With a deep breath, I looked away from him and tossed my head back against the couch I was sitting on. Couldn’t believe I was as comfortable as I was. If I weren’t high, I would have neversat down. I wasn’t a bougie bitch, but Mookie threw hella parties and the very couch I was sitting on had definitely been fucked on my multiple people—probably at the same time.
I was too out of it to give a fuck about that though. I was cruising. Cruising on cloud nine. But when G Herbo’s Went Legit came on, I sat up, waving my hands in the air. Meech loved this shit.
I bobbed my head and yelled, “Every day some new shit! Beefin’ with my bitch right now but life still lit!”
“See? She good,” Alani said, waving her hands in the air too, rapping along with me.
The party went crazy. Everybody started rapping with G Herbo. Seemed like Mookie turned the volume up louder too.
I pushed up from the couch and danced around in place, bobbing from side to side, rapping along with the music with tears rolling down my face, spitting that shit with my whole chest like I wrote it.
While I was in my zone, crying tears I didn’t want to cry in an apartment full of people, I felt a pair of hands slide across my waist. I opened my eyes just as Vellz leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“You lit,” he whispered, his thick beard tickling the side of my face.
Lazily, I smiled. “Something like that.”
I surveyed his face, eyes landing on his full bottom lip. After swiping tears from my face, I threw my arms around his neck and leaned in. “You smell good.”
“You look good,” he shot back. “Fuck you doin’ here, Rei?” He swiped his thumb underneath my eye, catching a tear I missed. “Crying and shit.”
Vellz and I were together for years and he’d only seen me cry three times. Once after my momma died, again after my daddywas sentenced to life in prison for killing her, and now… over Meech, at a party full of people I didn’t care for.
I moved away from his touch with a light laugh. “I’m cool. Would be better if we left, though.”
His eyebrows shot up, surprised and as I expected, he bit down on his bottom lip, moving his hands over my waist, caressing me. I swallowed and let him. I didn’t fuck with Vellz like that. Hadn’t fucked him since I broke up with him. When I was done with someone, I was done with them. Him and I might’ve had a little back and forth back in the day, but when I was finished, I was finished. Vellz tried to spin the block a couple of times, but I shut his ass down every time. Eventually, he stopped.
That was months ago and I was relieved. The fact that I was approaching him on some fuck shit, letting him touch on me in a provocative way attested to just how fucked up my head was. Well… My head wasn’t fucked up. I was sad. I was very fucking sad. And I hated to admit it but being in Vellz’s arms felt good. The familiarity of it all felt like… home? Comfortable. Familiar. Safe. Good. I knew that if I left with him, he’d make me feel good. He’d do for me what the pill and the blunt hadn’treallydone. I would be in ecstasy. Feeling something other than pain and sorrow. That’s what I needed. The numbness? It was nice. Refreshing a little but I wanted to feel good. Hadn’t felt good in days.
“Shit, come on then,” Vellz said, wearing a smirk, pressing his body against me. His dick was on brick.
“Cuz,” said Lakeland. “What you doin?”
I looked over at her and shook my head with a giggle. “About to go.”
She squinted with her mouth turned up in a frown. “You sure about that?”
“Uh huh.”
“I could’ve sworn you was done with this nigga. Don’t be out here makin bad decisions, cousin,” Alani said, frowning.
“Shut yo’ ass up, Lani,” Vellz said after sucking his teeth. “She smooth, cuz, I got her,” he continued, talking to Lakeland.
My eyes met Lakeland’s as I licked my lips, in need of another water. “What? You said I was doing too much. Now I’m about to do a little less.”
Lakeland shook her head, frowning. “A lil’ less? Bitch, the absolute most.” She stepped in between Vellz and I. “You really about to leave with this nigga?” She whispered.
We locked eyes for a second before I shrugged. I was leaving with Vellz. The party was cool. It was a nice little change of scenery. I mean, it did what I needed it to do. Kept me out of the apartment. But my mind… it still wandered off to Meech. Being with Vellz, regardless of our history and me cutting him off, would give me the type of comfort a blunt and a pill couldn’t give me. If I had to sleep at that apartment tonight, I wanted it to be in a pair of familiar arms after a couple of orgasms. Might’ve been a bad decision but in the moment, I didn’t give a fuck.
“Okay cuz,” Lakeland said with a sigh.
I snatched my purse from the couch and slid it over my head, across my chest. Vellz went from gripping my arm to interlocking his fingers with mine, locking our hands. As we maneuvered through the thick crowd, he said a few muffled words to people, gesturing towards me. Through hazy vision, I noticed the looks on their faces. Looks of ‘aww Sereia and Vellz back together’. A couple of niggas eyed me up and down with disappointment, mad they hadn’t gotten their chances yet. Tuh. Vellz had to be painting some type of narrative. Acting like we were back on like we were before, gloating, purposely talking too long, gesturing toward me, probably telling muthafuckas he needed to get me home, playing the role of a caring boyfriend. Fuck out of here.
When we got outside of the apartment, the stench of weed smoke grew stronger. Would’ve been nice to be hit with a calming gust of refreshing, calming nighttime air. The kind that made you close your eyes, smile, and bask in it. But that was something we never got here. The air at The Woods was polluted with either the smell of heavy weed smoke, crack, shit, old exhaust pipes, or that pungent stench of piss.
“I see you nigga,” said one of the niggas sitting at the stairs we had to walk down.
“You already know,” he gloated. I didn’t need to see his face to know he was wearing that cocky smirk I hated. The one he put on anytime I retracted and got back with him after a couple of weeks.
