CHAPTER ONE #2
"First of all, mind the business that pays you whore," Morgan snapped back chuckling, That's how we talked with each other, always talking shit but it was nothing but love between us for sure.
"And secondly, DeAndre stay giving me bread, he just bought me these.
" She pointed to the diamond studs in her ears.
Miss Sue, the shop owner, called my name from her station. "Yah-Yah! You want usual? French tip with diamonds?"
"Nah, not today, Miss Sue. imma get them coffin-shaped, and I want a red polish with some gold glitter."
"Ooooh," Mya sing-songed, "somebody feeling fancy. Mr. Clyde must've paid well tonight."
I shot her a look sharp enough to cut glass. "What I just tell y’all about being in my business?"
Mya rolled her eyes. "Girl, it ain't nobody in here who don't know what's what. You think these hoes getting these fake ass Birkin bags from working at Target?"
She had a point. Half the bitches in Fancy Fingers were either dancers, escorts, or had a dope dealer or sugar daddy on lock.
Chicago was expensive, and minimum wage didn't cover Louboutin’s.
“Nah our good big sis, just thinks she’s bigger than the program now,” Morgan sassed and I rolled my eyes,
“Oh, bitch shut yo’ hating ass up.” I retorted and Morgan started laughing.
“Hell, yea I’m hating, I need a nigga like Mr. Clyde on deck. Shit DeAndre aint got enough paper for me.”
“See…that’s why you gotta watch a hating ass hoe Mya, Lemme find out you sniffing up behind Mr. Clyde, I’ll shoot a bitch for that old mufucka,”
“Girl you not on shit.” Morgan snapped back laughing.
“Try me, see that’s why I gotta keep a .45 for hoes like you.” I retorted jokingly staring at Morgan.
“Bitch I’m always ready for the smoke.” She shot back giggling.
“You two hoes been arguing like this since high school” Mya added,
“And we still together,” Morgan sang in her in living color voice causing me to smile.
That part was true. Me and Morgan went way back, to freshman year, we shared lockers, cheap lip gloss, and big dreams we didn’t know how to reach yet.
She was the first person I ever talked to about my parents.
The first person who didn’t look at me like I was broken afterward.
When everybody else faded, Morgan was right there.
We were high school best friends turned grown-woman confidants.
“Speaking of men… my new lil boo Rah been acting real generous lately.” Mya said, I raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
“Real generous,” she said proudly. “Food, weed, money. The nigga took me shopping twice this week. And I ain’t even have to ask.”
Morgan laughed. “That’s because he fucks with GMB. He better be breaking bread. Them niggas over there getting money,” Mya shrugged. “Shit, I don’t care who the nigga run with, as long as he breaking me off something, I’m cool.” When she said that my thoughts drifted to Rylo.
“Rylo been good to me lately too, we aint had no issues in a long ass time and I’m happy about that shit,” I said finally.
“I still think you faking when it comes to that pretty boy ass nigga, you know you love a thug.”
“Nah, I love him. I really do. But sometimes… I do feel like I’m missing something.”
Mya didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah. A baby.” She said and I groaned loudly.
“Here you go.”
Morgan smacked her lips hard. “Bitch, Yah-Yah does not need no baby with his cheating, pretty boy, scamming ass.”
“Well, I’m ready for a niece or fucking nephew, her, or Yatta ’s ass aint gave me nothing yet. They gotta have one first, shit I’m the youngest.” Mya chuckled.
I laughed it off, but my chest tightened as memories started lining up in my head, Rylo getting caught up in hotel rooms with bitches, his phones flipped face down whenever im at his crib, or bitches hitting my line saying they in a relationship with my man.
So many explanations that never fully added up.
And I chose peace over confrontation. Love over logic was the excuses I gave myself for staying with his ass.
As I settled into Miss Sue's chair, letting her take my hands and start filing down my previous set.
The three of us kept talking, laughing, cracking jokes about men, relationships, and everything else.
The familiar rhythm of the salon wrapped around me, the gossip, the laughter, the occasional "Bihhhhh!
" punctuating someone's story. This was the most normal part of my week, and it was the part I enjoyed the most.
* * *
Two days later
I pulled up to the crib in my bmw, sitting in the whip for a minute before I cut the engine. No matter how long I stayed away, coming back to my family house always hit different for me.
Once I finally cut the engine off I continued to sit there with my keys still in my hand. My mama’s voice crept into my head, followed by my daddy’s laugh, then the gunshots that erased both of them from our lives in the same night. My Mama killed my Daddy. Then she killed herself.
I was twelve years old, I was old enough to understand death but too young to understand why love could turn into something so ugly.
Yatta was fifteen and became a man overnight.
Mya was eight and never really got to be a kid again after that.
That loss didn’t just hurt us, but more so it rewired us.
Auntie Mazi stepped in after that. She was my Daddy’s sister. She was street-smart, sharp-tongued, and tired as hell, but she raised us the best way she knew how. Never once did she complain, even when nightmares had Mya waking up screaming every night for a year straight.
Then the lupus that had been dormant in her body for years came back with a vengeance.
It happened when Yatta was seventeen. Within six months, Auntie Mazi was too sick to work, too sick to even get out of bed some days.
Yatta dropped out of school, since he was already connected with the GD’s on 63rd, they put him on to hustling.
he started selling dime bags of weed, then he graduated from selling dimes and slowly started moving weight, he did anything to keep food on the table and the state from taking me and Mya.
By the time Yatta turned eighteen and could legally become our guardian, Auntie Mazi was in hospice. She died a week after the papers went through, like she had been holding on just long enough to make sure we would be okay.
Yatta hustled so hard that we were able to keep our parents’ house even after auntie Mazi died.
He fixed it up piece by piece. We had a new roof, new floors, and news appliance.
Sometimes I feel like I could still hear my mama’s voice, and I knew I was tripping, but that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t like being home sometimes, because I knew the bones of this house still carried ghosts.
I grabbed my bag and went inside. Entering the crib, the house smelled like food and money. Which was a familiar scent to me since that’s all that flowed through here.
My big brother Yatarius better known as Yatta, sat at the kitchen table, his shoulders broad, and head down, and he was counting a stack of money. He had the stacks laid out neatly, organized, and deliberate. He didn’t look up at first.
“Sit down,” he stated calmly. I dropped my purse on the chair and took a seat across from him.
“Damn, can I at least say hi first?” He finally looked up, eyes sharp behind his black rimmed glasses.
“You alive. That’s the hi.” I laughed softly.
“You so fucking dramatic.”
“I’m serious,” he said, sliding a stack to the side. “You been moving reckless.”
I leaned back in the chair, crossing my arms. “Here we go.”
“Yah-Yah, don’t disrespect me,” He snapped in a firm voice. “I see everything. I hear shit. And I don’t like the way you moving.”
“I’m fine, Yatta” I said. “You worry too much.”
“I worry ‘cause I’m supposed to,” he snapped. “You out here dealing with that bitch ass nigga Rylo, running around doing whatever, thinking shit is sweet out here.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “I don’t know why you always hated Rylo. He ain’t never did shit to you Yatta.”
“‘I hate that nigga because I can spot a weak ass nigga a mile away,” he said flatly. “He ain’t built like a real mufucka plus he moves too fucking sloppy.”
“Yatta,”
“And you letting that nigga treat you any kind of way, and I don’t like it.” I leaned back eyeing him.
“Rylo is not that bad.”
Yatta ’s jaw tightened. “He ain’t shit, Yah-Yah. And you know it.”
“Yatta,”
“He don’t protect you. He don’t provide like he should,” he snapped. “You out here doing shit while he benefiting. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.” I opened my mouth, then closed it.
“And don’t think I don’t know what you out here doing,” he added, “I don’t want you tricking off with these old ass niggas,” My chest tightened.
“You too damn beautiful for that shit,” he said firmly. “Too smart and too fucking valuable. I didn’t raise you to sell yourself short.”
The words stung more than I expected. Shame crept up my spine and I dropped my eyes to the table, suddenly real aware of everything I didn’t want my big brother knowing.
“I’m handling my business,” I said softly.
“I know you are,” he replied. “But you shouldn’t have to handle it like that.” I shrugged, playing it cool even though my stomach was doing flips.
"Rylo is a good nigga. You don't like him for no reason at all." I said flipping the conversation back to that, I didn’t wanna talk about what I did for money with Yatta.
"You mufuckin right I don't like his ass," Yatta shot back. "Never have. Nigga thinks he slick with them scams and that fake-ass entrepreneur shit he always talking about. Flexing all over IG, like he don't know CPD got social media too."
I couldn't even front, Yatta wasn’t entirely wrong about Rylo loving to stunt. That was one of our biggest arguments. I believed in moving in silence; Rylo believed in moving with an audience.
"You don't even know the real him,” I said, knowing how weak that shit sounded.