga, Ro, come over?’ He’s from the block…. And my dawg, P, walking over too.”
“Walking?” Bella asked.
“Yeah, his grandpa, Mr. Joe, live ‘cross the street. Jisei knows Mr. Joe… He’s a cool dude. I’ve been rockin’ with his grandson for a lil’ minute. Matta fact, y’all already seen them both, at the party for Glee.” Italian rubbed his head. “Shit, I gotta stop smoking.”
The house had been the hangout spot for weeks, but Solana was still going through something extremely vulnerable downstairs.
Italian had been careful about whom he brought around, so if these P and Ro characters were cool people, I didn’t mind.
I couldn’t remember too much about who he had at Glee’s party, though, because my mind was elsewhere.
I shrugged. “If everybody else is cool with it, I am too.”
“Aite, cool.”