Granted, I lived smack dab in the projects, and I didn’t have any business allowing no one to move into my shit. Where I lived, someone was dying every night. All I had was a one-bedroom apartment, and before they moved in with me, my shit looked like a fuckin trap house. The only furniture I had was the bed, and dresser that was in my bedroom, and the small dining room table that was out front. Since that was the case, we’d turned what was supposed to be the living room area into a small bedroom for Bash. He had his bed out there, with his clothes in containers and shit.
“They do look a little big for your mouth, but it’s not too bad. That’s temporary Toby. The dentist told you that your permanent implants would be here by next week. Why didn’t you just get the veneers?” Kalani asked me, standing up from the bed, so that she could plant her body in front of Bash, who was sitting in one of the dining room chairs that she’d brought in the room, so that she could braid his hair.
She’d been working on his hair for the past couple of hours, and from what I could see, she would be done soon. Bash had a bunch of sandy brown hair, and for the past couple of weeks, he’s been rocking it in a ponytail. Tonight, Kalani washed it, and now she was doing it for him.
Bash was a good kid. These days, kids felt like any adult that had a little money was cool, or someone that they should look up to, so lately, the little nigga been telling me shit like he wanted to have money like me when he got older. Not once did he tell me that he wanted to be like me though. He just wanted some of the little money that I had, that he would see lying around, or when I would put money in his mama’s pockets.
“I don’t like the veneers look. Shit be so fuckin big. The nigga knocked out my two front teeth, so I just needed implants for that. I didn’t need a whole set of new teeth. I’m still so fuckin angry about that shit. Should have killed those niggas,” I spat, saying ‘those niggas’ because Kalani was under the impression that I’d gotten jumped. That was the lie that I told her.
When I said that, Bash looked up from his iPad that was in his hands. He had an older version iPad with a fucked-up screen that looked like it had been stomped on, thrown, and beat with a fuckin hammer. The screen was all shattered, but he didn’t mind all that because he would still be on it, allowing it to take up all his attention.
“Toby, stop. I know we’re in your house, but I keep telling you to stop talking around my son like that. He don’t need to behearing that shit!” Kalani snapped on me, turning around from the braid that she was putting in his hair, so that she could focus her eyes on me.
“My bad. I be forgetting about that shit,” I said, coming over, so that I could take a seat at the foot of the bed.
When I sat, I put my eyes on Kalani. She was fine shit. Kalani was short. She couldn’t be any taller than 5’2. In fact, Bash was taller than her ass. She had one of those petite frames, and with me being a chubby nigga, those short, petite women is usually what I liked. She had the same caramel complexion as her boy, and it was her who Bash inherited the hazel eyes from. She had locs in her hair. Crazy because one of our earlier conversations, I remember asking her what made her loc her hair up, and she told me that it was cheaper on her, so she wouldn’t have to worry about always getting her hair done. She knew how to do her own re-twist. Her locs were long. They went down to the center of her back, and right now, she had them pulled up into a bun that was sitting on top of her head.
I started fuckin around with Kalani about two years ago, but we never really had a title to what it was that we were doing. She was just always someone that was in a lineup of hoes that I was dealing with. I didn’t look at her as a hoe though. Kalani was one of the good ones. She picked the wrong nigga to have a kid by, so a lot of her days were spent busting her ass, so that she could take care of Bash, and pay her bills. She was one of those women where she didn’t have a lot, but she made shit shake with the little that she did have. She was an only child, never met her pops, and she didn’t have the best relationship with her mother. With that, when she was fired from her job, it wasn’t like she had a fleet of people that she could go to for help. The few home girls that she had, none of them really had steady places to lay their heads, and the couple that did have a spot, it wasn’t enough room for Kalani, and Bash.
When she called me, telling me that she’d lost her job, and how she had already been behind on her rent, facing an eviction, and asking me if she could move in, it was right there on the tip of my tongue to tell her no. Not because I was some green ass nigga that didn’t want to help, but because I’d never experienced living with a woman before, and I didn’t know how that shit was going to play out. At the same time, I knew that if she didn’t have to ask me, she wouldn’t. For as long as we’ve been fuckin around, she’d never asked me for money, so it took a lot for her to ask me some shit like this.
It was cool having her here. My big ass didn’t have to eat fast food every day because with the money that I would give her, she would use some of it to buy groceries, and with that, I was getting home cooked meals every night. My apartment looked like a fuckin home now because she’d brought some of her décor and shit from her old apartment over here. She kept the place clean, and smelling good. I was getting in house pussy and head any time that I wanted it. Shit wasn’t too bad having her around, and lowkey, I was hoping that she didn’t find a job because I wanted her to stick around.
“Toby, you know my birthday on Friday. You still going to take me to the University of Miami game on Saturday? I want to go, so that I can see Rico play. Man, you know that’s my favorite player in the whole world,” he went on to tell me, and just the sound of that nigga’s name had me flexing my jaw, and I had to bite my tongue, so that I didn’t say what I really wanted to say.
Kalani didn’t know about the shit that I was into with Rico. I didn’t tell her. I didn’t insert her in the middle of my business, and she didn’t ask, so it was cool. Kalani wasn’t tapped in with a lot of shit that was going on in Miami, either. Her ass didn’t even have social media, so she didn’t know that just a week ago, I had been the butt of the jokes in Miami, where motha fuckaswere laughing at me , trolling me because they found out that I’d gotten my ass beat by that nigga Tank.
When I came home that night after getting my ass beat, of course she was asking questions, wanting to know what happened, but I shrugged it off, telling her that I had been beefing with some niggas in the club, and that I was jumped. She was under the impression that multiple niggas had beat my ass, when only one nigga had put the paws on me, blacked both my eyes, knocked my teeth out of my mouth, and still had me walking around this bitch limping.
My swelling just went down in my eyes. They were both still black and blue, and you could see the specs of blood that were in my pupils as well.
“I ain’t trying to go out in public in front of all those people, lil man. I’m still waiting for my face and shit to heal. You don’t want to go to an arcade or something? Invite like three or four of your friends from school, and I’ll pay for all of ya’ll to have a good time,” I let him know.
“Aight. I guess that’s cool too,” he said, and you could hear it in his voice that he was a little sad about it.
Kalani finished his hair about twenty minutes later. She put the moose and shit on his long braids, and she turned the blow dryer on, so that she could put the heat on the braids and allow the moose to dissolve. Once she was done with that, she applied a little bit of oil throughout his scalp, sprayed some product on it, and she let him know that he was done. Shit warmed my cold heart a little bit when I saw Bash thank his mom, and he stood up, so that he could kiss her on the cheek.
From there, he came over to me, and I stuck my hand out, so that I could slap it up with him.
“Your braids fresh as fuck, lil man. You gone have all the bitches,” I told him, and he laughed like it was funny, whileKalani picked up the comb that was on the bed, and she threw that shit at me.
She really hated the idea of me cursing around her son. I would try and not do it, but that shit was natural for curse words to fly out of my mouth.
“My bad,” I told her, and she just rolled her eyes, and finished gathering up all the stuff from the bed, so that she could put it back where it belonged.
Bash left out of the room, going out front where his bed was, so it left just the two of us in the room.
“You know you don’t have to do anything for his birthday. I was going to get a cake, and stuff, and take it out to his school, so that he could have a little party in class. You’re already doing enough for us, and I don’t want you taking on anything else,” she told me.
“It ain’t nothing to me to do a little something for Bash and his friends at the arcade. That shit is light,” I told her, and she just nodded her head.
“I have an interview in the morning. After I take him to school, I’m going to go straight there for the interview,” she shared with me.
“Oh yeah? Where at?” I asked, just wanting to know.
“It’s at a warehouse. It’s something just for now, until I can find something better. I’ll just be fulfilling orders and helping with inventory,” she said, and I nodded.
“Where the warehouse at?” I wanted to know.
