Niggas wouldn’t know what to do with baby girl if she came wrapped in a fucking bow with an instruction manual. Every day she proved I was the only motherfucker for her. Niggas would gladly give her back if they had the chance with her. Fuck a handful. Baby required your hands, pockets, head, and everything else you had to offer.
Thirty-five minuteslater and the hotel key was against the card reader. I pushed the door open, heart beating wildly with anticipation. Hyph was becoming someone I needed in my life. She was no longer someone I wanted.
“Trouble, get dressed, Momma. We–”
The room was eerily quiet. The bed was made. The television was powered off.
Baffled, I rushed into the bathroom. Hyphen was nowhere to be found. Unknowingly, I began pacing the floor, mind racing a mile a second.
The sound of the door handle turning startled me from the trenches Hyphen’s absence had dumped me in. She appeared, looking nothing like the woman I’d left twiddling her thumbs. In her hand was a black deposit pouch. She tossed it on the round table, and extended her fingers.
“French tips on the hands and toes.”
“Fuck you been, Hyph?” I questioned, staring at the deposit pouch. The contents spilled, revealing what I was slightly curious about.
“And where you get them bands from?”
She pulled in a deep breath before sighing.
“Until you show your appreciation for my nails, we’re not moving on to the next subject.”
I glanced, acknowledging her nails.
“They good. Now, where that money come from?”
“And my toes?” She asked, lifting her feet in the high-heeled sandals.
“They good, too, Hyph quit fucking playing with me.”
“I was bored, Flocco. Instead of sitting here watching the clock on the wall for hours, I went outside.”
“For what?”
“Niggas like toes,” she laughed with a shrug. “What can I say?”
“What niggas? And you talking about the toes I just paid to get done?”
“They are profitable,” she explained, blowing a bubble with the gum I hadn’t noticed in the beginning.
“Explain and stop being short with a nigga.”
“When you left, I figured I’d hit up this freaky ass nigga that pays me to send him feet pictures every week. He lives here.And, promised me fifteen bands the day I let him put his tongue through my toes.”
Heat rose in my chest as I tried to comprehend what Hyphen was telling me.
“And you met up with the nigga.”
“Let him run his tongue right between my toes. Banked an extra twenty-five hundred to let him put them in his mouth.”
Flabbergasted, I snatched her purse from her arm and began raking through it. Standing behind me, Hyphen remained calm. Too calm for my liking.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for that shit to take that polish off your fucking toes. If you ain’t got none in this bag, we’re going to get some.”
Chuckling, she sat down on the bed, spreading her hands out and laying backward. She was blowing me.
Unbothered.
