In all seriousness though, I didn’t know who his mom was, but I knew Toby, and he was the last nigga that she needed to have around her kid. Nothing about him gave that he was a man that would be a good father figure on any young boy’s life. I couldn’t help but to wonder what Toby was getting out of this shit though because I personally knew that he didn’t like kids. He’s been saying for years that he never wanted to have any children of his own. To hear this little boy stand here and tell me that Toby was helping him, and his mom out, allowing them to move in with him, I couldn’t help but to wonder what Toby’smotive was behind his actions. It was something. I just didn’t know what.
“What was your name again? I forgot,” I said.
“Sebastian, but everybody calls me Bash. How you forget Bash?” he asked, and that question made me laugh a little bit.
“I met so many of ya’ll that day at your school, so I just forgot. Don’t take it personal. Go back in the house though. It’s late, and you don’t need to be riding your bike up, and down this parking lot. This isn’t the best neighborhood for you. Just sit in front of the door until they tell you to come back in. Better yet, go knock on the door, and tell them to let you in because your tired, and you need to get ready for school. Do me a favor though. Don’t go in there and tell them that you were out here talking to me. Can you do that?” I asked him, and he nodded his head, while sticking his hand out, letting me know that that was fine.
“I got you, man. I won’t say nothing. You ready for your game on Saturday? I’m ready to see what you’re going to do out there,” he let me know.
Hearing him ask me that just made me realize that I didn’t come out here, and handle what I needed to handle with Toby.
“I’m ready man. Go back in the house,” we shook it up one last time, and he moved fast, going for his bike that was lying in the middle of the road, quickly hopping on it, and he peddled back over to is apartment.
I watched him as he knocked on the door, and it was Toby that answered it for him. I’m not sure what Bash was saying to Toby, but he eventually stepped out of the way and let him come inside the house.
I camped out for as long as I could, sitting out here for over an hour, thinking that Toby was going to come back out, but he never did.
I was just going to have to go back to the drawing board, so I pulled out of the parking lot, and I headed back in thedestination of my apartment. I was about five minutes away from my crib when my phone started ringing. It was my baby mama hitting me. I now had PTSD whenever she called me late at night because I didn’t know what kind of bad news, she was going to hit me with.
I rushed to accept her call, waiting to hear what she had to say.
“Promise, what’s up? Where Romy?” I asked, and I could hear my daughter crying in the background right after I asked it.
“Right here. She was in bed sleeping with me, and she’s burning up. I don’t have any more Motrin here. It’s too late for me to leave out. Can you run to the store and bring it? If you’re going to make a big deal about it Rico, I can just go and get it myself,” she said, and I sucked my teeth. I only sucked my teeth because of the shit that she said at the end.
“When it comes to my daughter, and getting stuff for her, I’ve never made a big deal about shit, so I’m not even sure why you felt the need to say that. I’m already out. I’ll grab it and then come over. Give me like twenty minutes,” I told her.
“Okay,” and like that, she hung the phone up.
I had to make a u- turn, and head back in the opposite direction of my apartment. I drove in silence, with a million things flooding my mind.
I eventually made it to CVS, and I stocked up on Motrin, and Tylenol, so that Promise never had to run out of those things again. I paid for the items up front, headed back to the car, and I was on the way to Promise’s crib. It didn’t take long to get to her.
I parked in the lot, grabbed the bags out of the passenger seat, along with my gun, and phone, and I locked the doors behind me. I took the stairs up to her unit, and within seconds, I was standing in front of her door, and I knocked. Promise answered in under a minute, and when she did, she was holding Romy, who was still fussing. She was just whining, as if she wasannoyed. Her little nose was running a little bit, and I could see how red her cheeks were. I reached my hand out, so that I could touch her forehead, and she was warm.
“She got a cold? What happened?” I asked, stepping in the house, and I sat the bag down, so that I could reach for my daughter.
She was still whining as I held onto her. She was dressed in just a onesie, and there wasn’t anything on her feet.
“Her nose started running yesterday, and her temperature did spike a little bit earlier, and that’s why I canceled all my appointments, so that I could stay home with her,” Promise let me know, picking the bag up from the table, that I’d just sat there.
“My baby nose running, and she got a temperature, and you didn’t tell me. So, who you told then? Her other daddy?” I asked her, and the second it left my lips, she whipped her head around so fast, and I knew for a fact that if I wasn’t holding onto Romy, that she would have more than likely slapped my ass.
“I’m learning that everything doesn’t deserve a response. Ima let you have that one. Your daughter has your entire fuckin face, and you talking about she got another daddy? You gotta be the weirdest nigga that I ever met in my life. That’s what I get for fuckin with a nigga that’s younger than me,” she voiced, and I laughed, while following her to the back.
“You know what they call that, right? Statutory rape,” I continued talking shit.
“And you’re supposed to be in college, idiot? It would have been statutory rape if we had sex, and you were a minor. This why I don’t like to be around you because you always fuckin with me. Give me my baby, so I can let her get her medicine,” Promise turned around, and she took Romy out of my arms, once we made it in the back, where her bedroom was.
Promise took a seat, and she kept Romy in her lap. She knew how to multitask, as she kept Romy in her lap, and she pulled the medicine out the box, opened it, poured just a little into the medicine cup for Romy, and she put it to her lips. Her greedy butt loved medicine because she must have thought that it was some kind of candy or something.
I stood over them, watching as Romy finished the medicine. The second I was getting ready to reach for her, Promise’s phone that was sitting on her nightstand started ringing. Naturally, it was in me to look and see who was calling her because the phone was right there. The name, ‘Marquez’ appeared on her home screen, along with a picture of him. It was Marquez Thomas. He played for the Steelers. For that nigga to be calling her this late, that could only mean that she was fuckin him.
Her slick ass declined the call and then tossed the phone in the bed with her, turning it face down, so I couldn’t see it.
“You don’t have to decline your nigga’s calls while I’m around. Answer that shit,” I told her.
I’m not going to lie; there was this small part of me… about 15% that did feel some kind of way about my baby mama fuckin other niggas. It was just a pride thing. A feeling where no baby daddy wanted their baby mama fuckin another nigga, especially having the nigga around your child.
