“I just don’t want you getting wrapped up in that shit, Rico. You gotta focus on ball. Too many times, I’ve heard stories about men that have their head on straight, but they make one bad move, and that shit ends up costing them their entire life. After he pulled up on your baby mama, what happened after that? He called you, and said what?” I wanted to know.
“Just pretty much let me know how far his reach was,” was his response, and I could tell from how bland the response was that he was leaving some things about.
“The way you played the other night, I’m sure that nigga lost some money. He didn’t make you send him some bread?” I asked.
When I asked him that, he dropped his head as if he was ashamed, and at the same time, our waitress was coming back over. Rico barely gave her any time to sit the shots on the table.
He quickly took it, downed it, and he sat back in the seat. I kept quiet, watching him, ready to hear what his response was going to be. He didn’t say anything until the waitress ended up walking away though.
“I had to wire him fifteen bands,” he responded, and after he said it, I looked at this nigga like he was bat shit crazy.
“Fifteen bands! Nigga, are you dumb? Fifteen racks of your hard-earned money? Ain’t no way you allowing that bum ass nigga to put that much fear in your heart. I wouldn’t have sent that nigga shit!” I was pissed, and I could tell by the look on Rico’s face that he was pissed too.
“I ain’t scared of that nigga! Fuck is you talking about? Tank, you know me! Ain’t a soul walking this earth that puts fear in my heart. I sent him that bread until I came up with a fuckin plan. If he’ll so easily pull up on my kid, and my baby mama, it’s no telling the other lengths that he’ll go, and I’m just not trying to pull anyone else into the shit that I have going on,” he went on to say.
“You have another game in two weeks. What you going to do in two weeks when it’s time for you to play again? You already know that he’s going to get right back in your ear, threatening you, telling you how many yards he wants from you, when to fall, and when not to score. Fuck is you going to do then? Now ain’t the time for you to try to come up with a plan. The plan should have already been in motion the second that nigga was standing in the same room as your daughter. You got that man treating you like you’re his puppet. I know how nigga’s like Toby are. This shit that he got you in, this won’t end well. His ass going to string you along for as long as he can, get whatever he wants out of you,and it’s only a matter of time before he tries to kill your ass,” I had to tell him the harsh truth.
Rico didn’t respond. He sat in silence, and I could see the wheels that were turning in his head. I was quiet too, thinking about this shit, and trying to come up with a way on how I could possibly handle it, without getting sent to prison.
“What you got going on with your pops? I pulled up on grandma this morning, and she was on the phone with him. Something about how you knocked his teeth out of his mouth. What happened? I was trying to get the information out of her, but she wouldn’t tell me,” Rico said, after about ten minutes of us sitting in silence.
His question snapped me out of my thoughts. I had been zoned out, thinking about this nigga Toby when Rico blurted out that question to me.
“He was talking crazy like he always do whenever I come around, so I had to put him on his back. That’s all,” I lied.
I only lied because if I told the truth, then I would have to expose the secret that Dionne told me, and I didn’t want to do that. I already told my grandma, which I was still fucked up about, and I knew that it hurt her feelings, so I made sure that I didn’t speak on it with anyone else.
“I gotta see that nigga. He was telling grandma that his front teeth were knocked out,” Rico said. I didn’t know that.
I didn’t stick around him after I beat his ass to assess the damages. Shit made me feel good that I’d done that kind of damage though. The only thing that was left to do was kill em’. I had plans to pull up on the nigga again while he was sober because I wanted a confession out of him. I needed him to tell me out of his own mouth the shit that he’d done to Dionne when she was a little girl.
Chapter 7
Dionne Henry
Overflow
“I’m not going to tell ya’ll how I was calling ma last night, and she kept forwarding my calls. When I finally got her ass on the phone, she rushed me off, and I could hear all kinds of loud noise in her background. I think she was on a date,” Tommie went on to say, telling our mama’s business, as she was standing right next to her.
It was Friday night, and we were all over my mom’s house. Tommie’s oldest daughter, Tailynn had come down from college for the weekend, and because she was here, my mom wanted to cook and have a little something at her house. Tru, who was Tommie’s youngest daughter, was here as well. She’d just walked in the house about five minutes ago. She was coming from the salon, having back-to-back appointments. School, and work was kicking her ass, so the second she walked in the house, she kicked her shoes off, and she was out in the family room, lying on the couch.
The rest of us were in the kitchen. There was a vote on what we would have for dinner tonight. Seafood boils is what ended up winning. I actually wanted surf and turf, but no one else wanted that, so seafood boils it was.
We all contributed to the dinner tonight. I stopped by the grocery store earlier, grabbing lobster tails, jumbo shrimp, and I purchased a few pounds of crawfish. Everyone else came with what they were supposed to bring, and we were just waiting for it to be finished.
My mom was standing at the stove, looking into the large pot, where the corn and the potatoes were. Free was standing at the sink, washing the dishes that were left, and Tommie was on drink duty, mixing up drinks for us. Tailynn was sitting next to me, with her iPad out, showing me her grades so far in the semester.
“I was forwarding your calls Tommie because my background was loud, and you weren’t going to be able to hear me. Stop with that narrative that I was on a date. You know damn well that I’m not dating,” my mama fussed at Tommie, like she always would whenever anyone of us would accuse her of dating. She acted like going on a date was the worst thing in the world.
“Yeah, and keep it that way. How that’s going to look? My grandma out here going on dates. Stay single like the rest of us,” Tailynn shot, looking up from her iPad, and I laughed at the annoyed look that was on her beautiful face.
Tailynn was my niece that reminded me a lot of myself. She didn’t act shit like her ghetto ass mama. They literally were like night, and day, just as me, and Tommie were. There was a running joke that we would use amongst the family that Tailynn was really my daughter, and not Tommie’s because of our similar personality traits.
“Single like the rest of who? The only single women here are me, you, and I don’t know about Tru’s ass. She’s so sneaky, and don’t like to put anybody in her damn business,” Tommie said, holding a bottle of Don Julio in her hands, and she was pouring it into the cups that were in front of her. I had to watch her asswhen she fixed me a drink because Tommie made her drinks too strong. It would be more alcohol inside than the damn chaser.
“She don’t tell you her business because you going to tell the whole world,” Tailynn said, and we all laughed because we knew that it was true.
“I don’t mind ma dating though. I think it would be good for her to have a man around the house,” Free announced, holding a pot in her hand that she was washing. When she announced that, Tailynn groaned and rolled her eyes.
