He was talking about Scarface and the name he’d brought up. His cousin. Jayceon. A name I’d heard three times this year now and we were only in the fourth month. Might not have been much to you but for me it was plenty. I was anal about numbers. They spoke to me. And for as long as I could remember, the number three was substantial to me. If I was the type of person that had shit like favorites, three would be my favorite number. But I didn’t cling to things. Understood that everything was temporary. But the number three? The number three was a part of me. Followed me despite how often I tried to ignore it. Threes were what made me anal about numbers in the first place. If I saw one too often, I paid attention to it and listened to what it was trying to tell me.
Although it’d been my third time hearing the name Jayceon, I didn’t think about it too much. I never thought too long about shit. I was a person that moved off intuition and guidance. Sitting up, trying to figure out how to move on something because it’d come to me three times did me no good. When it was time for me to do something about it, I would. I hadn’t beengiven the urge to move, so… I didn’t move. I let the spirit guide me.
My brothers knew what the number three meant to me too and had been around all three times the name Jayceon came up. I wasn’t hasty though. It could be a warning. Could be a sign to move forward. I was in no rush to find out which.
He coughed. “Heard from shorty them yet?”
“Nope,” I said with a sigh. “I’m giving it a few days. If nothing happens, nothing happens and I move on.”
“How we gon’ handle ma? You can’t stay out?—”
“I know. I’ll know what to do when I know what to do.”
After a couple more minutes of chopping it up, we got off. The clock struck twelve and I was almost immediately hit with a plethora of calls, messages and emails. I might’ve been out here with OG but that didn’treallystop shit. I pushed up off the couch, grabbed my MacBook from the kitchen island and got to work.
CHAPTER 7
SEREIA
“Ain’tno cheese on my burger,” said the bitch standing in front of me with a screwed look on her face, before tossing the burger on the counter.
Squinting, I stared at her, remembering her from about twenty minutes ago. She was with a group of dirty hoodrat bitches. They walked in loud as hell, taking forever to order. Talking about the bum ass niggas they were fucking rather than what they wanted to eat.
I was at work.
Clearly. Cashiering at one of the most popular coney islands in Wildermere. I hated it. Hated it real bad, but what else was I supposed to do? Not work? Jobs were limited here. If you didn’t have a nursing certificate or didn’t have pull to get into one of the warehouses, nine times out of ten you were working at a fast-food restaurant or some weak ass retail store that didn’t pay much.
Coney was good to me, I guess.
They didn’t pay but about five dollars an hour, but I got good ass tips so that was a plus. It was enough to contribute to the bills. Pay them fully? Ehhh, I doubted it. That was somethingelse to think about for another day. I still had a couple of dollars from the ten thousand Exodus gave me, but what was I to do when that dried up? I had to stack. I was just winging shit, hoping like hell that I’d be able to cover rent for the coming months. Which was why I’d been so nice all day, despite wanting to cut up on people.
“Because you ordered a hamburger.”
She frowned. “What? Duh. Hamburgers come with cheese. The fuck.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Cheeseburgers come with cheese.”
She stared at me for a couple of seconds before rolling her eyes and scratching the back of her head. “Anyway. Same thing for real. Can I just get cheese on my burger? No onions, extra mayo!”
I looked down at the burger and pushed it away from me. “You can keep it. I’ll get him to make you another one.”
I walked away and went over to the grill area where the cook, Mike, was. Leaning against the wall, I crossed my arms over my chest, eyeing him, hating I would have to get him to remake a burger he didn’t mess up.
“Mike,” I said, calling out to him. He had on a pair of big ass headphones, bobbing his head to music, flipping patties.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even notice me. I took a deep breath, pushed up away from the wall and walked over to him. Shoving him, I finally got his attention.
He pulled one side of the headphones off his ear, resting it on top of his head. “Rei-Rei. What’s good, baby?”
I looked over my shoulder towards the counter and then back at him. “Remember them bitches from earlier? The group that came in, loud as hell not too long ago?”
“Yeah, what up?”
I sighed, rolling my eyes. “The hamburger with no onions, extra mayo? She really wanted a cheeseburger. Can you remake it?”
He sucked his teeth. “Man what?”
“Exactly. Talking about hamburgers come with cheese. Dumb ass bitch.”
