Turned Out by His Hood Mentality 1

by Diamond D Johnson

  “I’m used to taking my break on my own, and—”

  “Well, get un-used to it. Where you want to go? Just bring the flowers and shit with you to my car. This my third time being around you. I would think that you would feel a little bit more comfortable around me,” I said.

  My hands had gone on the hood of the car, resting on either side of her. I was closing her in. A few people walked by, and they all smiled at Normani. They were mainly women, and I saw a couple of them give Normani a thumbs up, basically letting her scary ass know that I was a good pick. Obviously, she didn’t see that. Really, they were just giving her the thumbs up because they saw that I was a handsome ass nigga. A handsome person like myself, popping up on somebody who wasn’t even my shorty yet, and I was coming with gifts and shit.

  “I am comfortable around you. In fact, I’m probably too comfortable. If we go to lunch, let’s just go to lunch. I don’t want to kiss, I don’t want to be in your lap, none of that. Just friends. Billionaire, I told you that, but I feel like you aren’t really listening to me. My friends don’t buy me roses and chocolate,” she said.

  “Yo’ friends ain’t as real as me. You said you wanted to be friends. I never agreed to that dumb shit. Why would I be friends with somebody that I’m attracted to? Ima keep my hands to myself, aight? You coming with me or what? Damn, can I feed you without being drilled?” I asked, looking down at her.

  She had her face frowned into a pout again, which made me want to lean in and kiss her on her lips like I did the last night. But I was going to chill because I ain’t want to give her a reason to bail out and not come to lunch with me.

  “We can go. There’s a little spot across the street where I like to eat. They have the best chicken Caesar salad and smoothies,” she finally said.

  Feeling like I had won the lottery, I released a big smile, flashing my grills at her. My smile caused her to smile, as well. She held the roses and chocolate in one hand, and I grabbed her other hand as we walked to my car. I opened the passenger door for her, and she handed me the items that were in her hand, so she could remove her lab coat and place it on the back of her seat. Then she got in, and I handed her stuff back to her.

  During the drive, I picked her head a little bit, mainly just wanting to know how her weekend was and shit, and how her day was going so far. The conversation was short lived because the little spot that she was telling me about was really right across the street. It was cool, though, because once we got inside, I would pick her head some more.

  “I’m going to try something different today. Just get me the chicken Caesar wrap with a pineapple smoothie. I’m going to run to the restroom,” Normani told me once she and I got inside the small restaurant.

  A few people were standing in line, wearing their work clothes as well, probably on their lunch breaks.

  “Don’t try to leave either. Come back,” I demanded.

  She laughed and let me know that she would be back.

  Normani was still gone when it was my turn to order. I ended up getting the same thing as she did, but instead of a pineapple smoothie, mine was strawberry. The second I pulled out my cash to pay for the food, Normani came out of the restroom.

  I saw one empty table in the restaurant, so I pointed and told her to sit right there, and she did. Five minutes later, the food came, and I walked over to the table, carrying the tray of food along with napkins and shit. I placed everything on the table, and just like the last time we dined together, I sat on the opposite side of her. My stomach was rumbling, and I was ready to dig in, so I hoped this food was good.

  “Thank you,” Normani called out to me.

  Like last time, she used her hand sanitizer, and this time, like clockwork, she just reached over and squeezed some into my hands without even having to ask if I wanted some or not. We both said our grace, and then we started digging into our food.

  “Damn, this is good. I should have ordered two,” I called out after I took a second bite.

  Normani laughed and looked up at me.

  “You’re greedy,” she responded because the wrap was a pretty decent size, so most people would have probably eaten one and been full. Not me, though. I could eat like a damn bear.

  “If it’s good, Ima eat it. I clean up my plate at all times, ma. You’ll see,” I said, meaning that in two different ways, but I’m sure it went over her head.

  “Where are you coming from? Work?” she questioned, not even responding to what I said.

  “Yeah. I been in meetings all day. Sit next to me and let me show you what I’m working on. Bring your food over here,” I said, tugging at the corners of her plate.

  Hell, I was just looking for a reason to have her sit next to me, and she had just given me one.

  “Or, you can just pass me your phone across the table. Let me see what you’re working on,” she said.

  “Sit right here then. Damn, I ain’t gon’ bite you. Come on!” I said, this time, actually taking her plate and placing it next to me.

  She sighed and then came and sat next to me. Feeling satisfied that she was now sitting next to me, I smiled. My phone was resting in my pocket, so I pulled it out and went to the album titled, 2355, which was the address number to the home that Julio and his crew were working on. This was the one that needed the most fixing up.

  “This is one of the properties that I’m having remodeled right now. When you see the outside of this house, what’s the first thing you see? Be honest,” I said, showing her the two-story brick home that could really use a lot of work.

  It went into foreclosure months ago, so honestly, the shit was really a mess, but it had potential.

  “I know exactly where this neighborhood is, and I see the potential. I can only imagine the money that’s going into it for renovation. It’s a beautiful home, though,” she said.

  I reached over and started swiping, showing her the things that were being worked on right now.

  “The kitchen is going to be fuckin’ beautiful. Brand new everything. I looked at luxury vacation homes, and some of my inspiration came from that. I noticed that when it comes to luxury, a lot of people lean on the whites and the grays, so that’s the color scheme that I’m going for with this home. Brand new, stainless steel everything is going to go into this kitchen. Keep swiping, I want you to see how I had them knock a wall out in the basement, and we’re turning that into a game room. I did my research on the home, and each time, it gave me a family type of vibe, with kids and shit, so I feel like this arcade room is going to top everything off.

  “On top of that, two of the bedrooms had drawings and shit on the walls, so I knew that kids lived there when the house went into foreclosure. I wouldn’t think of this as a starter home. By the time we finish working on this house, I can easily see a family living in there for plenty of years,” I said as Normani looked at the video of Julio and his guys when they knocked down the wall in the basement.

  “Keep swiping, so you can see the back yard. It looks like shit right now, but we’re going to fix that pool up and shit, put a basketball court out there, and it’s going to be fuckin’ beautiful. It’s going to be the best house on the block. It’s January, and we’re pushing to have everything with this house complete in the next few months. I’m confident in everything I do, so there is no doubt in my mind that this house is going to sell. If I get lucky, we will get multiple offers and go over asking price,” I said.

  The excitement was evident in my voice. Years ago, I used to be this excited about drugs and how much money I could make pushing that shit. I never thought I would be anything more than a dope dealer. I wouldn’t say that flipping houses was my calling, but I had a calling for doing anything that was going to generate some money and keep me busy. Maybe my calling was to be a businessman who could easily sell anything. From working on these houses, I knew that when I started selling them, I would get the same rush that I had when I would pick up a drop.

  The shit kind of reminded me of my old hustling d
ays. I had to make sure back then that I had the best plug, the best people on my team to cook up the drugs, the best Bandos, etc. With what I was doing now, I needed a good team behind me. I needed good areas to choose from because if I was going to invest my money in this shit, it had to be in areas where I knew that the homes would sell.

  I’m telling you, I was eating, sleeping, and breathing this shit. Many nights I stayed up late, coming up with new ideas and shit. I wanted to show that there was another side of me and that I could be legit like the rest of society. On top of that, for the beautiful woman sitting next to me, I knew for a fact that street life would be such a turnoff, so I wanted to prove that I could be a good nigga for her. I may have been a lil’ rough around the edges, but she was a big girl, and something told me that she would know how to keep up with me.

  “This is really amazing, Billionaire. I love that you are doing this. I know that once this house finishes up, it’s going to be beautiful. I would love to see it in person once it’s finally done and everything,” Normani let me know.

  I clicked out of the album and went to another home, showing her the work that had gone into that one as well. This was the home that I was in the meeting for this morning. Again, Normani congratulated me and told me how good it was that I was doing this. After I showed her all the houses, she handed me my phone back and looked up at me.

  “What? You want to kiss me again?” I asked, rolling the wrapping paper up to my sandwich because I was done with it.

  “No. Just happy for you, that’s all,” she said and shrugged like it was nothing.

  “Kiss me then, if you’re happy for me. That’s the only way I’ll believe you,” I told her.

  My arm was draped around the seat, and I was looking down at her. There was a little space between us, so put my hand on her shoulder and pulled her my way, closing the small space that we had for Jesus to sit in the middle of us.

  “You believe me, whether I kiss you or not. You’re just looking for a way to get me to kiss you. You pretty much told me that I didn’t know how to kiss anyway, so why would you want another kiss from me?” she asked, making me laugh.

  “Then let me teach you the right way. Come here, Normani. Fuck! You gon’ make me beg?” I questioned.

  “You were the one who promised to keep your hands to yourself,” she said.

  “My hands. I ain’t say shit about my lips. Come here,” I repeated, and this time, she leaned into me.

  She placed a quick peck on my lips and tried to move away, but I put my hand on the back of her head, keeping her on me. You couldn’t talk to someone and teach them how to kiss, so I pretty much let my lips and tongue do all the teaching. We were about thirty seconds into it before she was finally on the same rhythm and flow of things as I was. In no time, I had her sucking on my tongue. Her hands were on my shirt, and she was slightly grabbing it. I was feeling the fuck out of this kiss, eyes closed, and everything. My hands were in her hair as I lightly massaged her scalp. She tried to pull away, but I ain’t want her to.

  “Nah... where you going?” I spoke into her lips and kissed her again.

  “Billionaire, you are breaking me down,” she whispered and then kissed me one final time. I let her go because if I kept kissing her, she was going to have my dick screaming in my pants.

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, but you ain’t making the shit easy. Put your number in my phone, Normani. Your real number. The one you have on you every day. Don’t bullshit me, yo,” I told her as I passed her my phone.

  I watched as she keyed in her number, and once she was done, I called it. Sure enough, her cell phone started vibrating on the table. I smiled, knowing that she had finally given me the real thing. I was definitely going to call her tonight. After about five minutes of just sitting there chilling, it was time for me to take her back. An hour had passed that damn fast. I wanted to lowkey tell her not to go back and to just chill with me for the rest of the day, but I knew that that would never happen. As a doctor, servicing different people, she couldn’t just make an impulsive decision like that.

  We were back in the car, and in no time, I had her back in the parking garage of her building, right in front of her car, so she could put her flowers inside.

  “Thank you for spending time with me on my lunch break, even—”

  “Don’t tell me even though I didn’t have to. Go ahead, ma, with all of that. When Ima see you again?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m a busy person,” she told me.

  “Well, un-busy yourself for me,” I said.

  She laughed and then pulled on the door handle to get out, but I pulled her arm.

  “Give me a kiss before you go. I want to feel your lips one last time,” I said.

  I was leaned back low in the driver’s seat, turned a little, with my back against the door, and I was looking over at her fine ass. This time, I didn’t even have to beg and plead for her to kiss me. Instead, she willingly moved in and kissed my lips. I heard her moan for the first time, and I swear, I lost it.

  I knocked those flowers and shit that she had in her hands to the floor and grabbed her little ass up, tossing her on my lap. In her work dress, she was straddling me. My hands started from the back of her neck and traveled all the way down her back until they were on her ass. It was little as hell, but it had a little weight to it.

  Normani had her arms around my neck, and she was breathing hard as she kissed me. I broke the kiss and snuck my head down to her neck and began to suck on it.

  “Billionaire!” she said my name in a scream as she pulled away from me.

  I laughed and threw my head back in the seat.

  “Aight… aight. Ima chill,” I told her.

  Before she damn near ran away, I kissed her one last time, and she got out of my lap. She fixed her dress once she was back in her seat and picked up the items that I made her drop. After she had herself together, she went for the door handle.

  “I’m going to call you tonight,” I told her.

  “Call me after eight,” she said.

  “I call whatever time I feel like calling, ma. Enjoy the rest of your day, beautiful,” I said.

  She closed the door and placed the stuff in her car. I watched as she walked back through the automatic doors of the building, and then I sped off. That woman… that fuckin’ woman right there had a nigga ready to risk it all.

  “Ma, that bitch so foul, yo! I don’t think you understand how much it took for me not to kill her ass. Out of all the shit that she could have possibly done to hurt a nigga, she goes to the fuckin’ extreme and kills my baby! Bitches always got to try to find a way to have the upper hand, and when they do that shit, they always take the shit too fuckin’ far.

  “I’m not even about to sit up here and act like I’m perfect and that I’ve been a saint throughout our relationship, but these past few months, man, I been good. I been getting to the money and tying up these loose fuckin’ ends, so I can get the fuck out of the streets. Now I’m dealing with this shit. On everything I love, man, I’m done. A nigga couldn’t give me millions to get back with her ass. Oh, and by the way, if I find out that she fuckin’ around with that nigga, while she carrying this baby, I swear to God I’ll kill both of them. Now that I think about it, I wonder if that’s even my fuckin’ baby!” I spat, getting myself mad all over again.

  Almost two weeks had passed since that shit went down between Twinkle and me, and I’ll admit that the shit still felt like it had taken place yesterday. I hadn’t calmed down from that shit yet. As much as I told Twinkle that she better not ever in her life fuck a nigga on me, at that moment, I would have preferred she did that. Anything other than to stoop so low and kill a fuckin’ baby that I had planted inside her. Knowing she fucked a nigga on me was something that I could have easily forgiven her for, and it would have been a smaller pill to swallow. I would have had to take the time to sit down and evaluate myself and admit I deserved that shit.

  This shit right here, thoug
h… Her getting mad at a nigga and telling me how she killed my child on some spiteful shit had me wanting to go back over to her mama’s house and choke her out again, but this time, finish the job.

  I’ve known Twinkle since she was a little ass girl. I was six years older than her, and because I was always running with Billion, she and I had always been in each other’s lives. I wouldn’t say that I ever looked at Twinkle as a little sister or no shit like that. If I had viewed her as a little sister, I would have never crossed that line and started fuckin’ with her, to begin with, because that shit would just be weird as fuck.

  Twinkle and I were never really close like that because she would always be hanging with her girls, and I would be with my niggas. If I ever saw her out, we spoke, but that’s as far as that went. We ain’t really start talking to each other like that until she graduated from high school. That lame ass nigga who was all hugged up with her the other day had broken her heart, so she was walking around like she had lost her best friend and shit.

  I didn’t even follow the blogs or no shit like that, but this lil hoe that I used to fuck around with stayed in everybody’s business, including famous people’s business. One of those blog sites had posted a picture up of Twinkle and him, and the bitch sent it to me on Facebook. That shit had me livid because, mind you, around that time, Twinkle had left the house, and for a fuckin’ week, I didn’t know where her black ass was. I was popping up at her job, and she wasn’t there. I did a massive search at her mama’s house, and I ain’t find her nowhere. Twinkle was so motha fuckin’ crazy that her ass was probably hiding in the fuckin’ attic somewhere. I hated the fact that she just packed up her shit and left without even trying to talk this shit out with a nigga like a mature fuckin’ adult!

  Could I understand why Twinkle would think that I was out fuckin’ around, especially since I didn’t want to fuck her early that morning when she was tugging on my boxers? Yeah, I could understand, but I wasn’t about to look shorty in her eyes and lie about some shit like that.