“Home,” I yelled back at his ass.
I couldn’t read his lips, but he said something to everyone that was at the table, and then he stood up. Before he walked away, he kissed Dionne on her forehead, and then he made his way over to me. I had to clear my damn throat, as I stood here, trying my hardest to look normal, as he walked his fine ass over to me.
Not to glorify having multiple kids by multiple different men, but if we were going to make this a competition, there wasn’t a bitch alive that had a better line up of baby daddies than me. Every single last one of my daughters dads were fine. Each of them gave me beautiful children, too.
Dionte though. This man was drop dead gorgeous, and prison had honestly done his body great. I’m not sure why, but it also took so many years off him. He didn’t look like a man that was fifty- five years old. The same gorgeous chocolate skin Dionne had, the one I’d praised since she was a baby, was mirrored on him. The fine hair that my daughter had, that had come from her dad.
It was a little cool out, so he was dressed in a black turtleneck, black slacks, with black Prada dress shoes. It was funny because you could just tell that Dionne had picked out his outfit. That clean look had our daughter written all over it. He looked good. Whatever his plans were for the night, which I’m sure was to find a bitch to lay up with, I knew that he was going to make her night.
“Why the fuck would you just try to leave without saying nothing to nobody?” he asked, walking over, and the first thing he did was take the empty plate out of my hands. He stood over me, all muscle. Just solid, and heavy.
“I was about to throw the plate away, and then make my rounds,” I let him know. He had a hard look in his eyes, as he glared down at me. Almost like he was looking for something.
I haven’t been around Dionte all day… like up in his personal space because for one, I didn’t have a reason to, and also, I wanted to allow my daughter, and his family to soak up his first moments of being free with him. Even with me not being all in his face, I would still have moments where I would find myself glancing over at him, taking him in, and paying attention to the small things.
Prison changed him. Dionte wasn’t on any kind of papers. When they approved his parole, it was with him maxing out his sentence, meaning he served his time, so they didn’t put him on parole, probation, ankle monitor, none of those things. He was legitimately a free man. With that, he could smoke a blunt or twoif he wanted, but when it was offered to him, he turned it down. He let it be known that he didn’t do drugs, and he turned down a drink too, saying that didn’t drink, either. Even though he went to prison as a minor, his ass was already smoking, and drinking, so it was shocking to see that he was no longer taking part in either of those things.
The nigga didn’t eat pork, either. Granted, he would say that while he was incarcerated, but we all knew that once his brothers got on the grill, that he would get a plate of ribs, but he didn’t. That man only wanted clean eating. You could just sense that so much about him changed. Much calmer, and mature. He still had that hardcore, dominate trait about him, as you can see he just made his way over here, trying to check me about not saying goodbye before I left.
“I’ll walk you to your car. Come on,” he said, stepping back, so that he could lead the way.
I walked over to the patio door, and he reached over me, so that he could pull it open. It was a lot going on inside the house. Tommie fit right in because she was chilling at the dining room table with Danita, Paula, who was Danita’s daughter, and a bunch of other women were in the house. They were all talking, and laughing amongst each other, but once I walked in with Dionte, they all stopped.
All eyes were on us, and I’m sure that everybody was thinking the same thing. They probably thought that we were about to skip off, and go fuck, but that wasn’t the case here. It wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m about to go. You coming?” I asked Tommie, knowing that she’d come with me, but she was so comfortable, looking like she wasn’t ready to go anytime soon. Mind you, this wasn’t her family to be kicked back, not ready to leave.
“Leave? Ma, it’s still early. Go ahead. I’ll have Dionne, and Tank drop me back off,” she responded, telling me what I figured she would say.
I just shook my head at her, and then walked over, so that I could hug her, and kiss her on her cheek. I knew that a lot of the women in Dionte’s family didn’t too much fuck with me, so when I went around, giving out hugs, I only gave them to the ones that I knew weren’t beefing with me. I didn’t too much care for his sister Paula, so I made sure that I didn’t hug that bitch. Danita, she was wishy washy with me, so I didn’t hug her either.
“Antoinette, girl leave that shit in the past!” Danita snapped at me, reaching her arms out, so that she could give me a hug.
You could hear it in the way her words slurred that she was tipsy. I just laughed off what she said, hugged her, and as I was doing that, Dionne was walking in the house.
She came over to me, and I hugged her.
“Text me when you get home. I’m about to go,” I said, and she nodded. There was a goofy smile on her face, as she looked from me to her dad.
“Ya’ll leaving together?” she wanted to know, asking the million-dollar question that I’m sure everyone in here wanted to know.
“No. He’s about to walk me to the car. That’s all,” I said, and like no one believed me, everyone erupted in laughter.
I turned on my heels, and I headed in the direction of the front door. Dionte reached over me, so that he could unlock it, turn the knob, and he pushed it open for me. I stepped out, and there were so many cars that were parked in the driveway, so we had to walk outside of the gate, where my car was parked in the road. I knew him, and I needed to talk, so once we made it to my car, I didn’t get in right away. In fact, I stood in front of it, putting my butt against it.
Dionte chose to stand in front of me. He kept his arms crossed, and he had a faraway look in his eyes. I didn’t expect this to be the version of him that came home. I expected him to be standing up on tables, with a bottle in his hand, getting sloppy drunk. He used to be a wild boy before prison. Hell, even his first years of prison, he was wild. It made me wonder the kind of things he might have witnessed or endured in prison that would have him this quiet.
“Why you so quiet? For years, you used to tell me that when you got out, the first thing on your agenda would be to slap the shit out of me. What’s wrong?” I asked him, and my question made him laugh. His laugh had his features showing, looking like Dionne.
“This shit don’t feel real. Feel like I’m floating. Like I’m fuckin dreaming, you know? Let me slap the shit out of you to prove that I’m awake for real,” he joked, reminding me that the old Dionte was still there. He was just tucking it behind him.
“What’s the plan though? What’s your goals? I know you have some,” I wanted to know, taking my purse off my shoulder, so that I could sit it on the car.
I crossed my arms, keeping my eyes on him, curious to hear what he was going to share with me.
“At the top of the list is Dionne. That girl comes first in any goal that I have set out because she’s the one that I feel like I owe the most. I feel like it was her who I hurt the most. Before all this shit went on in my life, you know I was in the streets. Moving weight, breaking into people’s houses, and cars, just doing whatever I could to make a few dollars. I ain’t on that shit no more. I’ll look lame as fuck coming home at my age being on that little boy shit. I got a few things lined up that I want to look into, as far as making money. I’m trying to get my own little business going, painting houses and shit. Possibilities are endless for me.I got a second chance at life, and I’m excited about it,” he shared, and I smiled as I listened to him.
You could hear the excitement all in his voice.
