This was my way of running from him. His words were going to have me telling him to come on, so we could fuck, and get it over with. That mouth of his has always been the death of me.
Chapter 12
Tavion ‘Tank’ Briggs
Sold Out Queen
It was a little after eight at night, and I was headed downstairs, with a full appetite, prepared to eat the dinner that Dionne was cooking for me. We were going with something simple tonight, which was teriyaki chicken, white rice, and vegetables. I hadn’t had anything to eat since this afternoon, so I was already prepared to ask for seconds.
I was in a good mood this evening. My girl was happy. This morning, her website officially went live, and she was now accepting orders. Dionne put out a little over 1,000 bed sets, and within the first hour, the site had already crashed because so many people were online, trying to put an order in. She was at the warehouse while that was going on, so she called me, freaking out, feeling like the site would continue to stay down, making it where people wouldn’t be able to support. I know that she put so much time, effort, and money into creating her brand, so I understood fully why she would be freaked out by it.
I had to let her know that the site crashing was a good thing. I showed her how to navigate on the back end and see the number of people that were trying to log on. This girl had thousands of people on her site at one time, trying to place an order. For weeks, her and her team have been doing their thingwith promo, posting all kinds of engaging content, hyping up the brand, and they had been going viral. The production team that she’d hired was legit because each video that they posted was getting a minimum of a million views.
I say all that to say that within the first hour of House of Henry launching, my girl sold out. To say that I was proud would be an understatement. I immediately got on it, doing my part, having plenty of roses sent to my house because I wanted her to come home to nothing but love. I tried to take her out tonight, her family wanted to take her out to celebrate as well, but she wanted to be in the house, so I gave my baby what she wanted.
I walked into the kitchen, and the island was filled with all the roses that I had sent to the house. Dionne was standing in front of the stove, holding the lid to the pot in her hand, as she looked inside the pot, where the teriyaki chicken was. When she heard me come into the kitchen, she looked over in my direction and smiled.
“It’s done. I’ll fix your plate in one second,” she let me know.
I walked up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist, and I buried my head into the crook of her neck. She smelled so good. Because she was in the kitchen, she had her long hair pulled up in a knot. She was casually dressed in a gray tank top, with black cotton material shorts, and house shoes.
“It’s no way you in the house cooking tonight. Why didn’t you let me take you out?” I wanted to know. She laughed at my question.
“I don’t know Tank. I think I’m getting older, and more mature. I rather just be in the house. Besides, these days, it seems like any time that we go out, some bullshit happens. I feel like I’m safer inside,” she let me know. I kissed her on her neck and then backed away.
“So, what you saying? You think it’s dangerous being with me?” I questioned, and she looked at me like I was crazy.
“Now your acting like me. Taking what I said out of context. I never said that it was dangerous being with you. If anything, we can celebrate this weekend. It’s Wednesday. If I go out tonight, I’m probably not going to wake up and go to work in the morning. We have a big day tomorrow. We gotta pack up all these orders. Ooooh, I’m so excited,” she beamed, and I smiled right along with her, happy about it.
I took a seat at the table, and the second I sat down, my mom started facetiming me. I propped the phone up on the flower vase that was sitting on the table, slid the bar across, so that I could answer the phone for her.
She was home, still in her work shirt, so she might have just gotten there not too long ago. She had a tiredness on her face, as she looked back at me.
“What’s up beautiful?” I asked her.
“Nothing much. I just got home not too long ago. Did you see the news?” she asked, and at the same time, Dionne was waving her hand in the air, trying to get my attention.
I looked over at her, and she was showing me the plate that she’d fixed for me, mouthing to me, asking me if it was enough, and I mouthed back, telling her to add more. The way my appetite was set up right now, I just might fuck around and eat the whole fuckin thing.
“Nah. What they saying on the news?” I inquired, focusing my attention back on my mom. She sighed, and then picked her hand up, so that she could scratch her head.
“The man that your dad hit, he died this afternoon,” she let me know.
Dionne heard what my mom said because right after she revealed it, my eyes shot over to Dionne, wanting to see how she was going to react to that shit. Her body froze up. She literally stopped moving. Anything that involved my dad, she would havethat same kind of reaction, which didn’t shock me because he was a trigger for her.
“Damn. It’s fucked up that that innocent man had to lose his life, but on the flip side, karma is a motha fucka, ain’t it? Now that bitch ass nigga gotta spend the rest of his life in prison. I’m not going to lie though, I still wanted to have the pleasure of killing him, you know?” I asked, as Dionne walked over to me, and she sat the plate right in front of me.
I moved the camera out of the way, so that my mama wouldn’t see me when I slapped her on her ass, motioned with my finger for her to come here, and I quickly tongued her down, and thanked her for the meal.
She walked away from me, so that she could go back into the kitchen, and fix her plate.
When she walked away, that’s when I moved the phone, putting the camera back on me.
“I should have asked you if you were around Dionne. I wouldn’t have said that if you were,” my mom let out.
Upon Dionne hearing that, she came over, so that she could take the phone from my hands.
“It’s okay. I’m okay. I watch the news every night, so I was going to see it more than likely tonight anyways. How are you doing?” Dionne asked my mom, coming to the arm of my chair, so that she could sit on it.
