He Doesn't Deserve My Love

by Ashley Cruse

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied innocently.

  “I knew you were messing around. I knew it, but I don’t give a damn anymore, and I didn’t give a fuck while you were fuckin’ that scrub. All I care about is my kids. If you want me to go, I’ll go, but I’ll be damned if I allow another man to tell my kids what to do.”

  “I just said I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, bitch, you know.” He walked out of the living room and disappeared down the hall.

  I was surprised that he knew my secret. As I looked at the spot where he had been standing just a second ago, something told me I was making the wrong decision. This crazy feeling that I was making a terrible choice seemed to creep all over me, especially my chest area. I shivered. Then, just like that, the feeling went away, not a trace of it left behind.

  I focused my attention back on what he had just said to me. How did Bobbie know? Who had told him? Why hadn’t he said anything? Saddest of all was the fact that this nigga must really not give a damn about me or what I did anymore. He just knew I was creepin’ with somebody else, and he didn’t even react? That was kind of fucked up, I had to admit.

  I walked into the bedroom we currently shared and sat down on the bed. I watched Bobbie gather up his things. He was talking on the phone as he walked back and forth from the bedroom to the living room. I went into the living room and decided to sit on the couch. I wanted to make sure he didn’t take too much shit with him when he left. I braced myself for his mother’s reaction when she came to pick him up.

  A half hour later, Bobbie had gathered all his things from the bedroom and was unhooking the Xbox from the TV. Right then, Bruce, Justine, and Drew walked in. Justine looked at me like I was crazy and headed toward the kids’ bedrooms. Drew and Bruce talked quietly to Bobbie.

  Justine came back to the front of the house and sat down on the couch in the living room. She took in the scene before her. The guys were still talking quietly and calmly, but Bobbie was clearly angry.

  “Your sister lost her damn mind, bro,” Bobbie told them. “She really think she fixing to maintain this house without me? I should take all this shit, ’cause I’m the reason why she has all this shit! Me! That ungrateful bitch sneaking around on me in front of my kids and shit. I hope my daughters don’t grow up to be nothing like her bitch ass too!”

  My sister’s eyes were the size of saucers. The way my baby daddy was talking was new to her. She had rarely seen him angry before. But he was pissed now.

  “Tenosha, are you crazy?” she hissed at me.

  I shook my head no.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Move Corey in,” I whispered to her.

  Just then, Drew grabbed my arm and nodded for me to follow him. When we got outside, he turned and faced me, but my attention was focused elsewhere. I was too busy looking through the window of the screen door to make sure Bobbie wasn’t trying to take the flat screen.

  “Are you really kicking Bobbie out to be with Corey?” Drew asked me.

  “Who said that?”

  “Tenosha! I just heard you tell Justine that. You acting like you was talking all quietly and shit. I heard you,” he explained coolly. I just stared at him. Drew’s face was covered with astonishment. The tone of his voice, however, was disgusted. “Let me tell you about Corey, Ten. That man is my nigga, and I’ll ride for him, but he gotta girlfriend.”

  “Not for long,” I said back to him.

  Drew covered his face with his hand. He carefully lowered his hand and began to talk to me like I was a slow child who was hard of hearing.

  “You didn’t hear the news that Dollie cheated on him, huh?” I said when he was finished.

  “Man, Ten, that girl didn’t cheat on his ass, and if she did, oh well! That ain’t your fuckin’ business.”

  “They ain’t together,” I said stubbornly.

  “You don’t understand. He’s a selfish man. He sleeps around a lot. Yeah, his ass has slowed down, Ten, but if he moves in with you, what makes you think he won’t do the same thing to you that he’s doing to his own girl?”

  Good question, but I had a better answer.

  “I ain’t Dollie or any other bitch he’s been with. I’m Ten. That’s how I know.”

  My brother snorted at my response. He shook his head at me in disbelief. Right then, Bobbie came out of the house and threw some of his things into the car. I snapped. Who the fuck that nigga thank he is, trying to take off in my car?

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted as I lunged at him.

  He didn’t answer me. He walked by me like he didn’t even notice I was there. My brother held on tightly to me. Bobbie kept loading the car up. The more shit he put in there, the harder I tried to break free from my brother. When Bobbie went back into the house, I ran to the car and began to take his shit out. Justine and Drew pulled me away and tackled me to the ground.

  “Whose fuckin’ side are y’all on?” I frantically tried to move but was unable to get free.

  They kept me on the ground while Bobbie took his time piling his shit in the car. I was irate.

  When Bobbie was done heaping his clothes up in my ride, he turned and faced me. I stopped struggling and started cursing him out as loudly as I could. I didn’t give a damn who heard me or what scene I was causing. That man had me fucked up right now. I yelled until I almost lost my voice. My sister and brother never let me get up off the ground.

  “This is my car. Just like if I want to come back and get everything in that fuckin’ house, I will, because it belongs to me,” Bobbie snarled. “This crib belongs to me. I worked for this shit, and all you did was sit on your lazy ass all fuckin’ day. You had it made, bitch, but you about to learn today. You kicked me out. Therefore, I’m taking this car and all my shit with me. You figure out how to get the kids to school. You wanted this, Ten, and you got it. That nigga better not touch my fuckin’ kids, or I’ll kill him. If I even hear he harmed my children in any way, I’ll be seeing your ass in court.”

  Chapter 15

  The next morning, as promised, Bruce arrived to take Hanson and Marie to school. My mom and grandma were blowing up my phone like crazy. I refused to answer it, as I knew they were pissed.

  I had begun to straighten up around the house. Tyrese was trying to help me. Little did he know, he was making things worse than they already were. I took a brief break, long enough to shower, get dressed, and throw my hair back into a loose ponytail. Right when I stepped out of my bedroom, I heard a knock on my door.

  Who is it this time? I wondered as I walked to the front of the house. I looked out the window to see Corey standing outside. A huge smile spread across my face. I could feel myself getting all giddy inside. I let him in.

  “What’s up?” I asked him.

  He came in and sat on the recliner. He was looking mighty delicious in his Miami Heat getup. He had on the new Nike Air Maxs that had just come out. I wrinkled my nose. That bitch had probably got them for him.

  “Shit, just going through the motions. What you up to?”

  I shook my head. I wanted to tell him so bad that Bobbie no longer lived here. I decided to wait until the right moment. “What you down in the dumps about?” I asked instead.

  I picked up Karen and went into the kitchen. I decided to show off a little and make my kids pancakes for breakfast. Corey got up and followed me in there. He sat at the table and watched me do my thang while talking to me. Before long, Corey began to tell me about Dollie, their trip to Bedford, and how his sister claimed she was cheating on him.

  So the story was true. I looked up at the ceiling and mouthed, “Thank you.” I was so glad Majesta had put me up on game. I knew exactly how to play my part. Not wanting to come across like a hater, I cautiously asked him a question.

  “Are you sure she was? Your sister could be throwing salt in the game. You know, causing drama.”

  “I ain’t fucked up about it,” Corey said.
“You made enough for me?” Just like that he changed the subject.

  He grinned at me, and I smiled back. Soon I was done burning the stove up. I had my youngest two sitting at the table and eating. I fixed Corey’s plate and handed it to him.

  He smiled as he took his plate and went into the living room. “Wow! I get special treatment!”

  I made myself a plate and followed behind him. When we were done eating, I took his plate and mine. Then I cleared the table and washed all the dirty dishes. After I was done, I wiped down the counter and swept the kitchen floor. I wanted him to see how well I could hold down a home. Then I put Karen and Tyrese down for their nap and went into my bedroom to finish cleaning it up.

  When I was halfway finished with rearranging my closet, Corey walked into my room. He sat down on my bed and looked at me with a concerned expression on his face.

  “What’s the matter? What’s up?” I quizzed him.

  “Where’s the Xbox and all the games at?” He looked around my room and turned to face me. “What happened in here?”

  I had dumped all my clothes out of the dresser drawers and had thrown everything on my bed. All my clothes that had been hanging in the closet were now on the floor, along with all my shoes. Clothes that I couldn’t fit into were lying on top of the dresser. I was reorganizing everything to make room since the baby daddy had left.

  “Looks like a damn tornado ran through here,” Corey mused.

  I let him rant and rave for a little while longer. I smiled to myself as I picked things up off the floor of the closet. I took a deep breath. I was going to drop the bombshell on him.

  “Bobbie moved out last night,” I told him nonchalantly.

  Pretending to be busy, I waited for him to ask me what had happened. I guessed he was shocked by what I had just said. He didn’t respond for a long time. When he finally did, I disclosed to him what had gone down. I left out the discussion I had had with my brother.

  Corey’s eyes widened in disbelief after I ended my story. “Damn. That was raw,” he said as he lay down on the bed, He smiled at me. “Can I move in?” he said, teasing.

  Or was he? I knew one thing. I wanted him more than anything. My situation with Bobbie was no longer. I needed Corey more than anything in my life. So did I want him to move in? Hell yeah! This was too easy.

  “What about Dollie?” I asked innocently.

  My back was turned to him on purpose. I figured if he did say that he was just playing, that he was still hung up on that bitch, I could handle that feeling of rejection better this way. I hoped he knew that he would be losing if he missed out on this bad bitch.

  “Fuck that lying-ass girl, man. She’s stupid. Her triflin’ cheated on me,” he said, then began to laugh.

  Just go ahead and tell him that he can move in, a voice told me. That was what I really longed to do. A closed mouth never got fed, and occasionally, you had to take a leap of faith. Corey belonged with me. We were a much cuter match than he and that broad were. Anyway, light-skinned bitches never went out of style. So he was really winning by having me on his arm. That was when I let him know he could stay.

  “Aw, for real? You want a real nigga by your side, huh?” he said.

  I nodded my head. He agreed that he really wanted to move in. He got up off the bed and started helping me put my clothes up. He asked me where everything went and even told me what I should get rid of.

  “Don’t worry about losing any clothes, ma. I got you. I’ll have you in a whole new wardrobe. You got to be on top of your game to have a nigga like me by your side.”

  “Boy boo! You should be the one who is glad you stepped your game up! You upgraded from playing on the C team to advancing to the A team. The fuck you mean?” I replied.

  “That nigga took the car too? Let me call Doll and see if she’ll let me use her truck.”

  I wrinkled my nose up at the sound of her name. That shit right there didn’t sit too well with me. As he called her on his cell phone, I continued to straighten out my closet. Evidently, she didn’t answer, because he started calling around to other people.

  Corey left the room and disappeared somewhere in the front of the house. When he returned, he told me he was going around the corner to the Smiths’ house. He told me that Rorie was going to take him to get his things from his grandma’s.

  Rorie was a square type of nigga. He was tall, scrawny. And he was a mixed breed young nigga who wanted to be down so bad. He was willing to do anything to hang with Tre. So he was pretty much the crash dummy of the Mafia. You didn’t have to tell him but one time, and he was on it.

  I wasn’t too worried about anything. I was happy that I had accomplished what I wanted, and that was having Corey. I was even happier that Dollie hadn’t answered her phone. The last thing I wanted was for him to be tied to her by way of her ride.

  I had my sister pick my kids up from school for me, while I woke Tyrese and Karen up from their nap. When she arrived at my house with them, Corey still wasn’t back. She came into the house and sat down in the living room with all the kids. I was in the kitchen, cooking some ribs.

  “What you making?” she shouted from the living room.

  “Ribs.”

  I began to take out the ingredients for the sides that I was going to make. I had to impress my new baby. Let him see what a real woman was capable of. Then, later on, I was going to give him some of this good pussy.

  “Big sis is cooking it up, huh?” I could hear her say as she flipped through the channels on the TV.

  I smiled to myself. After I was finished preparing the ribs and got them in the oven, I went into the living room. I began to tell Justine what had happened.

  “So Bobbie’s out, and Corey’s in,” she said when I was done. She paused briefly. “I don’t have any problems with Corey. That’s the homie.”

  “Oh yeah, sis? ’Cause on the cool Drew been kind of throwing shade,” I confessed to my sister.

  “Throwing shade how? Drew ain’t no hater, sis. You know that.” My sister laughed out loud.

  “I don’t mean a hater, sister. But he did give me a warning.”

  Justine shook her head in exasperation. We both knew how our brother was when it came to us. I mean, the three of us really went hard for one another, anyway. I just wished Drew’s reaction to me wanting to be with Corey was one of pure excitement, like what he’d expressed when Bobbie and I first got together. My sister was making it clear to me, though, that she wasn’t fixing to take sides, either. I told her about what he had said before they pinned me down on the ground.

  “Look out, big sis,” Justine said. “You know Drew is going to voice his opinion, no matter what. Just look at it as him trying to help you see clearly. Hell, I don’t know. Emotions was running pretty high. Like you just up and decided Bobbie couldn’t stay anymore. That was pretty wild, sis, and you know this.”

  All I could do was nod my head as if I understood. I decided to drop the conversation for now.

  She and I both became engrossed in the old television series The Golden Girls. The aroma from the ribs baking in the oven had the whole house smelling good. I was going to make sure when everybody had a piece that they knew I had put my foot into this meal. As Justine and I watched The Golden Girls, our sides were throbbing with pain from laughing so hard. We had probably seen this show a thousand times, and we still giggled like it was the first time we had ever watched it.

  During a commercial, I had checked on the ribs and put the potatoes on. Then I settled on the couch with my sister, and we debated whether or not to keep watching The Golden Girls or to catch the latest episode of Music Moguls on BET. Right then Corey, Bruce, and another young nigga from around the way came inside. My new boo stopped and gave me a kiss. Then he followed behind the other two as they entered the kitchen.

  “They probably got some dope,” Justine said.

  “How do you know?” I knew I probably sounded naive.

  She just shrugged her shoulders and focused her at
tention back on Music Moguls.

  I knew what dope was, but I didn’t have to be around it like Justine and Drew. My baby daddy had always taken care of me.

  Even when he stopped loving me, he still chose to keep doing for me. He had made a choice to keep a roof over my head. I had never had to be subjected to that, not even when he was hustling. Now I was going to have to stand on my own. If that meant my feet had to get dirty in this game, so be it.

  A few minutes later, Bruce and the young nigga emerged from the kitchen. He and the young nigga were both friends. Bruce motioned for my sister to come with them. She got up and left with them. Before she left, she made sure to let me know that I needed to save her some ribs.

  Right after Justine left, Corey called me into the kitchen.

  “These ribs smelling good, babe. How much longer?” He had the oven door open and was peeking at the ribs. I looked over at the clock and advised him that it was going to be another forty minutes before we could all eat. That was when the conversation turned a little serious.

  “I know you used to a nigga taking care of you. I’m willing to do my part. But I need you to understand something. I gotta keep Dollie around. I doubt this will ever happen, ’cause I got to keep my game on point, but if it ever comes down to it and she asks you . . . I’m saying if she asks you about us, say we’re just friends and I’m staying here because my pops and I are into it.” His eyes were awfully humorless.

  Mine were too, though. Like it pissed me off that I had to go along with this shit. Even though we did need a vehicle, I just wanted the bitch out of both of our lives. I wanted him, and I got him. Now we got to sit here and act like we ain’t a couple so he could do what he needed to do to get the truck. I nodded my head to let him know I understood, when deep down inside I was simmering in fury.