“Listen, you know when I first met him that I thought both of y’all were full of shit. When I started seeing how you looked at him, the shit he told me about you, like how he put you on a nigga and got you to rob him, I realized either y’all were telling the truth or you were just dumb as fuck. It took me a while to see how he really has you by the balls. No car. No friends. No job. I was just going to mind my business, but the nigga has me fucked up telling me that since you’re pregnant, he wants me to start fucking niggas and robbing them. Little does he know, this is my last time in this house, and if you were smart, you’d leave too.”
“And go where?” Khrome’s heart thudded in her chest. She wanted to run out of the door so damn bad, but where would she run to? If it was just her, $8,000 would suffice, but she had a baby coming in four and a half months. She couldn’t work without daycare. Daycare was expensive. Shit was a mess.
“I have no clue, but you better take this shit and figure it out.”
Keyonna’s hand lifted, and she extended an envelope toward Khrome. All the saliva in Khrome’s mouth dried up, and her palms began to sweat. Was she for real? “Look, I can’t make you do shit, but I’m about to be out before Cam gets back. If you want a ride, I suggest you hurry.”
Khrome had no clue whether or not she could trust Keyonna, but she almost didn’t care. She practically snatched the envelope from the woman’s hands and rushed into the bedroom to throw some clothes on. She didn’t even have much to pack because she didn’t give a damn about clothes or shoes. She wanted to be out of the house. She did throw a few things in a bag, however. The entire time Khrome moved around the room, it felt like her heart was going to beat out of her chest. She paused long enough to sift through the bills in the envelope, and there had to be a little more than three thousand dollars inside. Tears filled her eyes as she grabbed the duffel bag and left the bedroom. Keyonna was dressed and waiting in the living room with keys in hand.
For all she knew, Khrome was walking into a trap, but she almost didn’t care. She moved so swiftly getting to Keyonna’s car that she almost twisted her ankle. In the car, it was as if Keyonna read her mind.
“I know you don’t have a reason to trust me, but I don’t have a reason to lie. I’ll drop you off downtown. There’s buses, rideshares, hotels. You should be able to find your way from there. I don’t need to know exactly where you’re going. That way, I couldn’t tell Cam where you were if I wanted to.”
Khrome looked over at Keyonna and shook her head. It was like she was having an out-of-body experience. Someone that she used to loathe was actually being her saving grace. “Where did you get the money from?” Khrome doubted the money that Keyonna gave her belonged to her.
Even while Keyonna was looking straight ahead, from her side profile, Khrome saw the mischievous grin on her face. “I took it from Cam. He was gambling last night, and he won about seven racks. I took six and left him with one.”
Keyonna and Cam had been together for almost a year. He knew where she lived, and they both knew that he didn’t have a problem putting his hands on women. “You’re not worried he’s going to come looking for you?”
Keyonna kissed her teeth before chuckling. “And ain’t. How many times have you heard me and Cam arguing? Now, how many of those times has he put his hands on me? Three. Three times and after the third one, my brother knocked that nigga into the land of slumber. He was out cold, snoring. Cam doesn’t want those problems with my brother, and my brother lives with me, so he’s not coming to my house on no rah-rah shit. And I keep a lil’ .22 in my purse along with bear mace, so if he’s smart, he won’t run up on me in public. Cam better chalk this shit up as an L and keep it pushing.”
Keyonna was feisty, and Khrome doubted the woman was lying. Help from her was the last thing Khrome woke up expecting that morning, but she was grateful. Most decent hotels wanted a credit or debit card on file, but she didn’t have one. Chewing anxiously on the inside of her cheek, Khrome thought about her next move. Maybe she could get a prepaid card, load money on it, and use that to check into a hotel. Thanks to what Keyonna gave her, she had around $11,000. She could pay for a hotel for a week and figure out her next move.
When Keyonna pulled up in front of a CVS store, Khrome wanted to erupt into tears. “Thank you so much. I swear, I mean it. Thank you.”
“Just take care of that baby and stay away from fuck niggas.”
Khrome gave a curt nod and wasted no time getting out of the car. She still couldn’t be certain that this wasn’t a set up, but she was getting her second wind. The moment Keyonna pulled off, Khrome looked over her shoulder and began walking. She walked two blocks over to a Walgreens and went inside to buy a prepaid debit card. Once she bought it, she was going to catch a bus to the opposite side of town and get a hotel room. Khrome was so relieved, she was dizzy with excitement. It seemed that God had finally remembered her.
Blossom sat at her desk going over the notes she took from the most recent game. She always studied her notes multiple times before, during, and even after strategizing plays. The Majors were 3-1, and Blossom wanted them to win their next game. After practice, she had meetings with two of the players set up, and she had two meetings every day until she met with the entire team. Blossom wasn’t just focused on how well her team played. Blossom was big on making sure the women were okay, mentally, that she was doing everything in her power to help them, and that the sportsmanship and overall dynamic of the team was healthy. Blossom had been the Majors’ coach for three years and during that time, she only had three players who were always getting into it with other players.
There was a time two women almost came to blows in the locker room, and Blossom made it clear that she wasn’t having it. The problematic player had since been traded, andall was well. Of course, she cared about winning, but she cared about her players more. Blossom’s love for basketball started in middle school. Every year, she played on her school’s team, and she played in college. When Blossom was twelve, and the WNBA started, she was ecstatic. No one could tell her that she wasn’t going to play in the WNBA. And while she was in college, Blossom got an offer. Unfortunately, during a physical it was determined that she was pregnant. An ultrasound at the abortion clinic made her aware that she was four months pregnant, and it was too late for her to terminate the pregnancy.
Blossom cried for days. Her boyfriend of two years had just graduated from college with a degree in political science, and he promised to take care of her and the baby, but Blossom wanted to play ball. Cedric proposed to her right before he got a job as a policy analyst, and he made pretty good money analyzing policies for the federal government, but Blossom wasn’t happy. They married at the Justice of Peace three days before she gave birth. The day her child turned six weeks old, she went back to working out and playing ball. When Cree was a year old, she reached out to the coach that had given her the previous offer, and it still stood. Cedric was pissed that she was willing to be away from her child, so she could travel and play in the WNBA. As a man and a provider, he felt slighted like his $130,000 a year salary wasn’t enough.
No matter how much she explained that it wasn’t about the money, he didn’t get it. Especially since her starting salary was less than $100,000 a year. Cedric didn’t understand why she wanted to be away from her child when she wasn’t making as much as the male players earned. Blossom blocked out the noise and continued to do what she loved and by her third year in the WNBA, she was at $200,000 a year. Seventy thousand more than he earned, and that didn’t include endorsements and bonuses she received.
When Creed was five, Blossom got pregnant with her second son, Chosen. Despite Cedric’s disapproval, she went back to playing when Chosen was five months old. After two more years, she finally gave in and retired. Cedric was finally happy, but Blossom learned that she was resentful. There was never-ending tension in the house, sex wasn’t the same, and conversations felt forced. After a year of not playing ball and living in dysfunction, Blossom couldn’t take it anymore. She was the most miserable she’d ever been in her life, and she told Cedric that she wanted a divorce.
The kids were eight and three. Blossom didn’t work, but she had money. Even when she was in the WNBA, Cedric’s pride wouldn’t allow him to let her pay any bills, so she saved most of her money. Deep down, Cedric wasn’t happy either, but he felt slighted that she wanted a divorce. He threatened to ask for alimony, full custody of the boys, anything to stress her out and add to her misery. For a year leading up to the divorce, she let him have the house, her and the boys moved out, she lost weight, and cried almost every day. It was tough, but the judge finally signed off on the divorce, and Cedric didn’t get a thing from her. To make matters better, she was asked to be a co-host on a podcast geared toward women athletes.
The podcast became very popular, and soon, she was making five figures a month just from that. For two years, she did the podcast, and then she saw a job opening for a coach. Nervousness almost made her decide against applying, but she did, and she got the job. Blossom had been coaching for six years. Her sons were eighteen and thirteen. She was still single and happier than ever. The original podcast ended, but she started her own, and was paid well for that. She also wrote a book about her experience in the WNBA as a wife and mother. Blossom had two endorsements and her own athletic wear line.Add up the revenue from all of her hustles, and Blossom was making well over $500,000 a year.
Cedric did well for himself. She wasn’t sure how much he made annually, but it wasn’t more than $150,000. He lived in a nice, modest three-bedroom home, and he drove a Lexus. She didn’t put him on child support and let him do for the kids without putting money in her hands. Blossom wished him well and didn’t bother him, but the feelings weren’t mutual. Cedric was very bothered. Blossom flourished without him, and he hated it. She refused to shrink herself and just let him be the man and take care of everything. The five-bedroom home that she lived in with the $4,000 a month mortgage was above his paygrade. So were the BMW and the Range Rover she drove.
Blossom was comfortably living a great life all on her own, and he despised it. Cedric hoped it ruffled her feathers when he began dating a woman ten years younger than him, but she couldn’t have cared less. A younger woman was what Cedric needed; someone that didn’t quite have it all together and wanted to be kept. A woman who would go along with whatever he said and wouldn’t challenge him. If that stroked his ego and made him feel like a man, she loved that for him.
Blossom had dated over the years, but she always ran into the same issues. Either the man was financially comfortable and an asshole that thought he was the prize, men like her ex that were threatened by a woman with her own, or men that didn’t have as much as her, and she refused to subject herself to the drama that would bring. There was one particular guy that she had fun with. He was thirty-six, one child, no baby mama drama, and a good job. But he was a liar and a man whore. Blossom hated liars but even more than that, she hated people that lied to her when they didn’t have to. Ty liked to play mind games and tell her bullshit like she was the only woman he was sleeping with; lies that didn’t even sound believable. Lies that she didn’t ask for.
Blossom pushed all of that to the back of her mind and called him when she had an itch that needed to be scratched. It was nothing more and never would be. In her opinion, marriage was like trouble—easy to get into and hard to get out of. If she never got married again, that would be okay with her.
Blossom’s best friend, Fancy, had impeccable timing because the moment she was done with her last meeting, her phone vibrated, and Fancy’s name appeared on the screen.
“What’s up, Chick?” Blossom asked as she cradled her phone between her ear and shoulder while shutting down her computer for the day.
“You left the office yet?”
“I’m shutting down the computer as we speak.”
