What Da Lick Read? The Triple Cross

by McCray, Sevyn

  Khalil looked at his two daughters and he couldn’t help but think about the pain that his son was going to feel when he came out of surgery. The unbearable pain of losing the one that you love will hurt him much more than losing a limb. He knew how it felt firsthand; he still lived with the pain each and every day. The fact that he had the kids made the pain more bearable. But then it also made the pain unforgettable because he had to look at Honesty every day and she was the spitting image of Beloved, his only love.

  Ponchees interrupted Khalil’s thoughts. “It’s a lot going on, we have a big problem. I need you in on this. Meet me at this address at twelve p.m. If anything comes up and you can’t make it; call me and let me know. Gorgeous get the info from him, I need you there also.” He wrote down the address of Sam’s warehouse on a slip of paper. He turned around and Fire appeared at his side, the both of them walked out and got in the awaiting limo.

  “Was that who I think it was?” D.J. asked Gigi.

  “Yes indeed, the one and only.” Gigi replied.

  “That is the biggest boss that I have seen thus far.” D.J. said as he got ready to walk out with Reality.

  “That sums it up about right.” Khalil agreed with D.J.

  The nurse walked into the waiting area, “Excuse me, I just wanted you to know that I have located the young lady’s mother and she is on the way here.”

  “Thank you for keeping us informed.” Khalil told her.

  “Dad, tell us about the girl who was in the car with Killa. Who is she?” Loyalty asked curiously. She felt so sorry for her; she wished the doctors could do something to save her.

  “Leigh is a very sweet girl; simply beautiful and soft spoken. She is an artist and she is in school. She has one son who is seven years old and she made your brother happy. I have never seen him the way he was when he was with her. He introduced her to me as his girl. You know he has never brought a girl home in his life, so I knew she was special to him. She wanted to meet all of you because she said that she was an only child and she always wanted a sister. Leigh has a presence about her. I can see how your brother fell for her.” Khalil recalled how he instantly felt comfortable around her.

  Loyalty’s phone started to ring and she looked down at it, it was K.J. She decided to send it to voicemail again. She was gonna call him once she got home.

  Gigi and Concrete stood up to leave. She had the meeting later, she wanted to go home and get cleaned up. Concrete was tired and uncomfortable because he was so big, there was no way that he could get comfortable in the small chairs in the waiting room.

  “I will see everyone later, if you need me or anything changes call me. I need to catch a few winks in my bed after I get cleaned up.”

  Honesty stood up too, “I’m going with you. I have had these clothes on for almost twenty-four hours. I need to get under some hot water and I need to brush my teeth.”

  Everyone turned and looked at Honesty. Khalil raised his eyebrow at his daughter. Loyalty scooted to the end of her seat. D.J. looked on in anticipation.

  “It is so apparent that tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us. Pop-Pop, Killian found love, he had embraced it, and you were able to meet her. This is who I love and who I’m with and if something was to happen to me today I would want her to know how much I love her and that I’m not ashamed of what we have.” Honesty grabbed Gorgeous’ hand and they walked out of the glass doors.

  “What the hell? Wait a damn minute! What the fuck did I just miss?” Reality exclaimed.

  “You didn’t miss anything. It seems that everyone is in love baby girl. Which is good, the bad part is, your brother’s love is on her deathbed. You guys go ahead, I’m gonna stay here until they bring him out of surgery.” Khalil rubbed his bald head in frustration.

  D.J. handed Khalil his iPad. “Here you go, there is some really good music and movies on here. I got some books on my Kindle app on here too. It will keep you occupied during your wait.”

  “Thanks son, I appreciate that. You could have dropped her off and left, but you stayed and made sure that she was okay. That says a lot about you. Welcome to the family. Now you better take care of my princess.” Khalil gave D.J. a hug. He tried not to grimace as he got a good look at his burn scars. He wondered what happened to him.

  “Uh oh, this is the sign of trouble. I have a feeling that you guys are gonna be double teaming me.” Reality said light heartedly as she held on to D.J.’s arm.

  “Only when needed. You know that you’re more than two handfuls, its good I got somebody to help keep you in line. Do me a favor and email me the info that I had you to research, I can be going over that while I wait.” Khalil sat back down.

  “Pop-Pop, I will send it to you right now. I love you and thanks for being my dad.” She kissed him on his forehead and pulled out her cell phone and sent the email to him.

  “Can I get a ride with you guys to my truck? It is at K.J.’s place in Atlantic Station.” Loyalty asked.

  “Sure we can drop you off” D.J. replied and the three of them walked out leaving Khalil in the waiting room by himself.

  Chapter 28: The streets are talking

  K.J. had been calling Loyalty endlessly all night. He was worried, he even had checked with the pilot to make sure that she had arrived safely back in Atlanta. He had practice in a few hours, he went downstairs and his housekeeper/cook Ari was sitting at the island with her laptop open. She was in school so she was probably doing homework.

  “Good morning K.J. You didn’t text me to let me know if you wanted anything special so I just fixed you an egg white omelet with spinach, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms and zucchini. I hope that is fine with you?” Ari said as she got up to go to the microwave and get out the plate of food that she had just prepared for him.

  “Yes this is great. It looks and smells wonderful.” He sat down at the island and picked at his food. He was deep in thought about Loyalty. His cell phone rang and he looked at it in hopes that she was finally calling. It was his best friend and teammate Tip. He didn’t want to answer, but it could be something important.

  “What’s up my dude? Where is your little lady at?” Tip knew that Loyalty was gone. He had seen the pictures of them kissing in front of the owner’s G-6 on all the blogs this morning. He felt bad for the picture that they had painted of his friend.

  “Loyalty went back to the A. She had a family emergency.” K.J. replied to his best friend, but as the words came out of his mouth, he suddenly wondered was there really an accident or did she just want to leave.

  “Okay, we can hang out tonight then.” Tip wanted to tell his friend what was going on, but he knew that K.J.’s publicist Koier was going to handle that.

  K.J.’s other line beeped and he saw that it was Koier.

  “Aye man, let me hit you back. I will see you in a few”

  “Aight, bruh. Peace.” Tip hung up the phone and rolled over. His fiancée Chloe was lying next to him.

  “Why you didn’t tell him? He is going to be the butt of a lot of jokes and the topic of a lot of conversations and not know why.”

  She loved K.J. like he was her own brother and she didn’t want to see him hurt. She had met Loyalty. Her first impression was that she was going to be stuck up. But that turned out to be the farthest thing from the truth. She soon saw why after only knowing her briefly, he didn’t want her to get away. She was beautiful with the longest hair that she had ever seen on a black girl and she had a figure to die for. Loyalty was silly and loved to laugh and touch. She hugged everyone that she met and looked them right in their eyes when she spoke. She spoke intelligently and was always smiling.

  “I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. What was I supposed to say? Aye man, the girl you have wifed and is parading around town ain’t nothing but a gold digging freak that will mess with anybody with some money.”

  “Is that how you feel about her? I don’t think she is bad. She makes him happy, you’ve seen him with her. I think they are just attacking her because
of K.J. He has not been romantically attached to anyone since he has been in the league and then all of a sudden here he is with this beautiful woman, who isn’t from this city so they are just digging up dirt. You got to have tough skin to deal with any type of celebrity” Chloe said.

  K.J. needed a money deal to brighten him up. Hopefully his publicist had something good for him. He answered the phone trying not to sound so down. Koier had been his friend since his first year in college, so she knew him very well.

  “K.J. what have you done now?” Koier asked him without saying good morning.

  “Good morning to you too Koier.” K.J. replied sarcastically.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just I was woke up with this bullshit and you acting like aint shit wrong. You could have called me and let me play interference before this shit hit me in the face K.” She hollered into the phone.

  “Calm yo yella ass down. What the fuck has you in an uproar first thing this morning? Shit, you trying to fuck up my day with your bullshit.” K.J. hollered back at Koier.

  “Okay so it’s obvious that you don’t know. I need you to grab your iPad and go on Mediatakeout.com or SandraRose.com or NecoleBitchie.com. It is on the all the blogs. Just Google your damn name, shit.” Koier was so upset that K.J. hadn’t done any research on his new girlfriend. Now it was coming back to bite him in his ass.

  He didn’t feel like going upstairs to get his iPad, so he grabbed Ari’s Macbook from the other side of the island and went to Mediatakeout.com first. Khadafi’s mouth dropped open as a picture of Loyalty was the first thing that you saw when you got on the site. She was naked and the only thing she had on was a platinum chain with a large number four made of diamonds dangling from it. She had her head thrown back; her long jet black hair was flowing everywhere. She was cupping one of her breast and her other hand was playing with her pussy. The caption read, “The Golden Boy has him a Gold Digga”

  “Do you see this shit? Out of all the girls in the world, why did you have to pick this one? I know she is beautiful and fine to boot, but damn K.J.”

  Koier let loose on one of her best friends and her employer. All of her sorority sisters wanted K.J, women all over the world wanted him, and he had to fall for this.

  K.J. sat there literally foaming at the mouth. His temple jumped from the anger that was boiling inside of him. He went to SandraRose.com and again he was the headline. They had two pictures of her. One was a picture of Loyalty walking hand in hand with a man wearing some sagging jeans, a black v-neck t-shirt, and an a Yankees fitted cap. The picture was taken of them coming out of a Louis Vuitton store. She was carrying bags in one hand and holding his hand with the other. The other picture was of her and him; she had bags in one hand and was holding K.J.’s hand with the other. He remembered the picture of them being snapped when they were walking out of the Gucci store. The caption read, “This girl definitely gets what she wants.”

  He slammed the laptop closed and pounded on the top of the island. All kind of thoughts were going through his head. Maybe she made the whole accident shit up, because she had to get back to somebody in Atlanta. He opened the computer and decided to search to see if there was a bad accident that her brother could have been involved in. He didn’t know where to search. Koier was still on the line not saying anything.

  “Koier search everywhere you can and see if you can find out if it was a bad car accident in the metro Atlanta area with a young black male involved. Get back to me when you have something.”

  He hung up and got up from the island.

  __________

  Reality lay across Jaimes’ bed with one of his tank tops on. She had taken a shower and fell asleep right after it. She didn’t know what kind of medicine they had given her, but it was obviously still in her system because she could barely keep her eyes open. Jaimes was in the kitchen cooking breakfast and she was trying so hard to stay awake. She got up, got her purse and pulled out her iPad.

  She figured that she could just catch on some gossip. She was addicted to all kinds of blogs, self-help, political, spiritual, financial, celebrity and style; she loved them all. She went to Necole Bitchie first because she could get caught up on the celebrities and the fashions they were wearing. As soon as it loaded the first thing she saw was her older sister and K.J. kissing in front of a plane. Reality was used to seeing her sister in the blogs, especially the ones where the bloggers stayed in Atlanta. Loyalty pulled some of the biggest bosses, so she was liable to be seen with a rapper, a executive, an athlete or a dope boy. Just as she was about to scroll down to the next article, the title caught her eye ‘Da Golden Boy’s Around the Way Girl’. They had pictures of Loyalty with four different guys, all of different professions. They were making it seem like she was a hoe.

  James walked into the room with a plate of food for Reality. He saw the creases in her forehead and the frown on her face as she held her iPad in her hands. He sat on the edge of the bed, and leaned back beside her to see what she was reading. He couldn’t make out the words, but he did see the picture of Loyalty.

  “Breakfast is served my love” He placed the plate of French toast, turkey bacon, cheese eggs and grits next to her.

  Reality put the iPad on the nightstand and picked up her plate of food. She leaned over and puckered her lips for Jaimes to kiss them. He leaned in and kissed her lips. He got up, went around the bed to the nightstand and picked up her iPad.

  She didn’t realize how hungry she was until the food was in front of her. She dived into it, shoveling more food in her mouth before she swallowed the last bite. Reality didn’t know if he was a good cook or she was hungry as hell, either way her plate was cleaned in less than five minutes.

  “Whew, baby that was too good, now all I need me is a fat blunt of Kush and I will be in La La land.”

  “You don’t need any Kush; all that medicine is still in your system. Wait a while, you cool without it. Why did they put this bullshit on here about Loyalty?” He said as he read the blog. Now he saw why she was frowning while reading it.

  “I am about to call her, cause I know she don’t know a thing about this. It’s fucked up because ain’t no telling how K.J. is feeling, reading this. They are portraying her as a hoe or something.”

  Reality dialed her sister’s number.

  __________

  Toe-Toe had rushed back to Atlanta, when he heard about Killa’s accident. He handled all of his business on the west coast and his packages were in route. The streets talk but you know that Coach K is a boss. His west coast connect didn’t even know that Coach was his people too. He was on the phone trying to find out what happened to his homeboy’s son who was in a car accident. He was frantic until they called him back and let him know that he had survived, but was messed up pretty bad. Then he mentioned that his homeboy’s name was Coach K. Toe-Toe wasn’t even able to concentrate on the meeting anymore. He had planned on negotiating cheaper prices on the pounds of Kush that he had shipped from Cali every two weeks, now he just wanted to get home so that he could make sure that Killa was okay. He ended the meeting and got on the next plane back to Atlanta. Now he was walking through the doors of Atlanta Medical Center not knowing what to expect.

  He went to the information desk and was told where Killa was. Toe-Toe hated the smells and the quietness of hospitals. But he had to see Killa for himself. He got off the elevator and went straight to his room. The nurses did not stop him. He didn’t like that. He was going to get somebody up here to secure the room before the day was out. The life Killa had lived thus far had made him a lot of enemies. The last thing he needed was for someone to come off the streets and hurt him. Before he even stepped into the room he heard the machines. He shook his head and pushed the door open. It was an older lady at the side of Killa’s bed praying. He was about to turn to leave, when she told him to stay.

  “Please stay son, he needs us to come together and pray for his healing. Take his other hand.”

  “Father God, I come to you as humbly as I kn
ow how to ask that you heal this strong young man. Heal him physically and emotionally dear lord, because him surviving the car crash was only the first step in this battle lord. I will not question your will or your way, but I will request dear lord that he makes a full recovery. I love him as if he is my own and you have my daughter waiting in the wings to join you on high, please leave him here. My grandson loves him as a father and I know that you will get us through all the storms, but I don’t want him to experience losing two parents at one time. Heavenly father, I look at my daughter’s body and I believe that her spirit is already with you. Please do not let her death be in vain, use every piece of her that is still able to function to save the lives of others, so that other parents do not have to experience the pain that my heart is feeling. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.”

  “Thank you son for praying with me, it is always better when two or more come together. You can never pray too much and when you do not know what to say sometimes simply saying ‘lord have mercy’ is enough. Let me get back upstairs to my Leigh’s room. I will be back down to check on Killian later.” The older lady gave him a hug and Toe-Toe felt a calming feeling rush over him.