Chapter 8 #2
“When it comes to my daughter, and getting stuff for her, I’ve never made a big deal about shit, so I’m not even sure why you felt the need to say that. I’m already out. I’ll grab it and then come over. Give me like twenty minutes,” I told her.
“Okay,” and like that, she hung the phone up.
I had to make a u- turn, and head back in the opposite direction of my apartment. I drove in silence, with a million things flooding my mind.
I eventually made it to CVS, and I stocked up on Motrin, and Tylenol, so that Promise never had to run out of those things again. I paid for the items up front, headed back to the car, and I was on the way to Promise’s crib. It didn’t take long to get to her.
I parked in the lot, grabbed the bags out of the passenger seat, along with my gun, and phone, and I locked the doors behind me.
I took the stairs up to her unit, and within seconds, I was standing in front of her door, and I knocked.
Promise answered in under a minute, and when she did, she was holding Romy, who was still fussing.
She was just whining, as if she was annoyed.
Her little nose was running a little bit, and I could see how red her cheeks were.
I reached my hand out, so that I could touch her forehead, and she was warm.
“She got a cold? What happened?” I asked, stepping in the house, and I sat the bag down, so that I could reach for my daughter.
She was still whining as I held onto her. She was dressed in just a onesie, and there wasn’t anything on her feet.
“Her nose started running yesterday, and her temperature did spike a little bit earlier, and that’s why I canceled all my appointments, so that I could stay home with her,” Promise let me know, picking the bag up from the table, that I’d just sat there.
“My baby nose running, and she got a temperature, and you didn’t tell me.
So, who you told then? Her other daddy?” I asked her, and the second it left my lips, she whipped her head around so fast, and I knew for a fact that if I wasn’t holding onto Romy, that she would have more than likely slapped my ass.
“I’m learning that everything doesn’t deserve a response.
Ima let you have that one. Your daughter has your entire fuckin face, and you talking about she got another daddy?
You gotta be the weirdest nigga that I ever met in my life.
That’s what I get for fuckin with a nigga that’s younger than me,” she voiced, and I laughed, while following her to the back.
“You know what they call that, right? Statutory rape,” I continued talking shit.
“And you’re supposed to be in college, idiot?
It would have been statutory rape if we had sex, and you were a minor.
This why I don’t like to be around you because you always fuckin with me.
Give me my baby, so I can let her get her medicine,” Promise turned around, and she took Romy out of my arms, once we made it in the back, where her bedroom was.
Promise took a seat, and she kept Romy in her lap.
She knew how to multitask, as she kept Romy in her lap, and she pulled the medicine out the box, opened it, poured just a little into the medicine cup for Romy, and she put it to her lips.
Her greedy butt loved medicine because she must have thought that it was some kind of candy or something.
I stood over them, watching as Romy finished the medicine.
The second I was getting ready to reach for her, Promise’s phone that was sitting on her nightstand started ringing.
Naturally, it was in me to look and see who was calling her because the phone was right there.
The name, ‘Marquez’ appeared on her home screen, along with a picture of him.
It was Marquez Thomas. He played for the Steelers.
For that nigga to be calling her this late, that could only mean that she was fuckin him.
Her slick ass declined the call and then tossed the phone in the bed with her, turning it face down, so I couldn’t see it.
“You don’t have to decline your nigga’s calls while I’m around. Answer that shit,” I told her.
I’m not going to lie; there was this small part of me… about 15% that did feel some kind of way about my baby mama fuckin other niggas. It was just a pride thing. A feeling where no baby daddy wanted their baby mama fuckin another nigga, especially having the nigga around your child.
“First off, that’s not my nigga. Secondly, I didn’t answer it because I chose not to,” she shot, and her phone started ringing again.
She took her eyes off me, so that she could reach for her phone. She looked to see who was calling, and I did the same. The nigga was hitting her back. This time, her ass boldly answered the phone, while picking up Romy, and she handed her over to me.
“Hey,” she answered, sounding real familiar with that nigga.
I could have walked out of the room, but Romy, and I stayed right here. Both of us all in her mouth, waiting to hear what she was going to say to him. I don’t know what that nigga said to her, but she started smiling, and then she laughed.
“I can’t. I’m home with my daughter. She isn’t feeling well,” she told him.
I was going to stand here and keep quiet. I wasn’t going to make a sound and fuck up the little motion that she had going on with that nigga.
“If I can get a sitter, I’ll come,” she voiced. He said something else, and she laughed.
“Okay. I’m going to call you back,” and then she hung the phone up, and tossed it down on the bed.
“How long you been fuckin that nigga?” I asked her the second that she hung the phone up.
“Why? Rico, do I ask you about the hoes that you fuck? No! Move. I’ll go out in the family room, while you put her to sleep because I can already tell that your about to get on my nerves,” she snapped, trying to get up, but I blocked her path, not letting her move.
“I’m just asking you simple questions. How long you been fuckin him?” I wanted to know.
“I don’t know. Like a month. Why?” she asked.
“I thought that nigga was fuckin that rapper chick from New York. What’s her name? Cindy?” I asked.
“That’s old. Like, real fuckin old. Probably three years old. That girl is engaged now, and pregnant by someone else,” she said it in a way like I sounded dumb for not knowing that.
“Shit, I don’t know. I play ball and stay the fuck out the way. I don’t keep up with who that nigga dating. How you met him?” I asked.
“Rico, whyyyyy?” she dragged that shit out, like she was annoyed as hell with me.
“Damn, I can’t ask? You acting like you in trouble or some shit. I just want to know,” I replied.
She sighed, rolled her eyes, and then looked me in my eyes.
“I was at a lounge with my girls, and he was there with a few of his teammates. He sent bottles to our table, and then he came over and talked to me. I haven’t fucked with a nigga in over a year.
The whole time that I was pregnant with Romy, I was only dealing with your ass.
Romy just turned four months, so I’m just now getting back outside.
It’s not serious what me and Marquez are doing.
At least, not right now it isn’t. I’ve been to a few of his games, we chill, have fun, but I don’t know where it’s going to go with us because my business is here, and we have our daughter, and even though you get on my fuckin nerves, I’ll never move away with your child,” she said some real shit to me, and I just nodded my head towards what she was saying.
“You had Romy around him?” I went ahead and asked her the million-dollar question.
“No, and you know I didn’t, so I don’t know why you asked me that,” she responded.
“Shit, I don’t know what you and that nigga be laid up doing.
For all I know, you could have been trying to play house with him, having him think that he was a step daddy to my daughter.
I don’t care what you do on your free time.
You grown at the end of the day. All I ask is that if you going to do that, run that shit by me first, so that I could look that nigga in his eyes, and threaten him.
Gotta make sure he knows that I’ll kill when it comes to my child,” I voiced, walking away from her, and I went to take a seat at the ottoman, that was right at the foot of her bed.
I was still holding onto Romy, and she wasn’t fussing anymore. She was getting sleepy, so I cradled her in my arms.
“Rico, please! Did you even handle the last nigga that pulled up on me, and your daughter? His crazy ass walked into my salon, where I was in the blind, not knowing what the fuck he wanted, and I doubt that you handled it yet. If you didn’t handle that, then I know that you damn sure not going to handle Marquez,” she said, and when she spat that shit at me, I shot her a nasty look, as if I wanted to get up, and slap fire from her ass.
“So, what you saying? You trying to say that I’m pussy?” I asked, and that question made her groan, as if she was annoyed with me.
“Rico, where the hell did I say that you were pussy? I basically said that you just be saying shit. You was supposed to been handled that shit. No way you should be letting a nigga continue to move around breathing, after he pulled up on us,” she shot.
I didn’t say shit because at the end of the day, she was telling the truth.
It was a fucked-up thing to have to hear it because I was already thinking it.
I knew that I wasn’t pussy. I knew that I’ve always been the kind of nigga to handle my business when I needed to.
This was real life at the end of the day.
One fuck up from me could change the trajectory of my fuckin life.
I was a high-profile nigga. Damn near half the world knew me because of the beast that I was on that field, so I had to be cautious with the way that I moved.
It was going to get handled. I just had to play it smart.
“Your cousin dating Dionne?” she asked me after ten minutes of us sitting in silence.
Her question caught me off guard, so I turned my head, looking at her. Romy had fallen asleep in my arms, so it was just the two of us up.
“Why? And how you know her?” I asked.
“I don’t know her. I just know of her and her sisters.
Her name really started ringing bells last year, when she was dealing with that married man, and his wife shot her.
You know that I know all the scoop. I heard it in the streets for months that Tank was dating her, but I kept forgetting to ask you.
I did this girl’s hair at the shop the other day.
Her name is Crystal. She just moved to Miami last week.
I was giving her the scoop, letting her know who was the who’s who in Maimi, and she brought up Tank.
She told me that she used to date him,” Promise said, and I didn’t know anything about what the fuck she was talking about.
I’ve never been a gossiping ass nigga, so I wouldn’t know about this shit.
I didn’t even know who the fuck Crystal was.
Only female that I know that Tank ever fucked with was Renee.
Tank was secretive as hell when it came to bitches.
Dionne was the first woman that I’ve ever seen my cousin all out in the open with, so I knew that the shit that they were doing was real, and genuine.
“I don’t know a Crystal. Where she moved here from?” I asked, just to sound like I was interested.
“Alabama,” she said.
“That’s where Tank mama from. In the summer, he used to go to Alabama with his grandparents.
That’s probably how he knows her. It couldn’t have been that serious though because he never mentioned her to me.
That bitch better move around though. My cousin in love.
That nigga be having her staying the night and everything.
He even brought her to one of my games. She met damn near the whole fuckin family too.
They all like her,” I shared, feeling like a messy ass nigga for even entertaining this shit.
“I don’t know Rico. The way that bitch was talking at the salon, she seems determined that she was going to get her nigga back,” she finished, and I just shook my head at that shit.
My cousin didn’t need any more problems. He was already down my back, trying to get me to give him a location on Toby, so that he could handle it.
The last thing he needed was a bitch from his past, coming down here, trying to stir up shit.
I felt like having issues with a bitch was ten times worse than beefing with a nigga.
Bitches were malicious, and they could be spiteful. They’ll set your ass up too. I had to hit my cousin up about this bitch Crystal, so that he could be on the lookout for her, just in case she did come back on some crazy shit.