That Bona Fide Hood Love

by Shvonne Latrice

  “Bitch, do I look like I’m hurting for cash?”

  “Do you honestly want me to answer that?” I raised a brow. I mean, it was beyond apparent that she wasn’t exactly comfortable.

  “No, because I don’t really care what you think. I was going to ask if you’re Everly Jones, but I can see your name on the parking space. Plus, I heard that Miss Everly Jones had a stick up her ass, so this is definitely you.”

  “Honey, what is that you want? Wait, are you one of Roderick’s baby mamas or something? Because child, trust me, I am not interested.” I laughed at the mere thought of me wanting a piece of that ruffian Roderick.

  “No, bitch. My name is Rhea Yates, and I am Kaseem’s woman.” She got even closer.

  “Kaseem who?”

  “The one you clearly work for since he owns this building and company.”

  I snickered, but then it turned into a boisterous laugh as I took in the woman standing before me. No way Kaseem had made this woman think she was his girlfriend. I mean, Kasslyn was bad enough, but that was a slip up. Kaseem liked women with class, and this girl had everything but.

  “No, I doubt it.”

  She pulled her iPhone from the Bottega Veneta bag she was carrying and unlocked it. She clicked around with her hood nails for a minute, and then turned the phone to face me and began swiping.

  There were pictures of her and Kaseem starting from what looked like high school, all the way up until pretty recently, I could tell. She was even in pictures with him and his parents.

  My heart rate sped up more and more every time she swiped, showing me that all this time Kaseem had been her man too. Hell, I was the damn side. And the fact that his family knew, hurt me even more.

  These past years, I thought it was just him and I and that Kasslyn was simply a random fling. When no, this man had never taken me seriously from day one.

  “Oh, and Alexis, yeah, he’s fucking her too.” She nodded. “Found that out when I checked her social media. I assumed he was fucking every bitch that worked here. She’s just sex though; she’s not like us.”

  “Excuse me.” I rushed past Rhea to go into the building.

  “Move on, girl!” she shouted at my back.

  I ignored her, trying not to cry before I made it to my office. I felt sick to my stomach. I’d been gunning to get rid of Kasslyn when she was only a fraction of the women he’d been messing with.

  “Morning, Miss Jones!” Alexis beamed.

  “Fuck you.” I snapped, going straight back to my office. I’d always known she wanted Kaseem, but I had no idea she’d been actually having him.

  For the next two hours, I got no work done. I’d only drank an insurmountable amount of coffee and stared out of my window.

  My phone rang suddenly, startling me, so I went to answer it.

  “Everly Jones.”

  “Miss Jones, someone is here to see you.”

  “Send them back.” I hung up the phone. “Come in!” I shouted moments later when I heard a knock on my door.

  Once it closed, I turned around to see Kasslyn Collins. She was wearing tights and a regular t-shirt, looking like the bum bitch that she was.

  “Put the cup down.”

  “Excuse me?” I laughed at her, taking another sip.

  “Put the cup down because you’re gonna need your hands.” She started toward me slowly.

  “For?” I set the cup down, not because she told me to, but because it was now empty.

  WHAM! WHAM!

  Before I could even pull my hand away from the mug, Kasslyn was swinging on me, landing punches on my eye and nose. I bent down, hugging her stomach, for what reason, I didn’t know, and she pounded the back of my head until I got dizzy.

  Breaking away, I yelled, “Help! Ah!” Kasslyn had yanked me by my fresh ponytail and tossed me to the floor.

  I could taste the blood in my mouth and feel it pouring from my nose as she climbed on top of me and continued fucking me up.

  “I know what you did to Kaseem!” She growled. For a minute, I felt nothing, because I was too focused on how she knew anything.

  “Wait, wait!”

  WHAM!

  The last thing I remembered before blacking out was seeing her knuckles in between my eyes.

  Kaseem

  About 24 hours and some change later…

  I got word that Kasslyn went up in Opulence and fucked Everly up, which I found comical. To be so calm, quiet, and often timid, her ass had some fire in her. I wasn’t too surprised though, after seeing her put the paws on Rhea’s ass at the restaurant. Everly was now on medical leave, due to her injuries, and I was surely gon’ pay her ass a visit.

  “Explain to me what happened?” My boss Felipe inquired, smoking a cigar that was strong as fuck.

  As soon as I was released from the damn hospital, that muthafucka sent his goons to pick my ass up like a limo service. I wasn’t scared in the slightest, but what mattered to me was my fucking name. No way was I about to go down as some nigga who was known to steal from his people.

  Whenever a muthafucka got ‘robbed’ in the game, he was usually in on it. So naturally, I expected Felipe and his team to think I had something to do with the shit. I’d never be that stupid, not now, and not even back when I was a young broke muthafucka. Stealing from the nigga that in a sense put you on was the dumbest shit in the world to me.

  However, I admit my mind wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Had I not been consumed with thoughts of Kasslyn, this shit would have gone a totally different way. But that was all the more reason I had to get baby girl back over this way.

  If a nigga couldn’t focus on the money because of her, then she meant something. Because for as long as I’d been able to make my own bread, a female had never been more important than it.

  “My tire blew out, I pulled over to check it, and before I could even squat down to do so, I was held at gunpoint and robbed.”

  “Where is the money now?” Felipe squinted his eyes.

  “Not sure, but I can tell you that you gon’ get it back.”

  “I don’t like when money is stolen from me, Kaseem. Do you?” He gave me a look as he sat up, I guess trying to intimidate a nigga.

  “Nah, I don’t. But what you need to realize is that, at this point, I do this shit for the hell of it. I got a whole fucking business where I’m making more money than I know what to do with. I can make what was in that bag in ten minutes. Why the fuck would I steal it?”

  Felipe sat back, nodding his head at my logic.

  “Do you have any idea who it was?”

  “I do. You’ll know too as soon as I handle their asses. Now can I go do that, or do you wanna chit chat a little more about what I can be out handling?”

  Felipe waved his hand, so I rose up and followed his goons back out to the truck. They drove me back to the hospital, where I called Kasslyn.

  “Hello?”

  “Aye, come get me, please.”

  “In what? I have no car.”

  “I bought you a fucking car. And I texted you this morning to go get the shit from my crib.” There was silence. “You ain’t get it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So then—oh,” I laughed. “You just ain’t wanna come get me.”

  “Not really.”

  “Why? You scared I’m gon’ have yo’ legs over my shoulders before we get out this fucking parking lot?”

  “Nigga, you wish.”

  “Kasslyn, bring yo’ mean ass up to this damn hospital and get me. I got shit to do, and I need to get home.”

  “What’s the magic word?”

  Inhaling sharply as I clenched my teeth out of irritation, I finally said, “Please, beautiful.”

  “I didn’t need the compliment. Be there soon.”

  I chuckled as she hung up, then slipped my phone into my pocket. Suddenly, I got an idea, so I took it back out to text Everly.

  Me: How you feeling?

  It took ten minutes, but she finally replied.
/>   Eve: Who is this?

  I’d made sure to use a burner number.

  Me: Seem.

  Eve: Do you even care how I’m feeling?

  Eve: You probably set me up.

  Eve: I met Rhea! Then funny enough hours later Kasslyn kicks my ass?

  Eve: You ain’t shit!

  Eve: She’s not even your type!

  Eve: And are you really fucking Alexis?

  Eve: I hate you!

  I smiled, seeing her go off, because it told me what I wanted to know; that she still fucked with me. All I had to do was say I was sorry, throw some dick her way, and she would be my bitch again. However, shit wasn’t going that far. I was gon’ game her ass up, verbally only, so I could get to her and murk her stupid ass.

  I saw the Range Rover I bought Kasslyn pull into the lot, and then stop in front of me. I walked as fast as I could without hurting myself, until I made it to the car.

  “Thanks, sexy.” I got in.

  “Call me one more nickname and I will squeeze your balls until they burst.”

  “Fuck kind of shit is that?” I frowned as she pulled off.

  “Always something I’ve wanted to do, so if you keep fucking with me, I will do it.” I had nothing to say, so I just nodded and looked out the window. “You said the friend who did this was named Roderick.”

  “And?”

  “And, I think I know him.”

  “Nah, I doubt it, square.”

  “Fuck you.” She giggled, so I smirked back, admiring her smile and pretty deep skin.

  “I can’t find the nigga. Well, I haven’t had a chance to look myself, but the homie Warren said he can’t locate him.”

  “It’s okay, because I told him I would see him tonight, and you can just come with me.”

  I whipped my neck in Kasslyn’s direction, but instead of tearing her eyes away from the road, she just smiled since she knew I was watching.

  “You surprise me every fucking day.”

  “Good.”

  “It is good.” I let some silence linger. “That’s why I love you.” I touched her thigh, giving it a rub. “Watch the fucking road, woman!” I barked when she almost sideswiped all the damn cars parked alongside the street.

  “Sorry.” She gripped the wheel tightly with her stiff ass, adjusting herself.

  “You ain’t got nothing to say?”

  “About?”

  “Me loving you.”

  “Nope.”

  “Aight.” I snickered faintly and just rested for the remainder of the ride.

  Kasslyn dropped me off, and we agreed to meet up at my spot later this evening, where we’d then roll up over to Roderick’s together.

  I went to take a shower, and then brushed my teeth again because the hospital didn’t give a nigga no floss or mouthwash, only some flimsy ass toothbrush that I felt like ain’t do shit.

  Once I was feeling cleaner than before, I replied to Everly.

  Me: Wasn’t no set up. Rhea is an old flame. When you started bugging we rekindled, but that’s over.

  Eve: So why are you texting me?

  Me: Because I need your forgiveness so that we can move forward, leave all these hoes behind.

  Me: Continue to grow Opulence… but together.

  Everly: Okay

  Me: I wanna see you, where you at?

  Everly let me know she was over at her parents’ house. That was perfect because they were never home. Them rich muthafuckas were retired and traveling the world all the damn time.

  I hopped into one of my hoopties, a beat-up ass car, and then sped off toward Everly. Her parents lived pretty far, in an even richer neighborhood than where I stayed. When I got there, I parked a little ways away, then coolly walked to their residence.

  I let Everly know I was outside, and she agreed to come to the door. That shit took forever, I guess because she was injured.

  “Hey, baby.” She simpered.

  “Why you do it?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why you link up with Rod’s punk ass and rob me?” I wanted to keep calm so she wouldn’t run off.

  “It was a part of a deal, but I told him not to hurt you, baby! I wanted you away from Kasslyn, and he agreed to help, but only if I helped him! And since you know I hate you being in the drug game, I decided to—”

  PHEW! PHEW!

  I went ahead and put two in her dome, without even entering the house, and turned to walk off as smoothly as I came up to this bitch.

  I ain’t need to hear no more. The fact that she’d go to such lengths over some dick told me I ain’t need to spare her ass. And little did her stupid ass know, a nigga was leaving the drug game behind already, but also I was ever leaving Kasslyn, so she lost her life for nothing.

  That evening…

  “Okay, so I’m going to go inside—”

  “Nah, you ain’t running shit, Kass. You—”

  “Yes, I am. I set this up, not you.”

  “I like that feisty shit.” I leaned over to kiss her neck, and she shoved me back.

  “Kaseem, I’m being serious, and I am not interested in you.”

  “Okay, baby mama.” When she rolled her eyes, I added, “Go ahead, I’m listening. I like when you boss a nigga around. Makes me wanna fuck you harder.”

  “Anyway, I’m going to go in, get a little conversation started, and… he’s going to have to kiss on my neck.”

  “What? Hell nah!”

  “Yes, he has to be distracted so I can text you to come inside. I’m gonna be flirty as soon as I go in so that he will be so focused on sexing me that he will allow me to close the door, which I won’t lock.”

  “Nah.”

  “Kaseem, come on.”

  “Give me a kiss, and I’ll agree.” I smirked when her face dropped.

  “Just a peck.”

  “Just a peck. Come on.” I poked my lips out, so she cupped my face to peck me, but I started to suck her lips, before slipping my tongue into her mouth. Her little ass was with it until I guess she remembered she wasn’t fucking with me.

  “Nasty. Okay, I’m going.” She pulled down the visor to fix her hair.

  “Nah, get yo’ ass out the car. Fuck you fixing yo’ damn hair for? This a damn role you playing, Kass. Let me find out you really wanna fuck with him and I’ma put a bullet in both y’all.”

  “Then the baby will die.”

  “Nah he won’t. Like his daddy, he don’t need no bitch to stay alive in these streets.”

  “Okay, you will be having supervised visits with my daughter.” Kasslyn got out and slammed the door. It was a boy in there, I was sure.

  For the next ten to fifteen minutes, I waited, wondering what all was going on. If she didn’t text me in five, I was rolling up in there and blasting. Just three minutes later, she let me know I could come.

  I hurried out of the car and rushed across the street, happy that no one was outside or being nosy. I slowed up my steps once I got closer to the door, because I ain’t want Roderick to hear me. Twisting the knob slowly, I burst in.

  “Get off her.” I removed the safety so Roderick could hear.

  He froze with his back to me, and then slowly moved away from Kasslyn, who hopped off the couch.

  “You scheming ass bitch.” Roderick shook his head, eyes closed like he wanted to put hands on Kasslyn.

  “Apologize,” I told him.

  “Nigga, what?”

  PHEW!

  I sent a shot through his leg, causing him to howl.

  “Sorry.” He groaned, placing his hand over his wound, rocking and wincing. “Kaseem, man, I don’t know what this is about. But if it’s about that robbery, I ain’t—”

  “Yeah yo’ ass did. Everly told me everything.”

  I watched his eyes widen a bit and his jaw drop, before I sent three through his head for good measure.

  “Found the money!” Kasslyn held up a black bag. “It was right here by the couch. He’s dumb.”

  Chuckling as I sent a code text
for clean up, I replied, “Nah, he ain’t been here. He just rolled through for you right quick, so he put it in plain sight. He was gon’ fuck you then dip back into hiding until Felipe murked me.”

  “You’re smart somewhat.” She handed me the duffel as she walked past, giving me a view of her nice ass body. “Stop!” she swatted my hand when I groped her plump ass and then kissed the side of her neck from the back.

  “I love you.”

  “So.” She yanked the door open, and I followed her across the street to the car.

  We waited for cleanup to finish, just talking and shit. She told me about her mama’s old boyfriend being a client and how she beat his ass in the limo, which I found hilarious. I kind of wanted to kill him, but she told me she wanted him to stay alive in hopes that she’d see him again and could fuck him up a second time. I respected that. But if he did anything, to a grave that nigga was gon’ go.

  Once the crew was done, we drove back to my crib.

  “You gon’ stay the night?” I inquired.

  “No. I have things to do.”

  Getting out of the car, I said, “Kasslyn, bring yo’ rock head ass into this fucking house.”

  She rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth, but she did what the fuck I told her ass to.

  10

  Jamal

  One week later…

  “How’d you like the food, sweetheart?” I glanced at Catharine as she pulled from the parking lot of the rib shack restaurant we’d been eating at.

  “I loved it. You know I love anything with barbecue sauce poured on top of it.”

  “Same,” I laughed, and she joined me. “So I guess maybe we should call it a night? We don’t want to get tempted by it being late and us being together.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. But I have one more stop I need to make; well, we need to make.”

  “Where to?” I felt my brows dip.

  I was really trying to do better, and the longer I spent with Catharine, the more I yearned for sex. I even went as far as blocking both Kasslyn and Rhea in my phone so that I could stay on track. But in a minute, I was going to reverse that action, if Catharine didn’t drop me off. I needed to pray, and in the next twenty minutes, or I was gonna burst.