“My parents want to meet you too. I called them earlier, telling them that I was going to meet your family, and my mama got jealous. I did the hard part, so you going to have to do the hard part too,” I said to her.
“You think your parents going to like me?” she asked.
“My parents like whatever I like. Why you feel like they wouldn’t like you though? Why is that even a thing?” I wanted to know.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m not the kind of girl that most men would bring home. When a man brings a woman over to meet his parents, I’m sure their expecting someone that’s highly educated, probably has a good career, and things like that. My education stopped after I graduated from high school. If they look me up, they’ll see that I have a record. I’m moving weight with you. Killing niggas with you. I don’t know. Maybe I’m in my head, but I feel like I’m not the ideal picture-perfect woman of what a man would bring home,” she went on, and that shit made me take a couple of glances at her while I was driving because I never really heard Riot say no shit like that to me before.
Riot held a lot of confidence to her, so to hear her speak on her hesitation, and maybe even an insecurity that she mighthave had on meeting my parents, and them not accepting her, I wanted to fix that with a quickness.
“Riot, my parents cool. Yeah, I had my little shit with my pops in the past, where he was mad at me for moving dope because he didn’t want me to follow in his footsteps, but we’re past that. All the dope that nigga used to move. Man, he’s the last person to judge you for that. My mama not going to judge you for that shit, either. Even though she was never a part of the business, she was dealing with my dad when he was doing it. Had two kids by the nigga, so she has no room to judge you. My parents going to be so fixated on the fact that I’m finally settling down, and brought someone over, that they won’t give a damn about your career choice. I don’t play about anyone, or anything that I love, so even if they stepped out of line, and said some offensive shit to you, I would check that shit in a heartbeat. Bae, you good. Trust me,” I assured her.
I could tell that my words helped because she smiled, and she dropped it. From there, we switched gears and started talking about things within the business on the ride to my house.
Before I knew it, I was pulling up to my parking garage, taking it up until I was on the residents floor. I backed the car into a parking spot and quickly shut the car off. I went ahead and grabbed the things that I needed, and opened the back door, so that I could grab Riot’s duffle bag.
Once I had it, I opened the door for her as well, waited for her to get out, and closed the door.
I grabbed her hand as we walked into the building. Holding onto it all the way over to the elevators, up the elevator, and I didn’t let it go until we were standing in front of my door, so I could pull my keys out.
I unlocked the door for us, Riot walked in first, removed her shoes like she always did, and she went for the back. Before I joined her back there, I grabbed a bottle of water from therefrigerator, and I went to my bedroom, dropping her bag down on the bed. She quickly walked over to her bag, so that she could start going through it, and while she did that, I removed my shirt, and undershirt, prepared to go out on the balcony, so that I could smoke.
“I’ve been thinking about moving out of Ari’s place and getting a little spot of my own. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Just a one-bedroom apartment. I want to see what it feels like to have my own space,” she said, pulling out her pajamas from the bag, and she sat it down on the bed.
At this point, I was removing my gun from my waist and sitting it down on the nightstand.
“You standing in front of your nigga, Bean. Why would you go and get an apartment? Shit going to be a waste of money because you going to always be over here. I know how that shit going to work. You going to be with me all the time. If you going to move out of Ari’s crib, then the best option would be to move in with me. You don’t think so?” I asked her, pulling out the top drawer of my nightstand, so that I could get my stash of weed.
“Then, it would feel like I’m moving in with somebody all over again. I moved in with Ari, and now I’ll be moving in with you. I never experienced having my own place before. Even now, like if you text me and ask me where I am, I’ll always tell you that I’m at Ari’s house if I’m over there. I never say that I’m home because that doesn’t feel like my home. Just the place where I live, you know? I feel like that’ll be the same thing if I move in with you. I won’t look at it as my home. I’ll look at it as yours, and I’m just living with you,” she went on, and I understood what she was trying to say.
“My lease up in two more months. I was going to just renew it, but I’ll do you something better. They have penthouses on floors much higher than this one, and their bigger. I only got the one bedroom because it was just me. I’ll get something bigger forus. Both of our name can go on the lease together, that way you don’t have to feel like you moving in with me. That can be both our shit. You ain’t gotta pay bills either. Just learn how to cook,” I said to her, and she laughed while rolling her eyes at me.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
“What’s there to think about, bae? Come here,” I said, wanting her a little closer to me.
“I’m about to take a shower, Dolo. I been sitting outside for hours. I feel sticky,” she whined that shit to me, and I loved it.
“Why you gotta think about moving in with me? Damn, you not trying to move in with daddy?” I asked, still stuck on that shit, not wanting her to leave, and take her shower yet. When I asked her that, she laughed.
“I always heard my cousins say that the relationship starts to go downhill when you move in with a nigga. What if that happens with us? I already work with you. Then, I’ll come home every night to you. You may start hating me,” she said a bunch of bullshit, as I walked over to her, weed, wrap, and lighter in my hands, looking down at her.
“I feel like if I was going to start hating you, that shit would have happened already. Riot, we’re literally around each other every single day. We probably going to have a little hiccup here and there when we move in with each other, but that’s expected. That’s why I suggested we get something bigger. That way when you do start getting on my fuckin nerves, I can go to another part of the house,” I said.
“Okay. We’ll talk about it some more when I get out the shower,” she said, right before she leaned in, and kissed me on the lips.
I wanted more than just that petty ass kiss, so I pulled her closer to me, fed her my tongue, and we started to passionately kiss. She was the one to pull away, and then she disappeared, going into the bathroom, so that she could take her shower.
I went for the sliding door, going out on the balcony.
There used to be a time when you stepped foot in my house, and there was no trace of a woman being here. Now, you could tell that I was in a relationship. Riot had her red throw blanket out here that she brought from home. It was folded nicely and sitting on the patio chair. A book that she had been reading while she was out here the other night was resting on the table too. If you went into my bathroom, her toiletries and shit were on the counter. Life would really come at you fast and have you doing shit that you never thought that you would do before.
I sat down, got comfortable, and started rolling up. I played a little music on my phone, and as soon as I had the perfectly rolled blunt, I kicked my feet up on the table in front of me, lit the blunt, and I took my first pull.
I bobbed my head to the music, enjoying these beautiful ass views that were in front of me. Probably five minutes into the blunt, the music stopped playing on my phone, and a call started coming in. I looked down, seeing that it was my little brother, Diego hitting me. These days, I felt like any time my phone rang, it was bullshit, so I sighed, already prepared for it.
“What’s good nigga?” I answered, putting the call on speaker, so that I could sit the phone down in my lap.
“Shit. I hate that I always gotta be the one to deliver the bad news to you about you and your girl, but social media is a motha fucka right now. Judging by how calm you sound, I know you probably haven’t seen it yet,” he went on, and I immediately removed my feet from the table, sat up a little bit on the couch, and I picked my phone up.
