Page 28 of Senior

“I don’t wanna go,” she said.

“Baby, Papa needs some adult time. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She held a frown on her pretty face as she stomped off to her daddy. As soon as he picked her up, she started crying. They threw me a glare as they filed back into the house. Korri and Nayelli stopped to hug and kiss me.

“See you later, Papa,” they both said.

“See you later, girls.”

I followed them inside. As everybody else headed for the front door, I took a left turn into my sunroom. Sitting on the couch, I pulled my stash box from the coffee table drawer and rolled up a fat ass blunt. Sparking it up, I relaxed into my seat and took a long pull from it.

Damn, I needed this shit.

I thought the kids would be a nice distraction from the thoughts plaguing my head for the last week. Since that kiss Steph and I shared in the maze, all I could think about was her. All the old feelings I refused to let myself feel came rushing to the surface with a vengeance. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her since then and that was probably for the best because I’d end up doing some shit I couldn’t take back.

I’d been in the sunroom for about twenty minutes when my phone started ringing. I looked to see it was Blake’s ass.

“What?” I answered.

“Don’t answer the phone like that.”

“What do you want?”

“What are you doing?”

“I was trying to enjoy my peace and quiet now that these bad ass kids are gone.”

“Nobody told you to be a babysitter.”

“I love my grandkids. Papa is their best friend.”

“I love mine too, but them lil’ fuckers gotta go with their mammy and pappy at the end of the night. Poppa gotta have a life too.”

I rolled my eyes as though he could see me. “We see where that got you. Again, what do you want?”

“I was calling to see if you wanted to ride with me to this little hole in the wall tonight.”

“You following Jeanie again?”

“Fuck you.”

I shook my head. Since his wife left him a few years ago, he’d been on this kick of trying to get her back. She’d served him with divorce papers at least six times and he wouldn’t sign that shit. For him, it was ‘til death do us part. Jeanie decided she would show him better than she could tell him.

She got in the gym. Lost a bunch of weight and started wearing these little ass clothes. Even I had to admit she looked good in that shit for a woman her age. Blake hated it. She was hanging out with her girlfriends, going on solo vacations and dating. She’d even moved off the compound and into a place of her own. The woman was doing her, and he was doing what he could about it.

“You need to leave that woman alone, Blake. Just give her the damn divorce.”

“Hell no. I’ma wear her down.”

“You stopped cheating?”

“It’s not cheating if we aren’t together.”

“So let me get this straight. Y’all aren’t together when you’re fucking other women, but when she does her own thing, that’s still your wife?”

“You coming or not, muthafucka?”

I laughed. “Fine. I’ll come, if for nothing than to see this shit blow up in your face once again.”