Mentally, I could relax in this relationship because I knew that my Daddy was there for me and would never intentionally hurt me, because he wanted to do nothing but shield, mold, and love me.
For instance, as soon as we arrived at III Forks, sat, and ordered our drinks and entrees, he reached across the table, gently held my hand, and approached the sensitive conversation amongst our relationship with so much care and yearning, that, as I stared into those sexy ass light brown eyes, I couldn’t even get irritated as he spoke.
“Did you go see your father today?”
After that failed attempt at visiting with my parents last year, I let it go. I allowed myself to realize that, like James, their love for me was something that I couldn’t control, and that I had to stop scolding them for being fucked up addicts that didn’t raise me right.
I let it go and haven’t talked to them since. Since they hadn’t spoken to me either, even though they still live with my aunt and my aunt speaks to me frequently to give me updates on their health, my father’s in particular, I don’t feel bad about not being in their lives.
I looked at Marcel sadly and told him, “No.”
I knew that he would be disappointed. Yesterday, after my aunt told me that my father was admitted to the hospital with a failing liver, he told me to go see my father and mend that relationship.
“Lyric…” He said my name just as I thought he would; with disappointment and even a bit of anger.
Instantly, I began to pout. “It’s hard for me.”
“I know.”
“They don’t deserve me.”
“I know, but this isn’t about them. It’s about you being a better person; to grow as a better person. You know I want nothing but the best for you. I would never steer you wrong.”
“I know.”
“Then listen to Daddy. Trust me. I know what’s best for you, Babygirl.”
Three
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Tricey
After a week, Blood was finally coming home. He’d called an hour ago to make sure that I was home. He had landed at Midway. Lucky was picking him up from the airport and dropping him off at home.
I missed him so much. We hadn’t been away from each other for that many days in a very long time. Plus, I was eager to see what had him in such a bad mood.
I even cooked for him; smothered pork chops, greens, baked macaroni and corn bread. I wanted to spoon with my baby all night. My mother taught me years ago that when you want a man to stay in the house all night, feed him and then fuck him, and he’ll be too tired to leave the house then.
The food was cooking as I primped in the mirror in our bedroom. I didn’t get dressed up or anything. I had showered and changed into a cami and boy shorts, but I at least did my hair and sprayed myself with sweet smelling aromas that would persuade him to put his mouth on me.
Just as I was going into the kitchen to check the pork chops, I heard his keys in the door. I was so happy that he was finally home that I literally skipped into the living room and met him at the door as it opened.
To my surprise, he was carrying not only his luggage but a baby boy as well. Not that much of a baby. He looked to be about a year old. Blood also had many more bags with him than he left with.
I looked at him curiously as he entered the house. I became even more curious when he didn’t kiss me hello. I became petrified when I looked behind him for whomever this child belonged to and didn’t see anyone.
I watched him as he sat down his luggage and sat on the couch with the boy in his lap. I was waiting for him to say something, but it was like he was waiting for me to say something.
I asked with nervous laughter, “Are you babysitting?”
He too laughed nervously. “No,” came out of his mouth cautiously and then his laughter quickly went away.
I noticed how he sat on the couch; as if he was holding that baby near him as a barrier between me and him. My heart began to beat rapidly. My face got hot. I began to feel faint as reality began to sink in.
He called my name as my anxieties and fears poured out in my expression. “Tricey…”
“Whose baby is this?!”
Finally, I looked in that child’s face, and I knew. Blood was written all over him. They had the same harsh jaw line, slim physique, and tan skin.
I noticed their similarities and felt fainter. I even collapsed on the arm of the couch across from him for support. I was speechless as Blood sat there speechless; his silence telling me everything that I needed to know.
“Is this your baby?!”
“Tricey, let me explain.”
Then, the tears started. “Oh my God! He is yours!”
I don’t know where I was going, but my instincts stood me up and I began to walk through the house. I couldn’t sit there any longer. It felt like Blood had just cut me open and ripped my chest out. As a matter of fact, it felt like that baby had.
Blood was right behind me, attempting to explain how he had a whole motherfuckin’ baby!
But I couldn’t hear him over my own shrieks, squeals, and screams. “How long have you been cheating on me?! And why is he here?!”
I was going crazy! I couldn’t hear shit Blood was saying. My mind was just spinning uncontrollably. I was trying to keep from throwing up. My heart was beating so fast that it felt like I was about to have a stroke.
I ended up in our bedroom. Before I could walk any further, he grabbed me by my arm with his free hand. He was holding this baby and, sadly, I wanted to push the baby out of Blood’s arms.
“Tricey, listen!!”
“Don’t you fuckin’ yell at me!! You have no right to yell at me!”
Blood realized that, yes, he had fucked up and shouldn’t do anything further to piss me off. In a much softer tone, he told me, “I just want you to listen, baby. Let me explain.”
“You can’t explain this shit to me!”
We tugged back and forth; me trying to get my arm out of his grasp and him refusing to let me go. He eventually pushed me down on the love seat and stood in front of me, with one of his legs on each side of me, so that I couldn’t move.
“Listen!”
I sat there crying like a baby. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.
“Last year, we were going through a lot. I was hurt when I found out that you was lettin’ Amiel see Ariana behind my back…”
“Oh, don’t try to blame this shit on me! “
“I ain’t blamin’ shit on you! Baby, it just happened.”
“This type of shit don’t just happen!” I was yelling at the top of my lungs and pointing at the child dramatically. “Especially without me knowing! Not only did you cheat on me, but you got a fuckin’ baby, Blood! Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“How was I suppose to tell you some shit like this?!”
“Who is she?”
“Some chick I met while doin’ a run in Houston.”
“’Some chick’. Yeah fuckin’ right.”
“I’m serious.”
“She ain’t some chick. Don’t try to diminish her role now! She got one up on me! She’s your fuckin’ baby mama, and I ain’t even that!”
“Tricey, I swear, she’s just some chick I fucked a few times. Me and you wasn’t even together then.”
“And I’m suppose to believe you?! You hid a whole baby from me and I’m suppose to believe you’ll tell me the truth about this?!”
“Tricey…”
“Fuck that! Why is he here?”
Blood seemed to give up fighting with me as he stepped back. He made room between us; sitting on the bed, sitting the baby down on the bed, and running his hand over his head.
Then, he dropped a bomb on me. “He gotta live with us.”
“WHAT?!” I damn near fainted.
“She can’t take care of him.”
Immediately, I got up. My flip flops were on and I knew that my purse and keys were in the living room. I could smell the pork chops burning, but I
didn’t give a fuck. That whole condo could have burned down. I wouldn’t have gave a flyin’ fuck!
“Where you goin’?!”
Blood was on my heels as I walked out of the room and towards the living room. Then I could hear that baby crying and, in response, my stomach started to turn with sickness.
“You expect me to stay here?!”
Blood was still on my heels; arguing with me as I grabbed my purse and keys. “You can’t…”
I cut off his rambling as I spun around and glared at him with repulsion. “Do you really fuckin’ expect me to stay here?! That baby can live here all he needs to, but it ain’t gone be with me!”
Neither Lyric nor Vic were answering their phones. Lyric lived the closest, so I went over there anyway. I cried the entire way. This was a different kind of hurt, and it hurt like a motherfucker. This wasn’t just as simple as another woman calling his phone or him cheating on me. This was a baby, when I hadn’t even had the chance to have his baby yet.
Every time I thought about it, I wanted to throw up. I probably would have, had I had the chance to eat something that day.
“Oh my God!” That’s how Lyric responded when she opened her door and saw my face streaming with tears. “What’s wrong?!”
Lyric ushered me in. It was quiet inside of her place. I felt a relief from the heat as the cold air from the air conditioner hit my exposed skin.
Even though it was five o’clock in the evening, it was still over eighty-five degrees out. And since I was boiling on the inside, my body seemed to be overheating.
“What happened, Tricey?”
I hadn’t even noticed that we’d sat down on the couch. I was just sitting there crying without saying a word. My thoughts were consuming me. Just as I was about to speak, Lyric’s cell phone rang. She picked it up from the coffee table. It was as if she was going to ignore the call before she saw who it was.
“Why is Blood calling me?”
I rolled my eyes and told her, “He’s looking for me. Don’t answer that shit.”
“He’s just going to come over here looking for you.”
“Not with that baby.”
“Baby?” She sat there waiting for me to respond. When I didn’t, I could see her getting nervous. “What baby are you talking about, Tricey?”
The tears became harder to control. Like I said, this was a different feeling than being lied to or cheated on. This man had a family outside of ours and just threw it in my face with no warning.
“He has a baby. He has to be like a year old.”
Lyric was just as stunned and shocked as I was. “When did you find this out?!”
“When he got home. He got in from Texas about an hour ago. The baby was with him.”
“What?!”
Lyric was flabbergasted. I thought she was about to pass out. She looked on the outside how I felt on the inside. Just seeing her shock and sadness for me made me want to go back home and literally kill Blood.
“Apparently, the baby’s mother can’t take care of him anymore, so he needs to live with us.”
Then, my cries became sobs. I couldn’t talk anymore. Lyric put her arms around me. I leaned on her shoulder for support because I definitely needed it. I felt like everything was crashing down on me.
I was tired of this roller coaster that Blood and I were on. If it wasn’t his drug life that kept us in limbo, it was me and my bullshit, and, now, him and his. He had taken the one thing from me that I was holding on to. If nothing else, I loved Blood because of his loyalty to me and my daughter that no man, not even her father, would unselfishly give to us.
Now, he was like every other ain’t shit ass nigga.
STAR
I couldn’t believe that I was actually nervous, but as I felt my knees shaking, it was confirmation that I was.
I could hear the music blasting through the speakers, could smell the weed in the air, and could feel the energy, even though I was in an entirely different room.
I was at a show. I decided to at least start stripping. After that day in the park when Jordan threw a fit, I couldn’t take it anymore. Never was I the type of bitch that couldn’t feed her child, and I wasn’t going to continue to be that pitiful either.
I knew that this chick named Keesha, who worked at the grocery store part time, had to be stripping. I mean, she only worked part time, and, though it was a little ratchet for my taste, her style was much more up to par than mine. Either she was stripping or a man was kicking her down. Either way, I needed to be put on. I hollered at her and she confessed to doing shows here and there, so I told her that if she needed an extra girl to give me a call.
That evening, I got that call. I had never stripped previously. I knew escorting, not dancing. But by looking at Keesha, I knew that the caliber of men that she was doing shows for couldn’t have been that hard to please.
The knock on the door scared the shit out of me.
“C’mon, Star. Time to turn up!”
That was Keesha as she came into the room. Even hearing her voice annoyed the fuck out of me. She was just one of them ratchet ass bitches that I would have never hung out with by choice. She was loud and obnoxious, with a fucked up synthetic lace front and bad tattoos. Yeah, I was damn near that pitiful, but it wasn’t by choice while she swore that matted ass wig had her looking like the shit.
I left out of the bathroom and niggas was even in the hallway waiting on us to come out. They grabbed my ass as I followed Keesha down the hall. I swear it took everything in me not to swing on them.
I was use to five star hotels, steak dinners, and leaving with two or three thousand dollars when I did my dirt.
By the looks of these clowns, I was lucky to leave with two hundred.
But it was more than I had to my name.
Victoria
My alarm went off at ten o’clock; signaling that it was time for Greg to wake up and make his exit before Taij dropped DeSire off in about an hour.
The closer it got to Taij’s wedding, the busier his schedule was becoming. So he was spending less and less time with DeSire.
I was more than okay with that though. I knew that once this wedding was over, in two months, he would be back to having DeSire a lot more throughout the week and on the weekends.
As I turned off the alarm, I saw several missed calls from Tricey from earlier that afternoon. I was too damn tired to even call her back and told myself to call her first thing in the morning.
“Greg, it’s time to get up, baby.”
I rocked Greg gently to wake him. He began to move slowly as he woke up.
We partied so damn hard Friday night that we had been sleep for most of the day.
I started dating Greg almost a year ago. He was a cool guy, but we weren’t in a committed relationship yet. I had been in a relationship with my ex, Vince, off and on for years and, after our last break up, I made up my mind that I didn’t have time to focus on a man until I got my shit together mentally. Greg respected that; which made it super easy and casual to date him with no anxieties of commitment.
As Greg rolled out of bed and started to get dressed, I had to admire his naked body. His skin color was the perfect shade of the darkest chocolate. He was 6’3” and cocky than a motherfucker. He worked out daily, so, over a slim physique, were muscles to hold on to, thick legs, and he had the nerve to have a nice ass. His dark skin and face full of hair put him in the likes of Idris Alba. He wasn’t as fine as Idris, but he had distinct features, like dimples, gorgeous slanted eyes, and beautifully full facial hair, that made him adorable.
Plus, he had good dick.
After Greg slipped on his shoes, I met him in the middle of the floor. I was still naked, so he flirtatiously admired me as I reached out to hug him.
Accepting my embrace and playfully smacking my ass, he told me, “It’s been fun, kid.”
I laughed as I kissed him softly on the lips. What I gave him was a peck but he came in for a long soothing kiss; sucking my tongue and pla
yfully sucking my lips with his soft ass soup coolers.
“Mmm,” I moaned. “Stop before you kick some shit off. DeSire will be home soon.”
Regretfully, he let me go. Then I led him by the hand through the darkness of my house and towards the front door. We gazed into one another’s eyes and visions of the hours he spent inside of me danced in my head and gave me goose bumps.
I assumed that he was thinking the same thing as he lost himself in my eyes, because he then grabbed my chin and kissed me aggressively.
He was making it so hard for me to make him leave.
“I’ll call you later,” he told me as he finally let my lips go.
I was so short of breath that I barely could get out, “Okay,” as he unlocked the door and walked out.
As I crawled back under the covers, I thought to myself how life as a single woman was indeed the shit.
Taij was ringing my doorbell an hour later. I let him in, but went back into my bedroom and resumed my position underneath the covers while he put DeSire down in her bed.
I was still worn out despite the fact that Greg and I had slept most of the day. We didn’t make it in from Hearts, a nightclub downtown, until four in the morning. The lack of sleep, hangover residue, and trying to put it on Greg in between naps had worn me completely out.
I could hear Taij coming into my room, so I peeked my head out of the covers.
After turning on the light, he looked at me; saw the exhaustion and my hair all over my head and laughed. “Long weekend?”
I smiled. “Something like that.”
As he sat on my bed, he told me, “DeSire has to get fitted for her dress on Tuesday.”
“Do you need me to bring her, or are you picking her up?”
“If you could bring her that would help me out a lot.”
“No problem.”
DeSire was in the wedding of course. She was a flower girl, along with one of Kim’s nieces. I couldn’t wait to see my baby all dolled up and looking like a princess.
“You ready for this to be over yet?”
Immediately, Taij giggled as he answered, “Hell yea.”
Good Girls Ain't No Fun Boxed Set (The SIX romance and urban fiction volumes of the LOVE, SEX, LIES series) Page 86