“Say swear?”
I nodded as if he could see me. “Yeah… We done bro. I got my own spot and everything.”
I then went on to tell him about what had been going on. Explaining it to people still made me uncomfortable. Reality was a muthafucka, wasn’t it?
“Say it’s been trouble in paradise for a minute huh? I can’t believe you got another kid though nigga. When am I going to meet my niece?”
“I don’t know fool. I’m chillin on coming through for a minute. I don’t even want to be in the same room with that sneaky bitch. Only reason I fucked is because I was drunk as hell and she sucked my dick. If I see that bitch I might fuck around and smack her.”
“You need to,” Tank said. “She on the book posting little subliminal shit. Lil’ shit about fuckin’ somebody’s husband. High key, I wish you would’ve kept curving her ass. She be walking around with a certain pep in her step now. She feel like she did something.”
I sucked my teeth. “Her ass ain’t do shit.” I shook my head. “I fucked up.”
“Man… you human. And you was faded as hell. I’m talkin shit but if I was you I probably would’vebeenfucked, the way she been throwing pussy at you.” I didn’t say anything and he continued. “You alright though? You and NeNe been together for a long ass time.”
I pulled up in front of moms’ crib and parked. Running my hand down my head, I let out a sigh. “I’m alright, dawg.”
“You can keep it a buck with me nigga. I know yo’ chest hurting.”
Chest was hurting like a muthafucka. Especially after catching her the way, I caught her that one time with that one nigga. There were still nights that I closed my eyes and saw the way she was throwing her ass back on him. Some nights I stared at the ceiling replaying the night over and over in my mind, wishing shit would have gone another way. In a couple scenarios I blew dawg away. Put the burner to his head and pulled the trigger then did the same to NeNe. I know. Fucked up, right? Realistically I would have never turned the gun on Mahogany. Loved her too much. Would’ve turned the gun on myself before I turned it on her.
“Nah, I’m smooth,” I lied, uninterested in going into detail about how I really felt. “Let me run in the crib and grab my shorty. I’ma put some shit together at the crib one of these days, you niggas can fall through.”
“Aight, bet. Say less.”
With that, we got off and I headed inside to grab Diary.
When I walked into the crib, I found her sitting on the living room floor with her cousins, laughing, playing with dolls. She looked up at me, jumped up and ran over to wrap her arms around my legs. I picked her up and kissed her on the cheek. Her greeting reminded me of the way Sparkle used to be when I would come home from work. I missed the hell out of that. But getting the same love from Diary did warm my heart.
“What’s that?” I asked, referring to the doll she had.
“Tee-Tee gave it to me.”
Tee-Tee was Amber. I smiled a little, loving how comfortable she was now.
“Oh, for real?” I asked. “What you do today?”
She went on to tell me about the fun she had. Her and her cousins played outside, moms got them ice cream, and she went to Walmart with Tee-Tee. When moms said she would fit in just right, she was telling the truth.
“That sounds like a good day, Diary,” I said.
“It was.”
“Tomorrow we’re going to see Nana, okay?” I told her, referring to Ms. Rochelle.
Her face lit up and she smiled. “Yaaaay!”
Ms. Rochelle was doing all right. As all right as possible with health problems. I made it a priority to take her to see her at least once a week. Ms. Rochelle was fine with that. Every time we visited, she made it a point to tell me she was glad I was Diary’s pops. She was proud of me and happy I’d stepped up when it counted the most.
“Y’all about to get out of here?” Ma asked, coming from the kitchen.
I nodded. “Yeah, we about to head out. I appreciate you keeping her.”
“You don’t have to keep telling me that, boy. How many times I’ma tell you, I got you?”
I wrapped one arm around her and kissed her on the top of her head. I didn’t care that I’d told her I appreciated her countless times. I always would. My ma came through in a major way. She said she had my back and she truly did.
“Gone and grab your bag, Diary, we about to head out,” I told her after putting her down.
