Sorry Ain't Enough 2

by Tiana Grover

  Getting married would mean hanging it up completely. No more fucking around or cheating on her. I didn’t think that would be too hard because for the last few months, I had been on the straight and narrow. I fucked with her and only her for once and didn’t feel the need to get with anyone else. I didn’t want to fool around. I think it was because I had gotten so close to losing her before; I didn’t want to risk it again. I was ready to be all the man that she needed. I was legit, I had cut all my side pieces off… I was truly all hers. In a way, it was like we were already married. She had my heart.

  Planning a wedding in a few short months before my seed got here probably wasn’t the way Sierra wanted to do things, but I saw Javon’s point. A woman was quick to leave her boyfriend or her man; she would be hesitant to leave her husband and throw her marriage away.

  “You’re probably right,” I admitted slowly.

  “I know I am,” he assured me. “The sooner you get that done, the better. I need your head clear. I’m ready to set up a power move that’ll have us straight for a minute. My nigga Bleu I was locked down with put me on to his big brother, Nas.”

  I perked up. “Nas that used to run with Trey and Amir?”

  Javon nodded enthusiastically. “Yea, and you mean Trey and Amir used to run with him. He’s clean now, completely legit, and his company M and N Enterprises owns damn near everything in the city. Some clubs down the Strip, bars, barbecue spots in Homewood, Wilkinsburg, Penn Hills and East Hills, shoe stores, cribs… Man anything you can think of, he owns it or a piece of it. He wants to do business with us. I think it’s a good move.”

  I stroked my chin but didn’t say anything. I knew exactly who Nas was; he was something like a legend on the Eastside. He’d been hustling since he hit puberty and hadn’t looked back. I used to look up to him and his pops, Kevvy Kev back in the day. My father was real close with Kev until he started to get high on his own supply.

  Nas had taken off like the hood Donald Trump. The nigga owned everything. I was definitely looking forward to meeting up with him and seeing what business he wanted to do with me, but it had to be on my terms. Javon seemed a little too eager to get in bed with him. That was my cousin and I loved him, but sometimes I had to remind him who was running this show when it came to business… for his sake. I wasn’t trying to hold him back or make him feel like he couldn’t make any decisions as far as our businesses were concerned; I would never do that. My reason for stalling was simple: Javon was extremely flashy and a hothead, which was how he ended up in jail in the first place. He didn’t think things through, and although doing business with Nas was definitely a good move, I couldn’t help but think that there was something else behind his eagerness to do it. Me stalling would slow him down from whatever he was about to jump into with the extra money he would receive on the back end from this partnership. Besides at the end of the day, it was all of my money that was invested into the cleaners and Laundromats. So even though I basically let Javon run the show, it was ultimately up to me to decide to do business with him.

  “I’ll think about it and get at you,” I told him, even though I already knew I would do it. Dude was real low key just like me, plus he was money in the bank. So even though I was stalling for Javon’s sake, I would be a fool to turn that opportunity down.

  I stood up and stretched. I would definitely see what Nas was talking about at a later date. Right now I had a more pressing issue to deal with. I had to go home and go make things right with my lady… Again.

  Javon looked at me, his disappointment clear as day across his face. “It’s a good move for us, Prince.”

  Once again, his eagerness was a red flag to me. I had already decided I wanted to make that move, but I didn’t want to with him. I could feel something wasn’t on the up and up.

  I held my hand out to him. “I’ll think about it and get at you,” I repeated firmly.

  He looked like he wanted to say something else but he didn’t. He dapped me up but I noticed some of the sincerity from his eyes were gone.

  I left out. I would deal with whatever his issues were later. Right now, my top priority was Sierra.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I want the money / Money and the cars/ Cars and the clothes/ The hoes, I suppose”

  Drake ft. Trey Songz “Successful”

  Javon

  My fake smile dropped the moment Prince walked out the door. The tension between me and my cousin had been building for a minute now, only he seemed oblivious to it. I probably would be too if I had all the drama he had going on with the females in his life.

  I went to hop in the shower. Prince’s whole demeanor about this business opportunity didn’t sit well with me at all. He acted like I wasn’t bringing a valuable deal to the table. My life, the whole situation had me vexed. I was a grown ass man but it felt like I had to go to another man to make moves the way I wanted to. Prince acted like he knew every fucking thing and nothing could go down without his stamp of approval.

  I mean aight, yeah it was his money that bought all the dry cleaners and Laundromats. But he wasn’t the one putting in the work making sure they were ran successfully. That was all me. Who gave him the idea to put free WiFi in the Laundromats so more people would want to do their laundry in our spots? Me. Whose idea was it to make Wednesdays Women Crush Wednesday at the dry cleaners? Mine. Any woman that brought in any item to be cleaned, no matter what it was, received fifty percent off. Whose idea was it to make Thursdays Senior Citizen’s day? Mine. Same rules applied. Any senior citizen could bring in any item and would receive fifty percent off. Our business at all the dry cleaners across the board tripled because of that. Shit, who gave him the idea to buy the dry cleaners and Laundromats when he was looking for a way to clean his money? Me, that’s who. And now that I was ready to do things even bigger on a grander scale with Nas, he wanted to act like that was a bad idea or some shit.

  I didn’t get it at all. Nas owned a little piece of everything in the Burgh. None of his businesses or investments had flopped, and those were just the ones I knew about. Word on the street was the nigga had his hand in damn near every successful business in town. Who would turn down an opportunity to work with someone like that?

  I got out the shower, still heated. I was sick of being under Prince’s thumb. If I had the money to venture out on my own, I would say fuck Prince and go into business with Nas myself. I didn’t have the capital to do that though.

  Keeping it a hundred, I can admit that I spent my money as soon as I made it. I knew that wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but after going so long without having anything, I wanted it all. So with my first big check, I copped a Range Rover. A Benz followed about a month after that for the days I wanted to be a little more low key. I got my house for the low, but it had been completely renovated from top to bottom, so I ended up spending more than I should have. After hitting the clubs one night in Philly, I felt like my wrists weren’t shining the way they should be. Watches from Patek Phillipe and Audemars Piaget fixed that minor problem. But then while I was picking those watches up, different colored diamonds caught my eye. So I got a few different colored stones to rock in canary yellow, chocolate and black.

  Stepping my game up like that attracted the baddest bitches. I used to want a nice girl like Sierra, but these broads were willing to do more than something strange for a piece of change and I was more than willing to let them. The more change I dropped, the more things they did, and I dropped a lot of change. I was making up for lost time. Can you blame me?

  Whenever I went out, which was about four to five nights out the week, I had to have bottle service. And that was when I home in the Burgh. Whenever I went to New York, Jersey, D.C., Bmore, VA or Miami, I was spending ten to twenty racks a night easily to rent out a VIP section. I spent it how I got it because I had way more coming in. It didn’t even cross my mind to save a dime. I didn’t need to. Anything I spent was easily replaced.

  Then there was something else that was eat
ing away at my money. Nothing major, just a little something I decided to treat myself to frequently. It was my way of rewarding myself for a job well done.

  I reached into my nightstand drawer and pulled out a bundle of coke. I pulled out one stamp bag, opened it and snorted it. Then I sat back and waited for the euphoria that I loved to consume my body.

  I knew that without a doubt my little habit was costing me way more than I could afford. I wasn’t talking about just money either. When I was locked up, one of the young street legends of the Burgh, Kareem, was transferred to my prison. They felt like he had too much power over everyone, including the guards, at his previous jail. The transfer was pointless because the same power he wielded over there, he welded at Camp Hill too. Anyway, he got there during the last three months of my bid and we instantly connected on the strength of my aunt. Red was an O.G. in the game and everyone respected it.

  I told Kareem how I was about to go home to nothing. He offered to plug me in with his little brother Kaseem. At first, I laughed. Everybody knew Kas wasn’t shit but an errand boy for the crew that Kareem left behind. I refused to beg niggas for a handout the same way that he did.

  Kareem told me things had changed for his little bro. He didn’t give me the specifics, but he assured me that Kas was the nigga to see.

  I ain’t hit him up when I first touched down. To me that was pointless when my cousin was out here killing em moving barrels of burners. I expected Prince to put me on with him when he saw a nigga ain’t have nothing.

  He didn’t.

  He got out of the arms trafficking business, then drug his feet when it came time for him to do the legit shit. What was I supposed to do in the meantime? Play with myself? I was a grown ass man waiting on another grown ass man to make a move so I could eat. That shit ain’t sit right with me at all.

  So yeah I hit Kas up. He fucked with me on the strength of his brother’s word. That’s all he needed. He gave me some work to move without hesitation.

  I knew for a fact that the young white kids in the suburbs were sniffing that boy like forty going north. So that became my primary clientele. That was probably one of the smartest moves I made in a long time. They had unlimited access to Mommy and Daddy’s money. I was eating lovely off of them.

  A funny thing happened though. While I was out in those uppity neighborhoods getting my shit to the white kids, I met this fine bitch named Lissa. She had the body of a black chick and lips like Angelina Jolie. She was bad as shit! I had never messed with a white chick before but I had to have her, no question.

  I started fucking with her heavy. She showed no signs of being a junkie, so imagine my surprise when one night while I was chilling at her crib, she pulled out a bundle and started sniffing that shit right in front of me. I was at a loss for words. For real, that shit turned me off. I didn’t like females that did anything harder than weed.

  “Just take one toot,” she’d said with a sexy smile, her eyes low. “Your dick will be hard all night!”

  I’d frowned and sipped my yak. “My dick is hard all night anyway,” I bragged. “Besides, I don’t fuck around.”

  “Just a little bit,” she pleaded. “The sex is crazy when you off this shit! I’m talking bout busting five or six nuts, baby.”

  That sold me!

  After that first high, I was a goner. I wondered why I hadn’t been tried this shit! Snorting it was way better than shooting up; only junkies did that shit. Besides it wasn’t like I was addicted to it. I could stop and leave it alone whenever I wanted to. I just didn’t want to yet.

  The problem I had now was that me and Lissa had snorted a lot of Kas’s product, and I hadn’t paid for any of it. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to get into business with Nas, besides the obvious fact that we would make a shitload of money with him. I could pay Kaseem’s punk ass his money back, whenever the mood hit me to do it, without having to put a dent in my own pockets.

  To keep it funky, I had the money to pay Kas right now, but I had better things to do with it that didn’t include paying him. He would get his money when I felt like giving it to him. Kas posed no threat to me; he was still the same blue eyed pretty boy pussy from back in the day in my eyes. I wasn’t giving him shit until I was good and ready.

  “Fuck Kas and Prince,” I mumbled as the euphoria I had been craving took over my body. I leaned back against my headboard and fell into a slight nod.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m on an emotional rollercoaster/ Loving you ain’t nothing healthy/ Loving you was never good for me/ But I can’t get off…”

  Vivian Green “Emotional Rollercoaster”

  Sierra

  Leesha: Baby I had such a good time with you last night.

  When can I see you again?

  I smiled as I read the text message from Leon. I had him saved in my phone under Leesha because even though Prince was so laid back and calm, and he trusted me completely, you could never be too careful. Even though lately I suspected that Prince really didn’t care about anything I did anyway. Which was why I had been having my own fun with Leon on the side. I was no longer hesitant about letting him take me out in public. Quite the opposite, in fact. If he wanted to see me, he had to be taking me out somewhere and doing something with me. I didn’t feel bad about it either. Prince had driven me to this point with his bullshit.

  The last month or so in my house had been filled with tension. Again. It seemed to be a routine with us. The night I’d needed a jump, Prince hadn’t seen fit to bring his black ass home till one in the morning. This was after he’d ignored every single one of my calls and my texts.

  I was so tired of arguing with Prince over his bullshit and his lies. That’s all he ever did was lie to me. Not even a full day after he proposed to me, he was back to doing him again. I don’t know why I thought the ring would change things. I couldn’t even enjoy the fact that he had asked me to be his wife. Instead I was left to wonder, what was the point of the relationship anymore? It seemed that he was losing respect for me by the day. I started to think if I really wanted to build a life with and marry a man who acted the way that he did.

  When he walked in, I didn’t even give him a chance to explain. Who wanted to hear the same old bullshit all over again? I locked myself in the bathroom with a glass of wine, soaked in a hot bubble bath, and allowed my hot tears to chase each other, one by one, down my face. I cried because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. With any other man, I would have walked away by now. I don’t know what it was about Prince that wouldn’t allow me to do that, but I knew this situation wasn’t healthy. I was slowly but surely losing myself in him to the point where I was accepting things from him that I knew were wrong… and going along with it just to save our relationship.

  But man was I tired of being the only one putting in the effort to make sure things continued to go smoothly. It drained me, just like this crazy rollercoaster of a relationship. One minute I was up, the next I was down.

  I knew there had to be another woman involved no matter how much I wanted to think there wasn’t. I was no fool. He swore he was done with Chloe. Sometimes I believed him, sometimes I didn’t. That only left one question: if it wasn’t her, who was it? Because it was someone. I could feel it.

  My mind drifted to that judge that stopped by on my birthday. For some reason, even though she hadn’t confronted me about him or seemed like she wanted him, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was nothing but bad news. Especially since he had been gone once again with no explanation.

  When I got out of the tub, dried off, wrapped a towel around my body and walked out of the bathroom, Prince was sitting down against the wall holding his head in his hands. For a moment I wanted to kneel down and comfort him, until I remembered that he had left me stuck out in the cold, literally. So I slammed the bathroom door shut behind me. Hard.

  He looked up and even though I was mad at him, my heart fluttered and my stomach did somersaults. No matter how I felt towards him,
I loved this man to infinity and beyond. While my head was considering whether or not I wanted to continue my life with a man I obviously could not trust, my heart made it painfully clear to me that I didn’t want to be without him either. All that, just from looking in his eyes. I had it so bad for him.

  “Honey, I know you’re mad…” he started.

  I shook my head and held my hand up. “I’m not doing this same song and dance with you tonight, Prince. I’m sick of it.”

  “I know baby, but I swear I didn’t intentionally ignore you today. I promise. I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

  I read the expression on his face and could see that he was telling the truth. I decided to lighten up a little, pushed my ill feelings about the situation to the side and asked, “What is it?”

  He looked away from me for a split second, which was a split second too long. That action alone let me know that whatever he was about to say was going to be a lie. Instantly, my defenses were back on high alert.

  “Some family shit, baby.”

  I snorted. “Yeah right.” I walked in the room and slammed the door. I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. I loved Prince too much to leave him, and I loved me too much to tolerate the lies and disrespect.

  That conversation had been a month ago. Ever since then, I’d barely spoken a full sentence to Prince. Any other time I couldn’t go a day without speaking to him before he was trying to make it up to me and shower me with gifts. This time he didn’t even bother.

  It was obvious that something was bothering him, but whenever I asked him what it was, he would lie and say it was nothing, then brush me off. He went from always answering his phone to never answering it. Half the time it was turned off. He didn’t give me any attention and the only times we bothered to have sex there was no intimacy or foreplay. To me, those were all signs that he had someone else. I thought about leaving him, but I had no proof of his infidelity. So I did the next best thing: started to get more involved with someone on the side that didn’t mind giving me all the affection and attention I needed.