“Depends on the situation, but disrespect fromanyoneis at the top of that list. Even your little friends.”
His eyes found hers, but East didn’t speak for a minute. “Even your dude? Because he seems like the disrespectful type.”
“You must know something about him that I don’t.” Joi waited eagerly, but East quickly shut it down.
“I don’t know shit about him. Just making an observation.”
“Bye, East.” Another woman walked over to him but kept a safe distance.
He only looked up at her briefly before he gave his attention back to Joi. Her face was so twisted with the annoyance of yet another friendly interruption that he wanted to laugh.
“You’ll send out an invite when you’re having the next one of these, right?”
The fuck is up with these women tonight?East never looked at Malaysia, but he did answer her.
“You know I don’t handle invites. Chuck does.”
“Oh, well I?—”
“You was just being nosy, which I don’t appreciate.” This time, East gave her his eyes, delivering the same threat he had issued to Nae.
Malaysia received hers and walked away the same as Nae had done.
“How many of these women in here have you been with?”
East smirked before his eyes swept the room. There were about eight to ten women, not including Joi and her girl.
“All of them except you and her.” He pointed to Nyelle and Joi sucked her teeth.
“I knew you had hoe tendencies.”
East found that amusing. “Nah, your man has hoe tendencies. I don’t claim anybody and nobody claims me. How many women I choose to spend my time with is not being a hoe, which is a very feminine word, in my opinion, so don’t use that shit in reference to me. It is just me spending time with women.”
“A hoe is someone who moves around from person to person with no regard for the consequences caused by it.”
“I strap up, I never lie to the people I deal with, and I always allow it to be their choice whether or not they want to spend time with me. How is that having no regard for the consequences?” he challenged.
“Because women are emotional. Well, most are. Even the ones who act like they’re not, really are. If we give you our bodies, ninety percent of the time, you already have our minds. The emotions are attached to the mind.”
“And how is that my problem when I make it undeniably clear that my emotions won’t be?”
Joi stared at him for a minute, unsure of the answer. Maybe he wasn’t a hoe, but she just felt men should be more responsible. Her reaction could be blamed on the fact that she was just annoyed with Reg. He was cheating, she just couldn’t prove it.
East noticed her thinking too hard about the answer, so he gave one of his own.
“Exactly. It’s not my problem. I do my part. How they handle it is on them.”
“It’s late. I’m about to go see if Ny is ready to go.”
East knew Joi was in her feelings, but he was only speaking his truth. Hers might be a little different, but that didn’t mean he was about to lie to her.
“You mad now, Grinch?”
“No, and I asked you not to call me that.”
“Aight, you got that, but you are in your feelings a little bit. If you’re ready to leave, I can take you home. Your girl seems to be chilling right now. Don’t make her leave because you’re trying to get away from me.”
“Whatever. This is your thing. You can’t leave.”
