Her comment had Zayne cracking up, while I just shook my head at the bullshit she was talking.
“Yeah aight,” was all that I said in response to that.
Toni disappeared out of the room, and she cut over to the bathroom, so that she could grab everything that she needed to do Zayne’s hair. She came back a couple of seconds later, and she was holding onto everything. Because the cameras were rolling, she had her pixie cut out, and it was still styled from earlier. Any other time, she would have been walking around this bitch with a scarf on her head, in one of my favorite elements to see her in. We had the kids in the house, plus the cameras were rolling, so she had clothes on, and her ass wasn’t hanging out, like how she would do it, when it was just us two in the house. She had on one of my white tee’s, and a pair of gray joggers. She was comfortable, and as laid back as she was, she was still the prettiest to me.
“Lay her down in the bed, Steel. You’re the reason she’s spoiled like that and thinks that everybody is supposed to hold her all the time. We just took her to the doctor the other day, and the doctor specifically told you to stop holding her all the time,”Toni fussed at me, while pointing at the ottoman chair that she brought over to the side of the bed for Zayne to sit.
They were right next to me. She had all the hair products on the nightstand, so it would be easy for her to grab what she needed while she styled his hair.
“I seriously think you say that shit because you be jealous. What? You mad because I’m not holding you? Chill out. It’ll be your turn tonight,” I said to her, and I blew her a kiss.
Acting as if she didn’t even hear me, she started brushing through Zayne’s hair. Zayne liked to rock his single plaits, and usually, that would take Toni about an hour and change to knock it out. I was going to sit here and keep her entertained the entire time.
Probably ten minutes into her doing his hair, Brooklyn walked in the room. Our door was already opened, so she was able to walk right in. She came in with her phone in her hands, and I could already see from here, that she had some kind of flyer pulled up on the screen, and was getting ready to ask Toni if she could go somewhere.
Something good, or something bad was going to come out of her asking. Toni was either going to say yes, or she was going to say hell no. There was never any in between. Brooklyn was seventeen, and it was that time in her life when a lot of her friends were starting to turn eighteen, so with that, Brooklyn had been getting invited to her friends 18thbirthday parties just about every weekend. Toni would allow her to go, but it all determined who the friend was. Toni was tough when it came to that shit, but I never faulted her for it. I was a seventeen-year-old before, and I liked to be up under the girls my age that were fast for their age, so I understood that Toni was just trying to keep Brooklyn away from that shit.
“What you doing?” Brooklyn asked her aunt, going over to her, and standing right on the side of her. I shook my headbecause Brook was starting the shit off wrong already. Asking Toni what she was doing, when she could clearly see that she was doing Zayne’s hair was the quickest way to annoy her, and have her saying no to whatever she was asking.
“Brook, you can literally see what I’m doing. It’s right in your face what I’m doing. What’s up?” Toni asked, giving her the kind of answer that I knew she would.
Brooklyn laughed, and then she lifted her phone, so that she could show her aunt the flyer.
“Okay well Audrey just sent out the invitations for her 18thbirthday party. It’s in two weeks. Can I go?” she asked, and while Toni had the end of the comb in her mouth, holding it there until she had to part Zayne’s hair again, she continued to plait down the braid. She squinted with her eyes, so that she could look at the flyer.
Her keys kept cutting back and forth between the flyer, and Brooklyn. I already knew what the answer was going to be. Let’s just say that it wasn’t looking too good for Brooklyn.
“Can you cut the cameras please?” Toni asked the field producer, and another one of his crew members that was in the room with him.
We had that shit put in our contact. Any time that we wanted to have a conversation that we didn’t want to get put out into the public, we had the right to make them stop filming, so they honored that. They quickly stopped filming, and they let Toni and I know that they would go downstairs and wait for us. It wasn’t until they were out of the room that Toni answered Brooklyn’s question.
“Did you see this flyer? Girl, this looks like some shit that I would get invited to. Ya’ll are minors. Why does the flyer have stripper poles, bottles, and hookah on it? Why would you even ask me if you could go to that? You know the answer is no. And Audrey? Isn’t this the girl that just got suspended from schoollast month because she was caught having ‘you know what’ in the bathroom with her boyfriend? Girl, hell no,” Toni snapped, using the comb to make another part in Zayne’s hair.
Zayne was so locked in with his game, that he probably wasn’t paying the conversation any attention. Even with that, Toni still made sure to say ‘you know what’ when she was referring to sex.
“Auntie, she not going to have any of that stuff there. The theme is just Miami club, that’s why its stripper poles, hookahs, and bottles. None of that stuff is going to be there. Her mama and aunties are going to be there to chaperone?—”
“You say that like her mama, and aunties are any better. Her mama condones half the stuff that Audrey does. Don’t even try to make this a situation where I’m being too strict. I’ve let you go to about 5 or 6 parties so far. This is only the second one that I’m turning down. I turned down the first one because they were talking about going out of town for a sleepover, and you barely knew that girl to be staying the night with her. I’m turning down this one because that shit is too mature, and I don’t like the message, or the birthday girl. No!” I already knew Toni’s answer was final, but Brooklyn still turned her head, so that she could look at me.
“Steel. Come on. Can you help me? Talk to herrrrr,” she whined.
I laughed, hating when Brooklyn would put a nigga in the hot seat. I wasn’t the kind of partner that overruled my lady, either. I didn’t back door Toni when it came to the kids. Now, there were times when I would try to sway Toni to see my perspective, or if it was one of those situations where I felt like she was being too tough, I’d play the devil’s advocate, and do what I needed to do to calm her down, but I wasn’t the type to say yes to some shit if Toni already said no. It didn’t matter if it was Brooklyn, or Zayne. That’s just the way I moved.
“Your auntie right, Brook. You probably not trying to hear that shit, but she’s right. You only seventeen. I can see the flyer on that phone from over here, and that shit looks like an invite for adults. You don’t need to be around an environment that’s promoting that kind of shit. Why her flyer gotta have hookah, stripper poles, and bottles on it? Trust me, you not going to be the only kid that’s gotta sit this party out. Other parents going to tell their kids that they can’t go either,” I let her know, and she groaned, and she went over to the wall that was in the room, threw her body against it, falling to the floor like it was the worst thing in the world that she wouldn’t be able to go to the party.
Toni was used to Brooklyn’s shit by now, so she ignored her, as she finished with Zayne’s hair.
“When Zayne turns eighteen, I want to see you two keep this same energy. When he gets invited to all kinds of parties, with flyers like the one that I just showed you, I would love to see ya’ll tell him no the same way that ya’ll told me,” Brooklyn whined.
“My energy is going to be the same, love. If Zaylani asks, I’ll tell her ass the same thing. I hate it when you try to pull that card and think that Zayne will get treated any differently because he’s a boy, when you know that’s not true. Any parent or guardian with a damn brain would not allow their minor child to go to a party that’s promoting that kind of shit. Where is the confusion in that, Brooklyn?” Toni stopped doing Zayne’s hair for a second, so that she could fully focus her attention on Brooklyn.
Brooklyn wasn’t trying to hear shit that her auntie was saying though. Her ass was laid out on the floor, damn near about to crash out, acting as if Toni told her that she couldn’t go to Beyoncé’s party or some shit.
“Why you worried about going to that weak ass party anyways? Our wedding coming up. That’s about to be the littest party of the century,” I said, just trying to make light of thesituation, and get Brooklyn to laugh. That shit didn’t help at all though.
“Brooklyn, get up off that floor. One day when you’re an adult and your married with kids, and you have your teenaged daughter coming to you, asking you about going to the kind of party that you’re asking me to go to, you’ll get it then. When Temperance calls you in the morning, you make sure you tell her about the invitation and let me know what she tells you. She’s going to tell your ass no too!” Toni snapped at her.
Brooklyn continued to lay on the floor for about another minute or two, and then she eventually got up, and she left out of the room. If she had the balls, I just knew that her ass would have slammed the door. She knew that her auntie would tackle her for doing it, so she didn’t.
