“No! You can’t go, but I can.”
“The fuck? You lost your damned mind if you think I’m about to let you out of my sight again and not have the chance to meet my kid.”
“I promise that I will return with him.”
“What the fuck ever. You’re a lying ass heffa, and I don’t trust shit out of your mouth.”
I’m stunned by his words because Chrishon has never called me out of my name. I have no idea what made him hate me so much, neither do I know what caused him to stop trusting me, but now is not the time to clear it up.
“Fine, we’ll go back and get him, but we can’t bring him back here, and we can’t take him anywhere on a motorcycle.”
“I’ve got a cage outside,” he states, referring to a car. That’s what all the guys in his motorcycle club used to call vehicles that weren’t m otorcycles.
“Okay,” I mutter.
We head back outside, and he leads me to the pickup truck I saw earlier. It’s a black Ram 1500 with chrome accessories.
I must get away from him, and I’m not sure how I will do it, but I’m not ready to take on Chaos again. I mean that literally and figuratively. Having him back in my life, even as CJ’s dad, will be more than I can handle.
Maybe I can ditch him when we get to Angelique’s house. I wish that I could text and give her a heads-up, but I’ll have to think quick on my feet and make do with whatever I come up with.
“Can you please stay in the car when we get there?”
“Why?”
“I’m not bringing anyone else into this beef you and I have.”
“Oh, trust me, baby girl, ain’t no beef.”
I roll my eyes and sigh heavily as I turn my gaze back to the window. “Turn here. This makes no sense you know. How am I supposed to explain your presence to him?”
“The same way you will have to once he gets down here in the car. Same way you would have if I’d been here from day one.”
“But you weren’t!”
“Because you didn’t give me the fucking opportunity to!”
“Take self-responsibility, Chrishon.”
I can see his jaw clench because no one calls him that name anymore. No one has since before his dad died.
“Me take responsibility. That’s rich coming from you.”
“I’m just saying, you’re the one who disappeared, and I had no way to contact you.”
“You could have gone to Priest and told him. He would have gotten the message to me.”
“Why would I do that when I should have had direct contact with you? Going to the MC was never an option for me, and you know it. They’re the most disrespectful ass men I’ve ever met. Besides, your mom and sister knew. Your ass should have been in contact with them.”
He turns away from me and sighs. I can tell that I touched a nerve, and I wonder why he didn’t stay in touch with them. He made sure they had money in their bank accounts, but that was it.
“Listen, you decided not to be there for me anymore. You decided that you didn’t wanna be my ride-or-die.”
“No! I just decided that I didn’t want to die. All I ever asked of you was to walk away . . . repeatedly. It was cute when you were nineteen and becoming a prospect. It was cute when you were twenty-one and twenty-three getting your swagger. By the time we hit twenty-five, it was time to grow up and consider our future.”
He angles his head, clenches his jaw, and tightens his hand on the steering wheel.
“Yeah, a’ight,” he mutters around the gum that he’s chewing vigorously and nods.
