Janna still lived in Cali, had her own clothing line, and married a man in the fashion industry. She was in her second year on some reality TV show, so we saw her face all over the blogs. Even after all of these years had passed, she didn’t include Amill in her life. For that, it was forever fuck that bitch. Amill wasn’t invited to her wedding and would only know what the interior of her home looked like because of a scene on that reality show.
She despised me for leaving her with a newborn and going to college, and I guess that trickled down to my daughter as well. I still carry a small sense of guilt for Janna’s strained relationship with Amill. If I weren’t so immature, maybe I would’ve stayed in Miami to help with the baby or fought harder to bring them with me. I wasn’t cheating while I was away or anything like that, but Janna let it be known that it was the fact that I had my freedom that ate at her every day.
I had done everything in my power to protect Amill from her mother’s bullshit and fill in the gaps she left behind, but no amount of wealth or strategy could fix the fact that her mother never showed up for her. I doubt her high school graduation would be any different. And now on top of carrying that truth, I had to face the reality that my daughter was stepping fully into adulthood and I couldn’t stop it.
“You in your head again?”
“A little,” I admitted, and a sly grin spread across my face.
“What?” Gina narrowed her eyes on me.
“I need you to do one thing for me.”
Gina emitted a dramatic groan and collapsed onto the couch like a rag doll. “Come on, Yaseer. You just said you didn’t need anything.”
“It’s something you can do real quick. After you left last night, there was a woman who came up to me,” I started, clicking around on my phone. “I just texted you her license plate number,plus the make and model of her car. I think she’s staying here, but I’m not sure. I just need you to find her. She was saying something about me talking shit about her son.”
“Was it from that video that’s going viral?”
“Shit, I forgot all about that shit,” I smiled. “That’ll make it even easier to find out who she is. She gotta be the mama of one of them sorry ass niggas that play baseball at USF.”
“You said this would be quick and this sounds like I’ll need to pull out my super sleuth skills. What’s quick about that?”
My phone chimed, and a text came through from Nick from the IT department. I took a moment to read over the summary of his findings while Gina stared at me. “Scratch that, you don’t even need to do the searching. Nick already found her name, social media accounts, and address. I just need you to see if she’s here, and if she is, I want access to her room.”
“What?” Gina yelped.
I leaned my head to the side. “I need that and you need to get back to Zay. Hit me when you get the job done.”
“Oh lord,” she huffed on her way out of the room.
I FaceTimed Amill, and she answered with a bright smile on her face.
“Dadddddddy!”She beamed, and I knew the begging would come next. Her ass wasn’t even a morning person. I still had to wake up at seven every morning to make sure she was out of the house and on her way to school. Although I knew she was about to try to hit me over the head for some cash, I smiled and played her game.
“Hey baby girl, you got plans today? Or you got time for me?”
“Ummmm, no. Grandpa Freddy is letting us take the yacht out today. I just wanted to check on you. How was the party last night?”
“It was good. I ain’t wanna spend the day with yo ass no way. Last night wore me out,”I lied.
If I had it my way, Amill wouldn’t even be over there with her mother’s people. I understood that Janna’s family was still Amill’s family, but I had a hard time trusting them motha fuckas. In my opinion, they’d never actually done what was best for Amill; they did what was best for Janna. What I mean by that is they never held Janna accountable for her deadbeat behavior. There were even times when Amill wasn’t invited to family events, and she’d only find out after seeing pictures on social media with her mother there. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. Amill wasn’t welcome at any family event Janna decided to grace with her presence.
“Daddy, please. You always want me up under you so you can know what I’m doing,”she waved me off.
“I do,”I nodded.
“Seeeeeee,”she giggled, her smile bright enough to light up the night sky.“Look what I got my hands on.”
“What?”I perked up, looking at the phone.
“Guess,”she sputtered with a devious grin on her face.
Admiring my daughter’s beautiful face that was a perfect blend of me and her mother, I knew only a pair of shoes would make her ass this giddy. I just didn’t know which pair she was referring to. Collecting sneakers was a passion we shared. Since she was in the womb, I made sure Amill had a matching pair of every sneaker I copped for myself. As Amill got older, she developed a love for shoes herself, and watching her light up over every new pair reminded me of when I was younger. Except, she didn’t have to wait in lines wrapped around the mall or play with them raffles online. Gina made sure we received every pair we requested. I wasn’t one of those parents who believed in making shit harder for my daughter just because of how I had to get it.
“It better be some raw shit with how dramatic you acting,”I answered.
“Isn’t she pretty,”Amill chirped, placing a pair of Olive AJ1 Travis Scotts in front of her face.
