“I thought I said she couldn’t have no more candy this morning!” Reggie barked, coming out of the back room.
The second he said it, I wanted to crawl in a hole and die because I knew that Billion was going to go crazy. There was an evil scowl on Reggie’s face as he walked over and snatched the candy jar that was resting on the table. Khari didn’t make it any better when she cuddled up closer to her father and jumped, giving off the impression that she was scared of Reggie. I wouldn’t say that Khari was scared of Reggie, but at five, she knew that he wasn’t her father, and she really wasn’t that close to him. Even right now, the way she was up under Billion, she’s never been that way with Reggie.
I think that had a lot to do with the fact that when she was younger, and Reggie would come around, he had a lot of resentment toward her because, to him, she was an outside baby. For the longest, he wouldn’t even acknowledge her presence. Kids picked up on vibes, and because Reggie treated my baby like an outsider for the longest, she didn’t deal with him like that.
“Nigga, are you fuckin’ stupid? Does this look like your motha fuckin’ daughter, or does it look like mine? You might have told your daughter that she couldn’t have no more candy, but this is mine right here, and I let her have it! Stupid ass nigga, you better gone on about your business. You barking up the wrong tree, and I’ll have you eating the bottom of my fuckin’ shoe if you keep talking crazy! Fuck type of shit you on, nigga? You don’t dictate shit when it comes to this one right here. Ion tell you how to parent yours, so don’t tell me how to parent mine. Let me get the fuck out of here before I do some foul shit to you in front of my kid,” Billion spoke, and then he lifted Khari out of his lap, stood her up, and stood up as well.
“I ain’t trying to dictate shit, but if you want to be honest, I pay the fuckin’ bills around this bitch. Therefore, I have a say so on the shit that goes down over here—”
“My nigga, I’m warning you. Leave the shit alone, bruh. I done already stopped talking. If you know anything about me, then you should know that I ain’t going to do too much talking. Denim, get your nigga,” Billion said, and then he grabbed Khari’s hand, and they started walking to the door.
The fact that Billion was walking away showed me the maturity in him. The Billion that I knew from five years ago would have stomped Reggie out the second he opened his mouth. Kids had changed Billion, which was something that I tell him all the time. It wasn’t a bad thing because I knew that having kids was going to keep his ass out of trouble.
“She ain’t gotta get shit! I may not be Khari’s father, but I been in the picture. I was fathering her ass when you were away—”
Boom!
That was the sound of Billion slamming Reggie down on the glass table and it shattering to pieces. I screamed, and so did my daughter. It all just happened so fast. Billion had honestly slammed all the talking out of Reggie’s mouth because he wasn’t saying shit as he lay there, getting punched in the face by Billion. He was throwing blows too, but Billion was dodging them.
“Take my daughter to the back!” Billion barked at me.
I grabbed Khari’s hand, and we ran to the back. We went to my room, where I stood by the door with it cracked and watched the whole thing unfold. They were really destroying my living room, and Billion was beating the fuck out of Reggie. My hand went over my mouth because I was scared. If he could do that to him, just for talking to him crazy about his daughter, then I could only imagine what he would do to me if the truth ever came out that Khari didn’t belong to him.
“Not sure how you go around talking to other people’s kids, but that lil girl back there, you don’t handle her. Motha fucka, I do! She can have all the candy in the fuckin’ world because if she gets a cavity, who’s going to pay for it? Me! Not your bitch ass! You screaming that you pay the bills around this bitch like that’s supposed to mean something! You do that because you want to. Denim got money! Her and my daughter are straight for life. Don’t bring your ass over here as long as my child is here, and if I find out otherwise, I’m killing your ass!” I heard Billion spit.
A few moments had gone by, and then Billion walked to the back to see where I’d run off to with Khari. He came into the room, grabbed a crying Khari up, and left the house, making sure to slam the door behind him. I slouched down on the bedroom floor, bringing my knees up, and said a silent prayer. I needed God more than ever right now because Billion was fuckin’ crazy. I could honestly see him killing me, and if he did, he would have every reason to.
“That don’t look like the color paint that I showed you. For that specific room, I ordered a matte black color. Come on, man, y’all fuckin’ up with little shit. This room should have been done two fuckin’ days ago. If this shit is going to be too much for you, let me know, and I can get somebody else to do the fuckin’ job, yo!” I snapped into the phone at Julio, the main contractor.
A minute ago, he’d sent me a video, showing me one of the rooms in that house. It was supposed to be a game room, and there were a few things wrong with that room, but it was mainly the paint on the walls that I didn’t like. It was the wrong damn color. This shit looked like a royal blue, which was nothing like what I had told him I wanted.
It was Monday, and I’d been in a couple of meetings this morning because I’d listed one of the houses this morning since it was pretty much done. As bad as I wanted to pop up on Julio and his team and stand over them cats, just to see what was making them fuck up the way they were, I couldn’t because it was going on noon, and I was about to pull up on Normani’s ass.
I was serious when I talked to her Saturday and said I was no longer calling and would just pop the fuck up. She was playing games with a nigga. This shit that she was doing to me, I swear I wasn’t used to it. I wasn’t used to actually having to put in any work to get a woman. That shit always just came so fuckin’ easy to me. I’m not exaggerating when I say that for three days straight, I was calling her office number. I was calling three or four times a day. It wasn’t that I was scared to pop up on her ass last week, but again, this was new to me, and I ain’t want it to feel like I was sweating her ass, although I probably was.
For me to be missing out on business, just to see her, I knew that it meant something. I was so engrossed with my new business that I wasn’t trying to let anything distract me, but Normani was a distraction that I felt was worth it.
As I drove with my left hand, I looked down at the tan colored Band-Aid that I had on my finger. A piece of sharp glass had gone through my finger yesterday when I had to fuck up Denim’s fuck ass baby daddy. I’ve never seen that nigga in person. I really had just heard about him through Denim. She would always go on and on about how much she hated the nigga, but these days, I ain’t know if she really hated him like she claimed she did. If so, why had it been five years, and she was still fuckin’ with him like that?
I was waiting for the right time to have a sit down with Denim. Something about the way she didn’t even try to check that nigga when he attempted to discipline Khari that just bothered the fuck out of me. It made me feel like she probably let that nigga talk to my child any type of way whenever I wasn’t there. My thing is, if Denim ever got into a serious relationship with a man, and they get married or whatnot, cool. As a stepfather to my daughter, I get it, you gotta have some type of authority.
This was a nigga whose dick she was only suckin’ because she couldn’t suck mine. He’d been in her life for eleven years and ain’t got on one knee yet to ask her to be his wife, so he wasn’t about to be dictating shit to my child. It was all in the way he did it. The nigga really came out front, barking with his chest sticking out and shit, and it even scared Khari. I gave the nigga the benefit of the doubt and told him to shut the fuck up, but because he kept talking to me crazy, I had to show his bitch ass crazy.
I ain’t want to be that dad who was fighting and shit in front of my kids, but that nigga had taken me there. As a little boy, my dad did a lot of shit in front of me th
at I wasn’t supposed to see. I had watched drug transactions take place, and I’ve watched him beat a nigga to a bloody pulp for owing him money. I ain’t want my kids to see me in rare form like that, especially my daughter, but yesterday, I swear I couldn’t even control myself.
By the time we had gotten to the car, and Khari had calmed down, I asked her plenty of times if Reggie was putting his hands on her or yelling at her, but she told me that he hadn’t. I meant what I said about that nigga not being at the house while my daughter was there, and after an ass beating like that, I knew for a fact that the nigga wasn’t dumb enough to try me.
“Mr. Knox. We fix. We fix. I’ll send new video soon. We have it, Mr. Knox,” Julio said in his thick, Spanish accent.
I had to admit that he and his team actually did good work, but because I was such a perfectionist, I hated for mistakes to happen. Besides, with this house, my price was going in super high, higher than any other home on that block. Everything they did had to be almost perfect. Although I stayed on top of those niggas, I made sure that I dropped by every day to make sure they had lunch and shit. I also brought over a big cooler was filled with water, Gatorade, and because their asses liked to drink, there was even beer in there for them to have while they worked.
Julio assured me one more time that they were going to fix the paint color, and then he and I ended the call. I hung up at the same time that I pulled up to the building where Normani’s office was located. The building was huge, with multiple suites, but because I knew which suite Normani worked in, I went to the third floor in the parking garage.
The first reserved spot in the parking garage was reserved for Dr. Normani Davidson. This floor was busy, with cars parked in every spot, so I ended up having to circle the floor a good three times before I finally caught someone coming out, and I took their spot. I was going to give Normani until 12:30 to come to her car for her break, and if she didn’t come, I was going to feel like she was trying to be funny and play a nigga, so I would pop up on her ass.
I pulled my car into the spot, and then I quickly got out. My black and white Givenchy sneakers hit the ground, and I closed the car door. I was dressed simple today, in a black and red Givenchy sweater with Levi jeans that were sagging just a little bit. I wore a chain around my neck, and my line up and shit were perfect. Before picking my daughter up yesterday, I went and got a haircut. I smelled good, and because I hit Dru up this morning to give me some playa tips on trying to bag a woman, I was holding roses in my hands and chocolate. In his words, every woman loved being surprised with roses.
I would have hit Monterius and told him to give me the game, but the nigga had been in his feelings for the past few days. I ain’t really know what was going on with him, but I could bet my last dollar that it had something to do with my cousin. He wouldn’t say, and when I was asking, he didn’t want to talk about it, so I left it alone. Shit, if I didn’t want to be bothered, I wouldn’t want anyone pressuring me and trying to get me to talk when I didn’t feel like it.
Monterius was like a brother to me, but I’ll admit that alone was why I ain’t want him and Twinkle fuckin’ around with each other in the beginning. I knew the type of wild boy this nigga was, and I knew he didn’t have the capacity to be faithful. Then, on the opposing side, I knew Twinkle. She was like a ticking time bomb, but at the same time, Twinkle was meant to be a wife. Because she was meant to be a wife, she needed a nigga who was going to be fully committed to her and faithful. I didn’t know what it would take to get Monterius to commit, but as long as that nigga was heavy in the streets, their shit would never be solid.
Back when I was trapping, I couldn’t commit the way that Sidnesha wanted me to, which is why I was always fuckin’ up. Now that I was legit, I was keeping myself busy with a legal business, and I felt like I had time to have a wife. I knew that Normani could be that for a nigga, but she was so fuckin’ scared of me. She probably thought that I was going to have her riding shotgun while I did drive-bys and shit, but I wasn’t even on no shit like that. Plus, if I was going to do some dirty shit, I would never bring her along for the ride.
I felt like a lame ass nigga, chasing after some pussy as I held the roses and shit in my hands. The thing is, I wasn’t chasing after no pussy, though. Shit, I was chasing after the woman. I wasn’t chasing after no pussy because I already knew how Normani was coming. Shorty already told me that she was trying to save her virginity until marriage. Although I ain’t ever had no woman tell me that before, I would attempt to be patient. I knew the shit would be a little hard for me because ever since that kiss that she and I shared, it’s like I was craving her ass now. Not even on no soft shit, but when I made it home that night, I swear I thought about her ass until I closed my eyes. For some time, I lay there, just thinking how that shit would feel if she was laid up in the bed with me… cuddling and shit.
The only woman I ever bought roses for was my mama and my grandma, and that would usually be on Valentine’s Day, birthdays, and Mother’s Day. I was doing all this shit, and if Normani brought her ass out there and clowned a nigga, I didn’t know how I was going to take it; all of this was new.
I made sure that my door was locked before I walked over to her car and posted up against it, waiting for her to come out. People kept coming in and out of the door or off the elevator, and each time I saw someone, I would look up to see if it was her, but I kept coming up empty.
It was 12:29, and I was about to do the pop up that I said I was going to do, but then, I saw her. She was coming out of the automatic doors, but she hadn’t seen me yet. Her phone was glued to her ear, and she was holding a conversation. I laughed to myself because, for whatever reason, I could feel my stomach churning like a nigga was getting his first experience of having butterflies or some shit.
Normani was beautiful in a way that I couldn’t even explain. Even the first night I met her, and she brought her ass in my section with Twinkle, talking slick, I still thought she was beautiful. I might not have shown it, especially by how nonchalant I had acted around her at first, but that was just me. If I didn’t know you, I was going to treat you a certain kind of way until I really got a good feel for you.
Last week when Normani and I had dinner at the restaurant, I found myself liking her. It had a lot to do with the fact that in the two hours I had been around her, she was changing me. She had me watching the way I was talking to her and going against the grain by kissing her like that. It was the good girl thing that I fucked with. I used to think that I needed a gutta bitch, but nah… Normani was showing me that I could do a good girl.
The other night, when I pulled up on Sidnesha to see my son, and she cornered me on the balcony, putting that pussy all in my face and talking crazy to a nigga, I wasn’t moved. Years ago, I would have loved that hood shit. It ain’t that I didn’t like it, but I wanted to like it with the right woman. I wanted to like it with Normani.
She was dressed in a purple, short-sleeved dress that came right to her knees, and she wore black heels that made her look just a few inches taller. Her lab coat was still on, her pretty hair was up in a nice bun, and those gray eyes were dancing around her surroundings as she paused in her spot and finished her phone conversation. She hadn’t looked up to see me yet, but I had the perfect view of her. Eventually, she ended her phone call, and she was back to walking and putting her phone in her Christian Dior purse.
From being around her, I could tell she had a mean collection of purses and shit. If we ever took it there, I couldn’t wait to spoil her ass with all the shit she loved. Although I knew she could pay for her own shit, she threw that shit out each time she could. I heard her heels clicking as she got closer to her car, and finally, she saw me. She stopped in her tracks and just stood there, looking at me like she was shocked that I had made good on my word. There was a smirk on my face as I walked further out, carrying the roses and chocolate in my hands.
“Why you look like you’re shocked to see me? It’s 12:30. I thought you too
k your break at 12:00. Let me find out that you purposely kept me waiting, hoping that I would leave,” was the first thing I said to her when she approached me.
Normani was standing a few feet away from me, so I ended up coming a little closer. I stood over her, watching her every move. She smelled so good. I wanted to hug her or some shit, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her. For one, I could tell that she was still trying to take this shit in with me popping up on her.
“That probably would have been the case if I remembered that you told me you were coming down here today. I have been on the move since five this morning, and I completely forgot about you coming down here. Why did you get me roses and chocolate, Billionaire?” she questioned, folding her hands against her chest and looking up at me.
Something about her calling me by my government just turned me the fuck on. I loved that proper shit on her.
“Why wouldn’t I get you roses and chocolate? Take the shit before I feel like you don’t want it,” I said and put it in her hands.
She laughed and then leaned in and smelled the roses.
“Thank you, although you didn’t have to do this. You are such a gentleman,” she said, trying to be sarcastic because of the way I handed her the shit.
“Why you always feel the need to tell me what I shouldn’t be doing? I don’t really like that shit,” I said, following her as she walked over to the driver’s side of her car.
She pulled her keys out to unlock her car, but I grabbed her arm.
“Nah. Ride with me. That was the purpose of me coming down here anyway. I want to take you to lunch. Where you want to go?” I questioned.
Her gray eyes fell on me, and she released a sigh.
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