Baby Momma 4

by Ni'chelle Genovese

  Not today of all the fucking days. The corners of my mouth turned down. I suddenly found myself preoccupied, straightening my Burberry cuff links as my mind zipped through a Rolodex of voices. As familiar as she sounded, I couldn’t place that voice to any of my current sidepieces. No one in their right mind would come up in my place of business acting like that.

  “I’m going to ask you to leave before I have you removed.”

  I could already hear Tangie, my no-nonsense bodyguard-secretary corralling the woman out of the building.

  Paula’s finely arched pale yellow eyebrow made its way up to the top of her botoxed forehead. “Um, is there a problem, Genesis? I hope we haven’t misgauged your fit here at Schaefer and Brockman?”

  My nostrils flared. I’d worked too damn hard, put my dick at risk popping too many Viagra, and put in too many real labor hours for someone to unravel it all in seconds. Paula was the only decision maker, like most of that “we” shit that came out when the legion of voices in her estrogen-powered brain was irritated.

  I cracked the stiff joints in my neck left, then right. The lobby had grown quiet, but there was a storm of unspoken tension beating up the air between us.

  I blessed Paula with an award-winning, bullshit, fake-as-fuck smile. “Not at all, partner. Maybe, I misgauged some good cognac and bad company, but that was a long time ago. Absence makes the heart grow jealous . . . You know how that goes. It won’t be happening again.”

  I straightened the lapels on my jacket, knowing good and well that I hadn’t misgauged shit. My boy Foreign rounded the corner as I was about to make my way to the lobby. We stopped shoulder to shoulder. I checked the corridors to make sure none of the legal assistants or admins were out or within hearing distance before approaching him.

  “Who the fuck was that?” I asked in an anxious whisper.

  “Hell if I know. Tangie got her teeth into her before I got out there. But you been holding out on me, man?” he asked, punching me in the arm. “When did you build up the stable? But take a lesson from the master. You need to keep them in their place or put them down when they act like that.”

  Foreign gave me a serious, pointed stare. “Wait, did you get another one of those fucking bloody heart things?”

  I looked away, disgusted with myself for telling him about it in the first place. Even though he was my boy, sometimes he didn’t know when to let something go.

  Foreign slapped his palms against his forehead. “Oh, fuck me. Do you think that was her?”

  “Look, I’ll take care of it, Foreign. It’ll get it handled one way or another.” I began making my way toward my office, signaling the end of the conversation. “Oh, and I’ve finally got a new legal assistant . . . to replace the last one. It’s starting to get tedious retraining a girl every time we lose one, so this one is off-limits,” I warned him.

  Foreign grinned from ear to ear. “Off-limits to who? Me or you, playboy?” He aimed his index fingers at me like two pistols. “It’s all good. I’m gonna be busy doing you a solid, taking care of your crazy lobby bitch problem. Tell Chief we about to go hunt us a wabbit.”

  I ran my teeth across my bottom lip. There’s always somebody somewhere warning a nigga, telling him to watch what he does and who he brings up when he makes it. I put my boys Chief and Foreign on as private investigators. Now not only was I responsible for the trouble my dick got me into, but I had to account for their dicks too.

  I had a better idea for a project to keep Foreign from terrorizing my staff.

  “Foreign, find Chief. There’s a missing girl I need you to find. Saniah Sutton. She’d mentioned something about Sammie Knox. You might want to see what you can find there first.”

  NOVIE

  13

  Mu$e$ Make Your Money

  I dressed in the most legal-looking outfit I owned. High-waisted black slacks with some suspenders and a button-down blouse, completed with a pair of black heels made up my outfit. I arrived at Genesis’s office on H Street. It was busy this time of morning, especially during the week. You had to keep it moving or get bum-rushed by homeless folk and con artists begging for money. I pushed my way through a group of guys in suits and sunglasses marching toward the Metro clutching their briefcases.

  Both Swiss and Javion had been blowing my phone up all night, but my only focus right now was impressing Mr. Kane on this new job I’d landed. Every fifteen minutes or so, another text would come through. Javion had a million questions about where I was, what I was doing, and were we cool. Swiss was apologizing, begging for my forgiveness and understanding. The only thing they had in common is that they were both sorry as fuck.

  I pulled my hair back into a tight bun, leaving a little out in the front for a small bang. I stopped to use the side mirror of a car on the street to check my face before I went in. Turning my head from side to side I admired my almond-brown skin. My hair framed my heart-shaped face, accenting my high cheekbones that were so much like Momma’s. Lip gloss made my already full lips look a little too full, not a good look for the office, so I grabbed my Burt’s Bees honey Chap Stick. My nerves had been all bunched up between my throat and my stomach all morning. I’d been doing everything from meditating to chanting. I even tried tantric breathing, and I think you’re supposed to be having sex when you do that. It took a shot of Henny with a Listerine chaser and coffee before I was able to get myself dressed.

  Aside from the one summer where I’d volunteered at the YMCA in high school, I’d never worked in an office. The few jobs I had worked were retail. Shandy was gonna stay at the house with Momma for a little while, so I had the apartment all to myself, and the silence I usually craved was driving me crazy. I’d googled, binged, pinged, and tinged every fact I could find about the legal business. I even watched every show on Netflix, Hulu, and Vudu that had a lawyer in it.

  The office building was the only bronzed glass building on a street full of concrete giants. I was outside the front entrance trying to calm myself down. I went statue-still with my hand barely on the handle, watching the woman go off in the lobby. She was four-foot nothing, wearing a black pencil skirt and gold blouse that flared at the wrists. I had enough sense to step back out of the doorway. Sure enough, her little heated ass came tumbling out in a blast of cool air. She stood there facing the building with her mouth balled up and her hands folded in front of her like she was expecting Genesis to just come out to see her.

  “What the fuck you staring at?” she snapped, without turning to look in my direction.

  “Um, I’m not trying to get all up in your business, but did I hear you say Genesis Kane was a liar? I mean, he’s lawyer, so, hey. But the thing is, I kind of work here now and I just wanted to know—”

  “That sounds an awful lot like a question somebody trying to get all up in my business would ask,” she replied with a smirk.

  There were malicious flames in her eyes as she came toward me, jabbing the air, swinging some kind of gold medal.

  “Look, I’m not crazy. I know my husband. He likes to play his little games, but I ain’t playing. So you go up in there and you let that bitch-ass nigga know Tima said—” she slapped her open palm against her chest—“I will pull up every brick in this city to bury his ass. Eye for an eye, G for a G.”

  The look Tima gave me before she hopped in her illegally parked Hyundai Genesis was so spiteful and dead-ass serious, you’d have thought I did something to her little mean ass. Yeah, I’d give Genesis the message from LDYG4EV, according to her custom plates. She looked a little Genesis-crazy to me. Who goes to work and almost gets beat down by the boss’s psycho ex-whatever on the first day? That’s got to earn me some brownie points or something.

  When I finally got the horse’s hooves to stop pounding through my chest, I walked in and started my first day of work.

  The double glass doors opened soundlessly as I walked into what looked more like a high-end boutique, rather than an attorney’s office. If this nigga didn’t tell me that he had a decorator
come in, then he was definitely going on my gay list. The lobby consisted of two blocky, cream-colored sofas. In between them sat a rectangular glass table with yellow and white candles on glass stands. Earthy green eucalyptus trees were placed in different places throughout the lobby.

  I followed the walkway that was lined on either side with crystal clear glass windows and drawn white blinds.

  An older lady ran up on me from around a corner.

  “You must be our newbie,” she said. “Ms. Deleon, I presume?”

  “Yes, but you can call me Novie.”

  Even though I was nervous as hell, I gave her a bright smile which the heffa didn’t even bother returning. She actually rolled her eyes, spinning on her high goldfish-orange heels to go back in the direction she came from.

  “I’m Tangie. Kane is expecting you. And you’re late,” she called out pointing up at a large glass clock on the wall that read 8:35. “Your attendance is tracked. It determines whether you will continue on with this firm. Eight occurrences means termination. One to fifteen minutes late and that is a quarter of an occurrence. A missed workday equals one full occurrence.”

  I pulled out my cell as the numbers changed from 8:29 to 8:30 on the screen. If this was what I had to look forward to, this job was already looking like bad news.

  I was marched past a small open area with five desks, all with identical staplers, tape dispensers, and inboxes. Four of them were occupied. I assumed the one on the end was to be mine.

  Tangie gave me a brief drive-by introduction. “That’s Robert, Bobby, Beau, and Mavis.”

  No one looked up. They sat with their faces buried in their wireless monitors. Genesis’s office was around the corner. The doorway was built into a large wall.

  “Nice to see you again,” Genesis announced with a genuine smile.

  He looked just as good as I remembered and smelled even better. After Tangie was dismissed, I took a seat in front of his desk. He had an edgy but intelligently sophisticated look. Like he could roll a blunt, discuss world politics and investing, all while sipping Cognac over ice. His eyes roved over me a few times, making me squirm uneasily in my seat.

  “The office gets a little stuffy. Let’s take a quick walk,” he said.

  Genesis began walking in the direction of Chinatown. “You’ll be helping me by going over my documents for cases and making sure my Is are dotted and my t’s are crossed,” he said. “I give bonuses for every case we win, and most of my clients are people you’ll recognize from television or movies.”

  My phone whistled from somewhere in my purse, but whoever it was would have to wait. Opportunities like this didn’t just pop up every day for someone who was homeschooled by drug traffickers. I’d learned math measuring harvest bales. Daddy was so obsessed with knowing the laws just so he could break them, he had stacks of law books and encyclopedias worth thousands. He didn’t believe in doing anything on the computer, so I studied those things old school with a pen, paper, and a dictionary.

  I had to hit the sidewalk double time to keep up with Genesis.

  The armpits of my button-down were getting damp. Trying to stay side by side with Genesis had me feeling like I could barely talk. “I was at that house, but I didn’t kill anyone,” I told him. “I’m just wondering if I’m qualified for the caliber of work that you do,” I answered in between breaths.

  Genesis’s pace didn’t change. Since I had on heels, it took me two, and sometimes three, steps to keep up with one of his. All the fucking and fighting I’d done with Swiss was probably the most cardio I’d gotten in at least two months. Just when I thought I was about to vomit or black out, Genesis slammed to a stop.

  “Swiss is one of my best guys. When he said he had an old friend that needed my help, I didn’t question him. But I need to know the particulars,” he said in a perfectly normal I-jog-or-do-extreme-cardio speaking voice.

  The comment he’d made caught me completely off guard. Why would Swiss be some lawyer’s best guy, when he was already Daddy’s guy?

  “Were you sleeping with him?” he asked.

  I probably gave myself away when I couldn’t look him in the eye, but I wasn’t about to own up to it.

  “I don’t know why that matters,” I said breathlessly.

  A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips. So, Swiss had actually helped me out this time. He hadn’t left me out there to fend for myself like I’d thought. Maybe he was worth keeping. But if it wasn’t for his aggravating baby momma and her sister, I wouldn’t have needed Genesis’s help to begin with.

  “Novie, last year I kept Swiss out of prison at least a dozen times. But he kept it one hundred with me on all sides. I just need to know if my go-to guy has some conflicting drama that might affect his work here. His son’s mother is already a handful; she’d send that nigga away for life if someone so much as offered to pay off her payday loans.”

  I shook my head, still trying to catch my breath. “No, I’m not messin’ with him. But I don’t think who I do or don’t sleep with is any business of yours.” My tone was a little snippier than I intended, but it was only because he was irritating me. It really wasn’t any of his business what I or Swiss did, even if he was in the business of saving people’s asses from prison.

  Since he wanted to be all up in my personal business, I took it as a good time to share some of his.

  “Tima, she said she was your wife. She said she’s gonna kill you,” I blurted out without warning.

  Something flashed behind Genesis’s bright golden-brown eyes. Distrust or maybe even anger. But it was there, and then it was gone.

  “My what?” he asked like he’d suddenly forgotten how to speak English.

  “I ran into her on my way in. Not sure what it’s all about, but she was not happy with you. She actually said she’d pull up every brick in the city and bury you, G for a G. I think I got that right. I probably should’ve taken notes or something.”

  Genesis clasped his hands behind his back. I was certain that I’d let my damn mouth talk me out of a good thing.

  “A good attorney always has a good argument.” He admitted this with a smug smile curving his lips. “I can already see that you lose your mask when your feathers get ruffled. We’ll have to work on that. But Tima was someone I dated who couldn’t handle it when I didn’t want to date anymore. That’s it.”

  Before I could ask what that meant, he draped his arm across my shoulder in that macho way men do their homeboys when they agree to disagree and be cool. God, he smelled like cedar and spicy pink pepper, like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

  “I honestly think you’d be an asset to any firm out here. You didn’t break under pressure. I need a new source of inspiration. A new muse. I’d rather have someone like you on the team than working against it.”

  Relief surged through me. I even felt a little conceit coming on at being called a muse. That was a new one. I’d never considered myself a man’s key to success, but I’d take it.

  “Also, I prefer yellow Post-its. Fine-point pen in black when things can’t be typed up, and you need better clothes. Attention to detail is one of my pet peeves. C’mon,” he directed, nodding toward the Macy’s across the street. “We’ve got an eleven a.m. with Farrah Harper. You can’t meet her dressed like that.”

  Well, damn, I knew my wardrobe needed a little updating, but was it that obvious? I thought I looked decent enough. Probably should’ve spent more time hitting it with the iron, but it still wasn’t bad.

  Genesis placed his hand at the small of my back, nudging me forward. Damn, I didn’t even get to sit behind my desk or ask if I had benefits, and this nigga was all in my business knocking my clothes? What’s gonna be next? All these specifications and minute stipulations were making me apprehensive. But it’s not like he ran one of those dime-a-dozen e-businesses. It was time to step my game up. All of it.

  * * *

  After hauling out close to $3,000 in pencil skirts and button-down blouses, we were finally on
our way to meet Farrah. Genesis had surprised and impressed me by picking out some of the hottest combinations in life. That man was more than welcome to dress me whenever and in whatever he wanted to, especially if he was footing the bill.

  I’d changed into a Mediterranean Sea-colored skirt with a fitted sleeveless silk blouse in bright coral pink with blue splashes. Even my pumps were on point. They were covered in what looked like wet paint splatters in the same colors as my skirt and top. I don’t know why I’d always been so scared to try something other than black or grey. If Shandy could’ve seen me, she would’ve oooh’d herself to death because I was “snatched to the gods,” as I’d heard her say. I even got a nod of approval from Genesis with his overcritical self.

  We pulled up in front of Farrah’s office building ten minutes early. I checked my texts while we waited. Genesis synced his schedule with the office while listening to Drake’s new album. It seemed out of place. He didn’t come across to me as a hip-hop head, but who was I to judge.

  Swiss called four times before he finally texted, saying it was over with Tinesha. He wanted to know if we could do dinner. Reluctantly, I agreed.

  I massaged my fingers against my left temple in small circles. We weren’t even a day into seeing each other again, and he came with what felt like five years’ worth of drama. Call me a glutton for punishment, but now that Swiss was all into me, I really wasn’t sure if I was feeling him. The oomph was gone. The thought of him didn’t get me excited, scared, or nervous. Thinking about him actually felt draining. Before, it was like gambling. I never knew if I’d beat the house or lose everything. Now with it all laid out in front of me, I wanted to look at other options. I needed to make some side-by-side comparisons.

  “You should wear blue and coral a lot more. Softer colors work with your skin.”

  I jumped at the sound of Genesis’s voice. I was so lost in my head, I’d forgotten he was even in the car.

  “They did a study,” he went on. “Brighter colors are supposed to make you look friendlier, more likeable. It really works.” He tugged at the orange and lavender bow tie around his neck as if he was proving a point.