Chapter 12
Tavion ‘Tank’ Briggs
Sold Out Queen
It was a little after eight at night, and I was headed downstairs, with a full appetite, prepared to eat the dinner that Dionne was cooking for me.
We were going with something simple tonight, which was teriyaki chicken, white rice, and vegetables.
I hadn’t had anything to eat since this afternoon, so I was already prepared to ask for seconds.
I had to let her know that the site crashing was a good thing.
I showed her how to navigate on the back end and see the number of people that were trying to log on.
This girl had thousands of people on her site at one time, trying to place an order.
For weeks, her and her team have been doing their thing with promo, posting all kinds of engaging content, hyping up the brand, and they had been going viral.
The production team that she’d hired was legit because each video that they posted was getting a minimum of a million views.
I say all that to say that within the first hour of House of Henry launching, my girl sold out.
To say that I was proud would be an understatement.
I immediately got on it, doing my part, having plenty of roses sent to my house because I wanted her to come home to nothing but love.
I tried to take her out tonight, her family wanted to take her out to celebrate as well, but she wanted to be in the house, so I gave my baby what she wanted.
I walked into the kitchen, and the island was filled with all the roses that I had sent to the house.
Dionne was standing in front of the stove, holding the lid to the pot in her hand, as she looked inside the pot, where the teriyaki chicken was.
When she heard me come into the kitchen, she looked over in my direction and smiled.
“It’s done. I’ll fix your plate in one second,” she let me know.
I walked up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist, and I buried my head into the crook of her neck.
She smelled so good. Because she was in the kitchen, she had her long hair pulled up in a knot.
She was casually dressed in a gray tank top, with black cotton material shorts, and house shoes.
“It’s no way you in the house cooking tonight. Why didn’t you let me take you out?” I wanted to know. She laughed at my question.
“I don’t know Tank. I think I’m getting older, and more mature. I rather just be in the house. Besides, these days, it seems like any time that we go out, some bullshit happens. I feel like I’m safer inside,” she let me know. I kissed her on her neck and then backed away.
“So, what you saying? You think it’s dangerous being with me?” I questioned, and she looked at me like I was crazy.
“Now your acting like me. Taking what I said out of context. I never said that it was dangerous being with you. If anything, we can celebrate this weekend. It’s Wednesday.
If I go out tonight, I’m probably not going to wake up and go to work in the morning.
We have a big day tomorrow. We gotta pack up all these orders.
Ooooh, I’m so excited,” she beamed, and I smiled right along with her, happy about it.
I took a seat at the table, and the second I sat down, my mom started facetiming me. I propped the phone up on the flower vase that was sitting on the table, slid the bar across, so that I could answer the phone for her.
She was home, still in her work shirt, so she might have just gotten there not too long ago. She had a tiredness on her face, as she looked back at me.
“What’s up beautiful?” I asked her.
“Nothing much. I just got home not too long ago. Did you see the news?” she asked, and at the same time, Dionne was waving her hand in the air, trying to get my attention.
I looked over at her, and she was showing me the plate that she’d fixed for me, mouthing to me, asking me if it was enough, and I mouthed back, telling her to add more. The way my appetite was set up right now, I just might fuck around and eat the whole fuckin thing.
“Nah. What they saying on the news?” I inquired, focusing my attention back on my mom. She sighed, and then picked her hand up, so that she could scratch her head.
“The man that your dad hit, he died this afternoon,” she let me know.
Dionne heard what my mom said because right after she revealed it, my eyes shot over to Dionne, wanting to see how she was going to react to that shit.
Her body froze up. She literally stopped moving.
Anything that involved my dad, she would have that same kind of reaction, which didn’t shock me because he was a trigger for her.
“Damn. It’s fucked up that that innocent man had to lose his life, but on the flip side, karma is a motha fucka, ain’t it?
Now that bitch ass nigga gotta spend the rest of his life in prison.
I’m not going to lie though, I still wanted to have the pleasure of killing him, you know?
” I asked, as Dionne walked over to me, and she sat the plate right in front of me.
I moved the camera out of the way, so that my mama wouldn’t see me when I slapped her on her ass, motioned with my finger for her to come here, and I quickly tongued her down, and thanked her for the meal.
She walked away from me, so that she could go back into the kitchen, and fix her plate.
When she walked away, that’s when I moved the phone, putting the camera back on me.
“I should have asked you if you were around Dionne. I wouldn’t have said that if you were,” my mom let out.
Upon Dionne hearing that, she came over, so that she could take the phone from my hands.
“It’s okay. I’m okay. I watch the news every night, so I was going to see it more than likely tonight anyways. How are you doing?” Dionne asked my mom, coming to the arm of my chair, so that she could sit on it.
While she carried on the conversation with my mom, I said a quick prayer, and I dug into the food.
“I’m good. Just tired as hell from being at that restaurant all day.
I’m about to soak in the tub with some Epsom salt and take my ass to bed.
I see you sold out, girl. Congratulations.
I was able to snag a set for my bedroom, and another set for the guest bedroom.
A couple of my home girls were able to purchase as well.
I’m happy for you. Why my son got you in the house cooking?
You should have let him take you out,” my mom told her, and I shook my head at her trying to throw a nigga under the bus.
Dionne laughed, and then leaned over, so that she could kiss me on top of my head.
“He tried to, but I turned it down. I’ve been so tired lately. Physically, I just don’t have it in me to be at work for eight hours, and then come home to take a shower, get dressed up and go out. I would much rather be in the house,” she said.
“Pregnancy will do that to you. Wait until you get towards the end. It only gets worse,” my mama said.
“Ay, don’t tell her that because then she not going to want to give me more kids. The one that she’s carrying, that’s not the only one I want. I want multiple,” I let out.
Dionne laughed, while I heard my mama groan, followed by her getting on me, telling me to be patient, and to allow Dionne to finish successfully carrying this one before I started talking about having more children.
They talked on the phone for a little longer and even made plans to hang out this weekend.
Once they finished, Dionne sat my phone down on the table, and she went into the kitchen to finished fixing her plate.
She brought it over, sat it down on the table, and washed her hands at the sink.
She grabbed a Poppi drink for her, and a sprite for me, and she came and joined me.
I watched her as she said a quick prayer over her food, and then she slowly started eating.
“You like that outcome for him, or would you rather that nigga be dead?” I asked, just to pick her brain, and see where she stood with it.
“I’m okay with whatever outcome, honestly.
Tank, I don’t think about that man. You should know more than anyone that I don’t care what he has going on, and that I try my best to block out what he did to me.
I’ll be lying if I said that I didn’t want them niggas in prison to do to him the same thing that he did to me.
I wish for that to happen,” she confessed.
I didn’t blame her for thinking that way. Shit, it made sense.
“You going to tell your daddy?” I asked.
“Hell no. I’m breaking up with you and running off with your baby if you tell him,” she said that dumb ass shit to me. I shook my head at that.
“You weird as fuck for even saying that,” I let her know, and she cracked up laughing because she found dumb shit like that funny.
“I’m just playing baby, but no, I’m not telling him. He doesn’t need that kind of stress in his life right now. I know my mom won’t tell him, either. No lie, he might try to beat her ass,” she told me.
“Ion think he’ll put hands on her. He’ll probably be mad at her though.
Probably question her on what the fuck she was doing while that went down.
That nigga love Antoinette though. The other day when we were at your grandma house, and your mama got up to leave, that nigga pulled one of my moves, asking her across the room where she was getting ready to go.
They going to fuck around with each other, watch.
She going to play that stupid ass cat and mouse game that you played with me in the beginning, where you pretended that you didn’t like me, and then she going to be sprung out like I have you,” I shared, and she scoffed, as she chewed down her food.
“It really wasn’t a game that I was playing Tank. I didn’t like you,” she argued, just like she always did whenever I would call her out on the early stages of us fuckin around.