Baby Momma 4

by Ni'chelle Genovese

  I eased myself out of the car, careful not to slam the door, then quickly adjusted my sundress straps out of habit. Let me walk in on this fool doing some shit; he’d feel all of this sexy-ass heel digging in that ass. Got me out here sweating and he’s probably in there slurping lemonade outta her belly button.

  Sweat made my hands cold and sticky. I hesitated on the welcome mat for a bare second.

  The sun-beaten door handle was hot to the touch. It seared into my clammy, nervous skin. If this fool was in here doing something he shouldn’t have been doing, there was no way in hell I was gonna ring the doorbell. That would give him enough time to straighten himself up. I was surprised when I pressed down on the handle and it moved easily. Icy-cold air blasted across my face and neck as I eased the door open. I stepped into the foyer. I am definitely not in DC anymore.

  Tall, bright green bamboo plants lined the foyer. I stared up at them with my mouth momentarily hanging open in awe. Red, green, and gold parakeets chirped and flitted around the tops of bamboo stalks up near the glass-domed ceiling. It was real cute in a Peter-Pan’ish kind of way, but fuck that bamboo and them birds. Where was this fool? I moved across the spotless floor, careful to keep my heels from clicking against the surface. Three long dark hallways spread out in front of me. I headed toward the one in the middle.

  My ears were set to super sonar. I wiped my sweaty palms off on the front of my dress when a soft moan caught my ear. I paused . . . listening so hard I gave myself a headache. A second moan louder than the first one set my feet in motion toward the first door on the hallway to my right. I will kill this nigga and his ho. He got the wrong one if he thinks he can play me like I’m boo-boo the goddamn fool.

  “Shhh. It feels good, don’t it? I know you wanna tell daddy you like that shit,” Javion said with a chuckle. “And I want you to stay just like this.”

  Javion’s hushed voice was followed by the sound of his own low, husky moan. Betrayal stabbed me in the chest. That was my moan. That sound was supposed to be meant for me. I stepped into what looked like a small entertainment room. My lips were already forming every word that I was about to pop off at his lying, cheating ass. I’ve never felt so stupid or so humiliated. So blindly dumb. My mouth opened, but no words came out. My peep-toes peeped the mental stop sign slamming to a halt before the rest of my body got the message. I damn near did a full-front bow.

  Her knees were spread, hands planted shoulder-width apart. I blinked, blinked twice, and then I blinked again to be sure the girl I was looking at was the same girl who’d opened the door. She was kneeling on top of the pool table in the middle of the room. Her skin was shockingly white against the black fabric. It matched her long hair piled into a high, messy ponytail on top of her head.

  “I thought I told you to wait in the car,” Javion’s voice was dark and angry.

  The girl’s eyes were like headlights as they locked with mine. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. I had to force myself to look past the black tape across her mouth. I felt her degradation, along with my own confusion as I followed the handle of a broom sticking out of her ass like a stiff horse’s tail. Javion’s hand held the other end of it straight and stiff. A pistol was in his other hand, aimed in the direction of her head.

  That couldn’t be Javion. My Javion was a teddy bear and an HVAC repairman who listened to Future and fucked me to Jeremih. This Javion looked malicious, like something straight out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. He was sitting in a bright blue and white paisley patterned armchair pulled up to the edge of the pool table. Covering his face was a bright crimson-red ski mask.

  His usually cheerful eyes were resentful and hard as he glared in my direction. I was scared to move any closer to this stranger of a man who I felt like I suddenly didn’t know. The girl on the table whimpered when his hand shifted.

  “Shhh. I know, I know,” Javion hushed her like he was soothing a frightened animal. “I need you to hold that for daddy, just a little bit longer.”

  His eyes were on me all while he talked to her, like this was completely normal.

  A deep voice boomed through the house, “That was a good workout! You know the best way to work off that freshman fifteen is to hit the treadmill. Your mom never liked working out but . . .”

  The voice traveled through the house, echoing off the walls.

  “Ashley?” he called out again.

  The girl responded with a muffled shriek.

  He was getting closer, his voice was getting louder.

  Either the giant was coming down the beanstalk, or my heart was slamming against my chest so hard that it felt like the house was shaking all around me. I automatically looked to Javion for help because I had no idea what else to do, but he wasn’t even paying me any mind.

  “Ash, you got company? I thought I heard the doorbe—”

  The owner of that deep, booming voice stopped just in the hallway. He had to have been at least seven feet tall. His wide-muscled body took up the entire door frame as he stepped forward in a pair of sweats, with sweat raining down his bare chest.

  When push comes to shove, I’ll take the stranger I know over the stranger I don’t know. I instinctively backed myself toward Javion until I was standing a good distance behind his chair. I needed to keep myself a good distance from Javion too. As far as I could tell, he was on the other end of crazy for me right now, his own self. I wasn’t trying to be in arm’s reach of either one of they asses. Javion sat still and quit, like he just wanted the nigga to visually eat up the moment, roll it around in his brain, and digest it. That’s exactly what happened too. The man’s deep golden tanned skin went sickly pale. His grizzly squared jaw moved back and forth under the blond beard covering it, and his eyes narrowed to slits on Javion.

  Javion finally broke the silence. “We gave you an extension, Beau. You missed it. The boss says I need to relieve you of a few obligations. Said maybe that would help you free up the finances to repay your obligation to him.”

  Beau raised his big meaty hands in the air. His heart broke the second he saw the girl on the table in front of Javion. You could see it all over his face and in his eyes. He was furious, scared shitless, and completely helpless—with no option left but to beg.

  “Look, man, you don’t have to do this. Please,” he begged. “She’s my only child. My baby girl.” His bright blue eyes were glassy with tears. “I’m so sorry, Ash, baby. Daddy is so fucking sorry,” he spoke to the girl on the table his voice shaky and cracking.

  Beau raked his hands through his short blond hair, ruffling it into a spiky mess. He was shaking when he talked to Javion. “I swear on my life I’ll get you your money. All I’ve got to do is win my next match. I’m guaranteed to win. I’ll have it. All of it, I swear. Take my car, take whatever you need—”

  “Not good enough,” Javion answered.

  Javion stood. I cringed at the pitiful sound the girl made when he twisted his hand holding the broom. This was a part of the game I never saw or experienced. It made the inside of my mouth get that uncontrollably wet feeling you get just before you vomit.

  “You have until midnight to pay up,” Javion said in a cold, flat voice. “Or I’ll be making a trip to baby girl’s dorm to finish this. Um, Chandler Hall at William and Mary University, if I remember correctly.”

  With that, he let the broom drop before turning the gun on Beau. Javion grabbed me by my elbow, calmly marching me toward the front door. I kept looking back, expecting to see Beau running after us with a gun blazing or on the phone calling the police.

  “He ain’t gonna do shit, so stop checkin’,” Javion said as he opened my car door.

  My eyes were full of questions, but I was still a little too shook up to do more than sort through my rambling thoughts. What just happened? What the fuck kind of pervert ties a girl up and shoves a broom up her ass? Is that the kind of shit he enjoys?

  I slid my shades on, trying not to look at the house through the rose tint of my sunglasses. Hop
efully, they’d be enough to hide my face if Beau or his daughter were in a window with a camera phone snapping pictures of their attacker. My phone lit up. It was finally charged. I tried to stop my fingers from shaking so I could check my missed messages or log onto Facebook. I needed to do something—anything—to take my mind off what I’d just seen. Javion walked around the back of the car toward the driver’s side.

  Thudump!

  Something slammed up against the back of the car so hard it rocked in place. I jumped in my seat dropping my phone.

  “Oh shit!” Javion shouted.

  The worst of the worst scenarios flashed through my head. All that tie-’em-up hostage craziness had my ass so discombobulated, I’d completely forgotten to tell him about the blue car. God, if this nigga is shot or is stabbed, it’d be my fault.

  NOVIE

  2

  A Complex Electra Complex

  I turned completely around in the seat, my nails dug into the leather of the headrest. I was expecting to see blood splatters or five dudes in black wife beaters with crowbars and tire irons. My eyebrows shot up at what looked like a long black weave bobbing up and down. She started screaming down at what I think was Javion on the ground.

  “Nigga! I can’t believe you! I cannot fucking believe you right now!” she yelled, stomping her foot over and over.

  “Tinesha, stop! Stop, nigga, you’re pregnant,” Javion yelled back.

  She gave a final stomp. She stopped putting her hands on her sides. Tinesha was huffing like she was practicing her damn Lamaze. Javion hopped up, minus his ski mask. Light brown dirt speckled the side of his face and head. He tried to dust off the front of his jeans.

  “Nigga, if you don’t calm the fuck down, you about to get everybody caught up out this bitch.”

  “Nigga, the only person ’bout to get caught up is you and that bitch. I told you, this baby is yours, and you handle it by hiding from me? You ain’t no man—you ain’t shit,” she huffed, all while pointing in my direction with her chest heaving.

  “Get the hell on with that. You out here trippin’ over nothing. I’ll deal with you later,” Javion talked quickly over his shoulder as he marched toward the driver-side door.

  “You’ll have to back me over to get out of here, bitch! I ain’t goin’ nowhere until you handle this shit like you’re supposed to!” Tinesha stood behind the car with her arms spread out.

  “What the fucking fuck, Javion,” I snapped as soon as he opened the car door.

  Sweat ran down the side of his face. He completely ignored me and started the car, throwing it into reverse.

  “Move, Tinesha, I ain’t playin’ with you,” he yelled out the window at her.

  I punched him in his arm for ignoring me. I didn’t sign up for either one of these bullshit situations. Yeah, he might’ve helped out with a bill or two and got my hair done whenever I wanted, but it wasn’t worth all of this.

  Tinesha posted up behind the car. “Hit me then, bitch. You man enough to take a life, but you ain’t man enough to raise one? Huh? Really, nigga?”

  She pulled off a shoe, hurling it at the car. For a pregnant woman who looked about to bust, she sure as hell had a lot of fight in her.

  Javion turned the wheel to the far right, punching the gas. The car made a small arc as we backed around her. A few inches to the left and that would’ve been all she wrote. She gave us the finger so hard I bet she sprained her wrist.

  I stared at the side of Javion’s head with my arms crossed tight over my chest.

  “Novie, that kid probably ain’t even mine. She was fuckin’ with one of my homeboys who was always doin’ his thing on the side. Shit, we got drunk, she made her move, and I hit it a couple of times but stopped because my boy said they were good. She was being greedy, and I don’t do sloppy seconds,” he explained. “Then she called me outta the blue a month ago, talking about she’s seven months along. Nah, that ain’t me. It can’t be.”

  I didn’t know who or what to believe. Another woman would explain all the late-night trips and phone calls, but what I’d just seen this nigga do back in that house explained that shit just as well.

  “So what if it is your baby?” I asked.

  The corners of his mouth turned downward as if just thinking about a baby with her turned his stomach. “If it’s mine, and my boy don’t kill me for the disrespect, I’ll do my part. But it ain’t mine. It can’t be. I ain’t ready for that shit, and definitely not with her.”

  I wrestled with the idea of him having a baby with another woman. We’d only been seeing each other for four months. It definitely wasn’t enough time for me to get crazy attached to him, but it was enough time for me to feel comfortable being with him. I could rock with the idea of us being together for now, but if that baby was his, I’d have to let him go. I didn’t want to deal with any men and their unstable baby mommas.

  I scooped my phone up. Shandy had sent me a text.

  Javion watched me out of the corner of his eye.

  I never asked him his business concerning who called or texted him, but he was sure as hell nosy enough to constantly ask me about mine.

  “Whatsup? You got somewhere else to be?” he asked.

  “It depends on whether or not you telling me what just went on in that house.”

  “Spppsht. That? That shit was just work,” he answered nonchalantly.

  I sucked my teeth. “Don’t hit me with that bullshit. That was more than just work, and you know it.”

  “All right, Novie. Your boy back there is some kind of UFC World Champ. His dumb ass blacked out, had some kind of posttraumatic fight meltdown and snapped his wife’s neck because of steroids. Boss straightened it all out. Kept him out of jail, kept his record clean, let him keep that title belt too, and now that nigga’s bitch ass acting funny about paying. It’s just work, like I said.”

  The look I’d seen on Beau’s and his daughter’s face, I couldn’t shake it. Nobody deserved to be humiliated like that.

  I crossed my arms and turned so I could face him. “So, basically, you help rich people get away with murder? And you went after his daughter, who didn’t have shit to do with what he did? If that ain’t fucked up.” The bracelets jingled on my wrist as the palm of my hand fell hard and fast across the back of Javion’s head. If we weren’t so far away from my house I’d have gotten out and walked. I slumped back into the soft leather of the seat and stared at the sun dipping in and out of the clouds overhead.

  Yes, I was raised in the game, but it was different type of game. Back in the day, Ramsey Evans was one of the youngest dudes in the game; he was a computer hacker who ran dope in and out of North Carolina and South Carolina. His daughter had a thing for The Hunger Games and Comic Con. They went to every convention every year. She wanted a live deer-hunting contest at one of them. Ramsey went above and beyond and hired the actors from the movie; he even gave people real bows and arrows. Almost caused a stampede when the deer came crashing across the stage waving its antlers, but he paid for a show, so he got one. You had Ewoks, Storm Troopers, and Wonder Women all shooting their arrows, not sure if their target was an animatronic or a real deer.

  When it collapsed and the head fell off, people gasped. Ramsey . . . lying there with tape over his mouth so he couldn’t scream. His hands and his legs were tied together. Daddy took over after that. That’s how he did things. He would handle business like a Nigerian warlord when he needed to. But he never touched people’s kids. He had boundaries, rules; there was a code of ethics that he followed. Javion left a bad taste in my mouth with his child’s play. I couldn’t respect a man that did shit like that.

  “Novie,” Javion said my name like it was an excuse. He sucked on his bottom lip and alternated between watching the road and watching me. “This is what I do in order to make these stacks we burn through like kindlin’. It’s why I expect you to wait in the car when I tell you to wait in the car. It’s not just me; it’s a family thing, so I’m with my people. We do a lot of infamous s
hit for famous and financially privileged motherfuckers like him. Sometimes they ask for more than they can afford, and when they do, we have to scare up their payment.”

  A family thing, okay. I guess that would explain why I hadn’t met or seen so much as a picture of any of his kin. If we weren’t trying to take it slow and really build whatever this thing was that we had, I’d have started pressing him about this secret-squirrel family business.

  I decided to try my luck. “So, who is this boss that you work for?”

  He focused on the road in front of him. “Can’t answer that.”

  “You move weight too? Have you been doing this for a long time? Have you ever killed anyone?” I fired the questions at him one by one as they popped into my head.

  “Novie,” he yelled slamming his hand against the steering wheel. “Chill with the questions. I already told you a helluva lot more than I should have. So let it go. I ain’t telling you anything else.”

  I put my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes, unsure of why I wasn’t scared or completely turned off by what he really did for a living. As much as I hated what my dad did for a living, I don’t know why I kept falling for niggas who followed in his footsteps.

  GENESIS KANE

  3

  The World Is Ruled by Favors and Fools

  I parked on the street and stepped out, taking in a deep breath of the city. Summer was just starting to spread her legs after a long, celibate winter. You could smell it in the air, almost taste it on the tip of your tongue. It was that energy that made niggas anxious to get out of the house and into some bullshit. That shit that kept my plate full of cases, clients, and pretty faces needing favors.

  The Metropolitan PD was my last stop before calling it a night. I liked to check in from time to time to see who or what had been brought in. I kept at least three officers in my back pocket at every station in and out of the area. They scratched my back, and when it was necessary, I watched theirs.