“Noah, I mean this with the most respect. Fuck you,” she snapped. “The sun doesn’t rise and fall because of you. You comeat me because you can’t live with your own actions. You wanted to be grown, so welcome to the real world, baby brother.” She took a step away.
But typical Noah didn’t let her walk. He stood up.
“Leave it alone, Noah,” I said, lifting my hand to keep him back.
“What you gonna? Hymn me up again? You gonna let your husband handle your brother like that?” he sneered.
I smirked and shook my head. I wanted to put his punk ass through a wall, but the last thing I wanted was to give Stormi more stress. I kept my hands steady and my voice cold.
“No. I can handle you just fine,” she replied, glancing at me then down at my belt.
If we’d been alone, I’d have known exactly what she was thinking and would’ve had her across my shoulder and inside of her before she blinked twice. But this was not that kind of gathering.
I slid the Gucci belt off and handed it to her.
“I should’ve done this a long time ago,” she spoke. She took the first strike and hit Noah across the leg.
“What the fuck, Stormi?” he screamed and jumped back.
That only made her angrier. She struck him two more times, and I took a step back, remembering every ass whooping I’d gotten growing up and them shits hurt. It was humiliating, exactly what he needed.
“I said I was done, Noah. And yes, that means done with your bullshit too!” she yelled, swinging like a fed-up mother of a wayward child.
Everybody watched. Rich and Southside were smiling. Watching like kids who’d seen the villain finally get his comeuppance. Stormi had always let Noah slide like a typical big sister. But kids gotta learn sometimes the hard way, and right then she was done being soft.
Noah staggered, rubbing his leg, chest heaving, eyes blazing with wounded pride. He wanted to turn it into drama, to make it about him, but the room had already chosen sides.
When Stormi was done handing Noah his first well deserved ass whooping, she slipped my belt on with calm efficiency and reached for my hand, she fixed her hair like she hadn’t just publicly disciplined her brother.
We walked away from Noah, away from the nosy eyes and whispers. The air outside the hall felt cleaner. Lighter. A small victory, but a victory, nonetheless.
As we got in the car, I watched Stormi slide into the seat and breathe out for the first time all day. Her shoulders dropped a fraction. Her hand found mine, fingers lacing like a lock.
“You did good,” I asked.
She squeezed my hand. “I needed that.”
I wanted to ask about what a fallout with Noah would do, how this would play out in the family, but none of that mattered at that moment. And in the driver seat, watching the neighborhood blur by, I felt two things loud and clear: pride, and a worry I couldn’t shake. Noah’s bruised ego could turn into something ugly. But whatever came, we would meet it together. For now, though, I just wanted to get her inside and close the door. So, I could hold her and let her mourn without an audience.
We drove off into the night, and I kept my hands steady on the wheel, steady for her, steady for the boys, steady for whatever this family needed me to be.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
SETH
“S3 come on!” I screamed from the bottom of the stairs as I waited for my oldest son to come down the stairs.
I glanced over at Shiloh who was pulling himself up and banging on the living room table. He was ten months and ready to walk any day now. He made a weird face, and I just knew this lil nigga wasn’t shitting after I had just bathed and got him dressed.
“Shiloh, don’t do that to me. We already running late,” I said as I walked over to him, I didn’t need to check his pamper because the smell hit the moment, I got close to him.
“God damn, Shiloh. Your shit shouldn’t smell like mines,” I joked as I walked over to the diaper bag and grabbed the wipes and pampers to change him.
I scooped his little ass up and tossed him on the couch before I realized he had shitted all out of his pamper and onto his clothes.
“Oh, this what we doing?” I asked him as I started to undress him. I swear he never did this with Stormi. The out the diaper on to the clothes shits were a foreign thing to her. He saved them allfor me. I caught his smile as I cleaned him up with the wipes but decided to go ahead and give him another bath.
