The great thing about selling weight was that I worked smart not hard. Since my clientele was in a state that was a few hours away from me, I had to come up with a system that would keep me from having to constantly be up and down the highway. I never met any of my South Carolina clientele in North Carolina. I didn’t even want them knowing where I lived for real just in case the Feds ever swooped in.
I didn’t deal with small time hustlers, and I only worked two days out of the month. Meaning when they got product on the fifteenth, it had to be enough to last them until the next time I came through. I refused to deal with anyone that could only afford to buy a few ounces here and there and then want to reup three to four times a week. I played in the big leagues. My smallest transaction was a college kid that sold coke to his classmates. He only copped two bricks from me each time I went to South Carolina. In extreme circumstances like for instance someone got robbed, and they couldn’t wait to reup, I’d serve them after charging an inconvenience fee. So I only worked twodays a month and made no less than $500,000 a month. That meant I had damn near an entire month to myself and I was still very financially stable.
When I wasn’t working, I was either boxing, working out, or spending time with my ten-year-old son, Ace. I was a very hands on father, and Ace spent three to four days a week with me. Sometimes, like during Spring break, he’d stay for a week. I picked him up from school often and made sure to be very present in his life. Even with all that, I still found myself bored some days and that was another reason why I wanted to start a business. To have something to do.
When I arrived at home, I went straight to my bedroom to take a shower. I was renting, but I loved my five bedroom home. As the hot water from the shower pelted onto my skin, I thought about the offer that Devin had made me. I couldn’t beat that shit. Only working four days out of a month and making $1,000,000?! The thought alone was exciting and intimidating. I already worked with enough dope to get me put up under the jail if I got caught, and Devin was telling me to double that. But no risk meant no reward so fuck it. It was what it was. I wasn’t turning down that money. No way.
The next day, Devin hit me and asked if I would help move Apricot’s things from her house. He assured me that he’d hired professional movers, but he wanted someone there to watch things and make sure they were on the up and up. He also assured me that they’d been compensated well for their services, so I really didn’t have to do much. Being that I didn’t have any real plans, and he was paying me to do the task, I agreed. I didn’t knock Apricot for where she lived. Actually, I thought itwas pretty dope that she didn’t feel like she was too good to live among regular working-class people. It also wasn’t a secret that Devin found out Lonzo violated his daughter, and he was no longer among the living.
I knew what getting on Devin’s bad side could mean. But I wasn’t the type to run my mouth, get involved with things that didn’t concern me, or burn bridges, so I had absolutely no worries. When Apricot came to the door and saw it was me that rang her bell, her brows hiked.
“Hey. What brings you by?” she looked genuinely confused.
Somehow, it wasn’t shocking to me that Devin hadn’t told her that I was stopping by. Behind me, a loud engine made me aware that the movers had more than likely arrived, but I still looked over my shoulder to be sure. “Your dad asked me to come by and kind of oversee things. I’m sure you want this over with as quickly as possible, so I’ll go ahead and start bringing out boxes and small items. They can get the big stuff.” I jerked my head in the direction of the truck.
“Oh,” Apricot opened the screen door, so I could enter the house. “You don’t strike me as the type that does manual labor. Or the kind that takes orders from my father.”
I chuckled a bit because I was a respectful person. I rarely said anything that I didn’t mean or that I would later apologize for, so I tried to always think before I spoke.
“I’m not sure what type I strike you as, but I don’t have an issue with doing manual labor. And I don’t take orders from anyone, Love. Your father offers me paying jobs, and I either accept them or I don’t.”
Apricot held her palms up in surrender. “No offense. Calm down gangsta. I guess I’m just used to grown ass men hanging from my father’s nut sack. It’s actually quite pathetic,” she rolled her eyes. “There are some small boxes over there,” she pointed them out.
Despite the fact that I didn’t have anything major planned for the day, two hours was all I was willing to give. I got started on the small boxes while three professional movers followed Apricot into her bedroom. I felt funny being back in her house after I’d broken in the night before. But whatever she had going on with her father was on them. I just did what I was paid to do.
Times before when I was in Apricot’s presence, I never let my gaze linger on her for too long, but as I watched her walk around her home donned in black sweats and a black cropped shirt, I had to admit she was pretty as hell. Her thick, curly, bright ass hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun. Not an ounce of makeup was on her face, but she was bad. Apricot was bad as hell. There were always whispers about her because she stayed out of the way. Even though she had a child, no local street niggas ever spoke about having dealt with her. I’d never known her to be in a relationship. She damn sure wasn’t getting passed around Diamond Cove unless she only fucked with straight square ass niggas.
Apricot never used her father’s name to try and flex or get clout.
“You want something to drink?” her voice broke me from my thoughts after my fifth trip back inside the house.
“Nah, I’m good for the moment. I killed a bottle of water before I came in here.”
Apricot eyed me as she leaned against the wall. “You think I’m weird for not wanting to take my father’s blood money? For living in the hood when I could be living out in the hills somewhere?”
“You don’t strike me as the type to give a damn about a stranger’s opinion of you.”
A slight smirk eased across her face as she pushed up off the wall. “Touché Mr. Uno. Touché.”
Apricot was a grown ass woman, so if I really wanted to take it there with her, knowing who her father was wouldn’t stop me. I couldn’t stand a cocky ass woman that walked around like she was God’s gift to men, and that she should be tricked on from the moment she engaged in conversation. I absolutely respected a woman knowing her worth, but the new breed of gold diggers was something real different, and I wasn’t going. Apricot seemed to be the exact opposite of everything I loathed in a woman, but something was deterring me from trying her. She couldn’t have a man because if she did, he should have been there helping.
Maybe it was because subconsciously, I knew I had a lot of things in common with the man that she seemed to distance herself from every chance she got. Being financially stable for me was more important than my mother’s approval. I loved her, and I knew she loved me too and simply wanted the best for me, but I was an adult. I was more than capable of making my own choices even if they were choices that she didn’t agree with.
My son wasn’t old enough to piece together what I did for a living and by the time he was a teenager, I planned to be far removed from the game. If there was a chance, however, that he found out how I made my money, if he didn’t like it, I’d feel bad. I didn’t want my son to know a life of struggle, and I was willing to make that happen by any means necessary. If he looked at me with the same disapproval as my mother, I wasn’t sure how I’d handle it.
One thing was certain though. I’d never apologize for the money that I’d made or the life that I’d created for myself. I was beyond proud of where I lived, what I drove, the free schedule that allowed me to spend so much time with Ace, and the fact that I never had to tell him no when he wanted something. In my opinion, that was worth whatever I had to endure to be sitting on the kind of money that I was sitting on. I had a life insurancepolicy for $1,000,000. In the event that I died, my son would be rich.
I also had investments that I could get Ace’s mom to cash in on his behalf if I ever got arrested. There was no room in my life for any kind of regret because of the choices that I’d made. I had no way of knowing the entire story with Apricot and her father, but I was certain that if she didn’t approve of the way he got his money, then she damn sure wouldn’t approve of the way I got mine.
CHAPTER 3
APRICOT
I placeda piece of salmon in my mouth as I contemplated my father’s words. I knew staying with him would be the reason that I had to have a lot of uncomfortable conversations. I didn’t want to have to stay with my father longer than I had to, but I wasn’t quite ready to buy. There was no need for me to poke my chest out and be Ms. Independent that bought herself a house but when expenses started kicking my ass or the house needed repairs, I’d have to go to the very person that I was so against taking money from.
He’d asked me why I wouldn’t let him buy me a house, and I was stuck on the answer. My father sighed and sat back in his seat.
“I know you don’t approve of things that I do, but Apricot, I assure you, I get a lot of money the legal way. My businesses are not a front. They are actual businesses that pay my employees very nice salaries, and it also brings in a lot of revenue for me. I’m not the big bad wolf that runs around creating chaos all day. Even if you don’t want me to buy you a house at least take a position in one of my companies. You have a degree. You could be making $200,000 a year easy.”
