We talked about nothing serious for a while. How the twins were getting ready to start school in Austin. What she had been doing. How she didn’t want me taking no more fights because watching this one was too hard for her. Catching up the way people did when they had let too much time pass between them. It was easy talking to Brielle. She knew me just like I knew her.
Then my phone buzzed on the table.
Unknown number.
I flipped it face down before Bri could see the screen.
“Everything good?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I picked up my water. “Just somebody I gotta call back.”
“You got a lady Xavier?” she squinted her eyes at me?
“I’m Xavier now? And nah. That’s a business call. But don’t act like you care Brielle. Be for real. I’m just a friend that you can’t admit you’re in love with because you know your family won’t approve. That’s some lame ass shit. You a grown ass woman now, but I’m sure Daddy money still control your life for you.” I said low enough for just the two of us to hear.
“Whoa. Wait? Where is that coming from? Nobody controls my life but me. You had a chance to prove that you were different. You had a chance to show my folks that you weren’t a troubled soul, but what did you do? You broke a dudes nose at prom where my father was a chaperone, and you got yourself expelled two weeks before graduation. All that hard work for nothing. You made things the way they were. But like you said, I’m grown now. And tonight only proved that you still haven’t changed.”
“I never would have proved myself to your father. Who the hell I look like? That nigga had his mind made up about me from the first day he met me, and that was strictly because I didn’t live in a fancy neighborhood or have the wealth that you all had. Now, you sitting here, judging me, not knowing why I took that fight. Listen since you’re so judgmental, I’m making sure that my brothers are straight in college without having to stress about a dime. I took that fight so that my mama wouldn’t have to work extra hard to make her bills meet. We never had the privilege of silver spoons on my side of the tracks. People really have to hustle to stay alive. Your mother and father was born into money, so of course you don’t know what it’s like to have to make sacrifices for the people that you love. And I don’t expect you to. It was good seeing you, but after the night that I’ve had I’m tired.” I announced, now I was ready to go.
“Don’t be like that because you know that’s not at all what I meant Street! I’m just saying..”
“You said what you meant. Enjoy your night, and try not to let another full year pass before hitting a nigga up. We are friends, right?” I said sarcastically as I got up from the booth and told Gutta it was time to bounce.
I took out three crisp one hundred dollar bills and placed them on the table to cover all our food. Brielle was looking disappointed but too stubborn to say anything else.
“You gone call me?” Gutta smirked at Simone, giving her googly eyes and shit.
“Yeah Gutta. Gone on now. Stop worrying me. I know you and Zya mess around and you just been lying all night. But I’m gonna just play slow and let you do you. But yeah, I’ll call.”’
“Simone, baby, I told you if you stop playing games, I’ll let you delete every contact in my phone. I ain’t got eyes for nobody else but you Baby Girl.” Gutta was now begging like Keith Sweat and it was too hard to watch so I walked off to the exit. I don’t know what he said to her, but after a few minutes, she leaned up and let him kiss her. The nigga walked in my direction smiling hard. In my 22 years, I’ve never seen Gutta act like this.
I left out the spot and looked down at my phone to read the text.
And all the text had was three words on it.
We found you.
I read it three times like the words was gonna change.
They didn’t.
After reading that text, my whole night shifted. I had forty thousand dollars on me, thirty of which belonged to Tavarus that I was planning to drop first thing tomorrow, and somewhere out there somebody was sending me messages from unknownnumbers letting me know they had eyes on me. The same unknown number that hit me the first time I was late paying my dues.
Whoever this was, they had been watching long enough to know where I was tonight and that meant they had been on me before the fight even started.
I looked up and scanned the street in both directions out of habit. Nothing looked off. Cars parked, people moving, the regular late night activity of a block that never fully went to sleep. But I knew better than to let normal looking fool me because the alley outside my building had looked normal too right up until three niggas came out of the dark and put a gun to my head.
Gutta came out the restaurant door behind me still grinning about whatever just happened with Simone and I turned around and caught his eye and he read my face in about half a second the way he always did.
The grin dropped.
“What happened that damn fast? I know you ain’t let Bri prissy ass piss you off.”
I turned my phone around and showed him the screen without saying a word. He read it and when he looked back up at me his whole energy had changed. Gutta wasn’t the cornerman no more. Wasn’t the cousin cracking jokes about Simone. He was something else entirely now and anybody who didn’t know him would’ve felt that shift and taken a step back.
“You think it’s them?” he asked low. I ran down the whole situation to him while we were training for this fight. He told me to stop fuckin with Tavarus. He said that he’d supply me ifneed be, but the shit that those niggas pulled was unacceptable. I had to stop Gutta from handling shit his own way the whole week leading up to this. I was a good, upstanding nigga, so I had always planned to pay my debts. I was still gonna do that.
I knew that after I did what I planned to do to his flunkies, I would be done having dealings with Tavarus anyway. I was finna give him his money and cut ties.
