Addicted to a Dirty South Thug

by Shan

  “Bae, don’t nobody need to know about us but us. You know my people would kill me if they found out that I was mixing business with pleasure . . . and so would your brother. Ain’t no need in fucking up a good thing by involving people in our business.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as you think it is. My brother knows that I am a grown woman and that I’m fucking. Shit, he can’t stop me from talking to who I wanna talk to. I’m falling in love with you, Dae, and want my brother to know the real reason why I came all the way to Dallas to live. I can’t keep having him think that I’m attending college when I’m not.”

  “I didn’t tell you to tell him that. Maybe you should go enroll in college or something, bae, ’cause I ain’t tryna meet dude that way. I do business with this man, shorty. You think he gonna be cool with me, knowing I been fucking his sister behind his back? If anybody did me like that, I would feel like I couldn’t trust them. We just gonna have to keep things on the low for now, and hell, maybe one day . . . but not right now. Just wait and see how everything goes with us. It’s only been a couple of months.”

  Taylana sighed and threw her head back on the bed. She crossed her arms across her naked chest, and I rolled over on top of her and began to suck on her nipples. She ran her hands through my dreads, but she refused to look down at me. I could tell that she was pissed, but hell, I wasn’t about to let this shit fuck up my money just because she no longer wanted to lie. I told her off top that we could never tell anyone what was going on between us, and she agreed, so she couldn’t change her damn mind now. Fuck that.

  “You know what? You kinda remind me of this chick I used to talk to. Y’all don’t look alike or no shit like that, but y’all kinda got the same personality and qualities that it’s kinda scary.”

  “Don’t be comparing me to no other bitch, Dae.”

  “Man, it’s not even like that. She died not too long ago, and she had really meant something to a nigga, so I kinda feel like the love that I had got to experience with her, I’m now able to experience with you. It’s like a nigga getting a second chance or something.”

  “Okay, I don’t know if I should feel honored or like I have been reincarnated or some shit,” Taylana said, and I groaned and hopped out of the bed.

  “There you go with that attitude. I’m about to shower and bounce. Hopefully by tomorrow you’ll be over this shit,” I told her and walked into the bathroom.

  Taylana had picked the perfect time to catch an attitude any muthafuckin’ way. Amber had been blowing me up nonstop about when I was coming home, because she claimed Li’l Dae wanted to see a nigga, but I knew it was really her. I loved my girl, no lie. I just didn’t know how to get back to what we used to have. I didn’t know how to get over what was fucking with me and, until I did, I knew I could never be happy with Amber. Every time I saw her, I tried my hardest to remember what we shared, the type of chick she was, and how she was really down for a nigga, but it never worked. I would always snap and just straight lash out on her. Even then, she still stayed around, she still stayed down waiting for a nigga to get right, but I just didn’t know how.

  Taylana was a great ass distraction from it all, and I often thought about just taking her ass and getting the fuck away from there, but I couldn’t leave my youngin’, and Amber really did need a nigga. I wasn’t the type to leave them out there on stuck all just because I couldn’t figure out how to get my shit together.

  * * *

  I hopped in the shower and tried to shake everything off. When I was done, I opened the door, and Taylana was standing right in my face with a scowl on hers and tears running from her eyes. She had my phone in her hand, and I knew that the little bit of happiness that we did have was about to come to an end.

  Bitches always wanna go through a nigga shit, I thought as I snatched my phone out of her hand.

  “Who the fuck is Amber?” she asked me.

  “Why the hell are you going through my phone?” I asked and shot around to the side of the bed that I slept on and grabbed my shoes.

  “I said who the fuck is Amber, and why the fuck is she texting you asking if you would be home tonight and if you want her to warm up dinner? You cheating on me, Dae?”

  “No! That’s a chick that I used to mess with, but I quit fucking with her a little bit after we started fuckin’ around. I didn’t know that me and you were gonna go this far . . . and shit, she just a little slow to let it go,” I tried explaining, hoping that Taylana would buy it and leave me the fuck alone. Nobody told her nosey ass to go through my phone any damn way, so I ain’t give a shit about her tears. Like they say, you gonna always find something when you go looking for it.

  “You expect me to believe that, Dae? I knew something was up. It seems like every time I start pouting or complaining about something, you always wanna jump up and leave,” she said as she got in my space.

  “’Cause I ain’t about to sit here and deal with your fuckin’ attitude.”

  “Because I said don’t compare me to some bitch you was fuckin’,” Taylana shouted, and I shook my head and walked around her ass.

  I argued too much with Amber to be dealing with that shit from another bitch. So, hell yeah, I didn’t give a fuck how I felt about Taylana; I wasn’t about to deal with it from her. Every time I sensed she was on some bullshit, I was out the door and taking my ass home.

  “Nah, because you sitting here making all them fucking sounds and poking your stank-ass lip out. Then you wanna go through my shit. Fuck outta here, man.” I sat on the edge of the bed and slid my feet into my tennis shoes. Standing up, I pulled my dreads from my face and headed toward the door. “Look, I’ll holla at you tomorrow.”

  “Nah, you holla at Amber tomorrow.”

  “A’ight, shorty, cool. Trust me when I say you’ll be calling me before I come calling your ass.”

  “I seriously doubt it. You must got me confused with that dead bitch you was comparing me to.”

  I froze and could feel my jaw clenching. I tightened and loosened my fists before sliding my hands into my pockets. That shit pissed me off, and I did my best to calm down. I had to remember who this chick was and what I stood to lose if I fucked her up. I shook it off, sucked my teeth, and walked out the door. Fuck her.

  Chapter 13

  Amber

  I heard the sound of Dae pulling into our garage, and I rushed into the bathroom to clean up my face. I didn’t want him to know that I sat there crying for him every night. I guess he was really mad at me for telling KaeDee and Khi what he had been doing to me, because he hadn’t really been home since. I felt it was time that someone knew. It was getting worse, and too many times I had seen Dae zone out when he was around D.J. and stare at him all funny. I didn’t know what that was about, and I didn’t want him ever getting to the point where he would hurt our son.

  I cleaned my face and straightened out my hair a little bit. I rushed to the bed to climb inside, but the vibrating of my cell against the nightstand stopped me. It was four o’clock in the morning almost, and didn’t nobody contact me this late unless something was up. I grabbed up my phone and looked at the screen. It was from a number I didn’t recognize. Once I completely opened the message and read it in its entirety, I realized that somehow, one of Dae’s hoes must’ve gotten his phone. She had the nerve to be questioning and going off on me about her man. The bitch even had the nerve to tell me that I needed to leave Dae alone so that they could be happy. With the way I was feeling at this moment, that might not be such a bad idea. Shit, somebody needed to be happy, because clearly, I wasn’t, and it didn’t seem like I would ever be.

  I took my hand to dry the tears that had fallen again and turned around to see Dae standing right behind me. His eyes were as dark as night, and he was breathing like he had just run a mile. He pulled his dreads from his face, and then reached out and snatched my cell phone out of my hand. I guess he’d seen the message and recognized the person it had come from. I knew that I shouldn’t say
shit to this fool about it, but I was so sick of being treated like I was some ordinary bitch on the streets. I was the mother of his child and the woman that had been holding him down through every single fucking thing.

  There were times when Dae was out making so many mistakes and fucking up the family business that his own brothers didn’t even want to bother with him. They turned their backs on him and only dealt with his ass from miles away. Niggas would be out in the streets laughing at this man. His so-called friends were exactly that—so-called. But of course, dumb-ass Amber was right there to pick him up and help to build his ego back up. I was the one that went to Khi, begging for them to give him another chance. He straightened up for every bit of six months and was right back to doing the same ol’ bullshit.

  There had been so many times where Dae was supposed to be handling business, but instead he’d be laid up with some bitch, getting high and throwed off some lean. He would end up passing out, and whatever little trick he was with that night would take him for product and money that he wasn’t even supposed to have on him. We’d had to come up off our savings to replace shit so many times that it made me sad and angry to even think about. We would be struggling with no money for food, or could barely even pay our light bill, because Dae couldn’t dare tell his brothers we were broke because he refused to keep his dick in his pants. I had held this man down through all of that shit and then some, but do you think any of that mattered? Every chance he got, he took it as an opportunity to spit in my face and walk all over me.

  Most would call me stupid and even weak, and maybe I was all that, but I was the type of woman that just didn’t walk away from shit I put my time, love, and hard work into. I had put a lot of work into this relationship. Sacrificed a lot. Invested a lot. Stayed up late nights crying a lot. Got beat the fuck up and down a lot. I had given and taken too much for me to just walk away and give somebody else a chance to appreciate what I knew I had. I knew what kind of man I had in Dae. I knew what kind of potential he had, because I’d witnessed it with my own eyes. But at the end of the day, it was time for me to stop waiting around for him to live up to that potential. I just hoped that for the next woman, he could be as great as I knew he could be. I no longer had it in me to stick around and find out.

  “I’m not even going to say anything. Like she said, I need to leave y’all alone and let you two be happy. Me and Daelan will be at Khi’s.”

  “You ain’t finna go no muthafuckin’ where! Damn, soon as a nigga mess up, you wanna fuckin’ leave me! You act like you perfect or something!”

  “Soon as you mess up? What the hell do you mean soon as you mess up? Dae, your ass been messing up! I’m just getting to the point where I realize that you ain’t gonna ever stop messing up. You want all them bitches you keep chasing after, trying to find whatever it is that you’re not getting here, then go ahead. I will move out your way and let you do you.”

  “Because all we fuckin’ do is argue! All you do is nag and complain. It’s like you always judging every little thing I do. I’m a messed-up-ass nigga. I know that shit, but if you wanna keep fuckin’ arguing and pointing that shit out every time I’m in your face, then fuck it. I’ll be in these streets.”

  “You’re not even making sense, Dae. You don’t even make sense right now! How the fuck can I judge you? How many times do you go out there and fuck another bitch that it no longer counts as a mistake? I nag because you tell me you’re happy with me and that you love me, when you obviously are not happy and it’s impossible that you even love me. Talking about being perfect? No, I’m not perfect, but ask me how many niggas have I fucked?”

  Suddenly, Dae snapped and wrapped his hands around my throat. He threw me down on the bed and climbed on top of me. I held back my tears, no longer wanting him to see that every time he couldn’t control his anger or couldn’t express his feelings in another way, it hurt me. I had to be strong and show him that what he was doing no longer affected me, even though it would never hold true.

  I closed my eyes, refusing to look at him. I would sit there and wish that he killed me, wish that this would be the time that he went too far, but I had a little boy that loved his mother, and I had to be there for him.

  “Like you ain’t never fucked another nigga before. Admit that shit! Tell the fuckin’ truth! You know you fucked that nigga,” Dae yelled, forcing me to open my eyes and look at him.

  I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. I had never cheated on Dae . . . ever. What the fuck was he talking about?

  Chapter 14

  Khian

  I was downstairs on the bottom level of my house, where I had transformed the entire floor into one area full of shit that made me happy. I had weights, a bar, pool table, a couple of big-ass TVs that I kept on the sports channel, and other manly shit. I guess you could call it my man cave, but I only went down there when I was stressed the fuck out. I practically lived down there when I was with Selena.

  I still hadn’t figured out who took my shit and killed my fam, but with me practically running shit on my own, I really didn’t have time to investigate anything. Dae had given us more problems to worry about. After him beating up old man Amin at the local food mart and most likely being the one that killed him, the Arabs had sent a few threats our way. Dae was acting like it wasn’t shit to him. He was so in his feelings that I hadn’t seen or really heard from that nigga since the day KaeDee choked his ass out in the car. I told him that he needed to watch his back and keep in constant contact with me, but that nigga basically said fuck me.

  Not only was he ducking and dodging me, but he wasn’t handling any of his responsibilities on the business end of things, and I was really thinking about putting Tramell into place to take his position. Tramell was out of the hospital and healing from the gunshot wounds that he suffered that night we got hit, and all he talked about was wanting to stay busy so he wouldn’t have to think about Cooca. If Dae didn’t want this shit, then I wasn’t going to force it on him.

  I think I was really starting to realize that I wanted this for him more than he wanted it for himself. Everybody was telling me to let Dae go. Even Cass’s ass was screaming the shit from behind them walls. I was the one that gave him another chance the last time KaeDee had had enough of Dae. I just didn’t want to give up on my little brother. I had envisioned that we would all be bossing up and taking over the streets together, but everything wasn’t meant for everyone, so it was time for me to move on. I was tired of putting myself out there for Dae to turn around and make me look like a fool. With everything that was being thrown my way, or that I was already dealing with, I didn’t have time to worry about that nigga anymore.

  Briana had disappeared, and I tried to force myself not to care, but I did share a child with that woman, and at one point, I loved her. I didn’t know if she was dead, or skipped town, or somewhere needing my help. I had checked out all the drug rehabilitation centers in the area, and none of them had her as a patient. I even had some goonies from my crew keeping a lookout for her, but so far, nothing. I regretted allowing her to walk out of my house without giving her the help that she had asked for, thinking I was teaching her a lesson. That shit didn’t do nothing but turn around on me. Most days, I couldn’t think without wondering if she was going to be found dead in an abandoned building or in the bottom of a fucking river. I knew how this dope shit went, and I didn’t want any of that for Briana.

  Selena wouldn’t stop bothering me. Her ass was using every little thing about the baby that she could to get to me. I had attended the sonogram appointment with her to find out that we were having a little girl, and she thought that me being happy about it meant that I wanted her ass back. I allowed her to keep the car I bought her, put her up in a nice little three-bedroom house, and even told her she was welcome to move the fuck on, and she still didn’t get the hint. For some reason, she thought I was just going through a phase, but I was going to show her better than I could tell her. I was just waiting on Cuba’s li
ttle pretty ass to let me behind them walls so I could knock them bitches down.

  Lately, she had been spending more time with me than at Tangie’s crib, and I wasn’t even tripping about it. After she would cook dinner and put Skylarr to bed, we would sit up some nights, smoking and talking about a bunch of bullshit that kept us laughing and entertained. She was a pleasure to be around, damn near like one of the homies, but I could see that she was still scared to let go of whatever was keeping her from giving a nigga a chance. Every time I thought I was making progress with her, she would pull back and take her ass home, but I wasn’t giving up. I hadn’t had any pussy since I stopped fucking with Selena, and I wasn’t looking for any but Cuba’s. I had plenty of options, but I was going to hold out until I got hers. Something was telling me that she was worth it.

  I downed the last of my Cognac and set the glass down on the bar. I had gone back over to my weight bench to do a few more reps when I heard the doorbell ringing. I shot up and grabbed the remote from the couch and turned the TV to the surveillance system. Seeing the cab on the outside of the gate had me wondering what was up. The only person that took cabs to my crib was Cuba.

  I walked over to the intercom system that was installed into the wall and pressed the button that opened the gate. Before going up the stairs, I grabbed my phone from the bar to see that I had a bunch of missed calls and text messages from Cuba.

  Cuba: Can I come over?

  Cuba: ????