Page 1 of I Need It

CHAPTER 1

CHRISTIAN

“How much did he weigh?” Uncle Storm asked.

“Eight pounds and three ounces. He’s twenty-three inches long. I don’t know how Angel carried him. Hell, he almost bigger than her,” Uncle Jasper said.

I slowly shook my head. I was tired as hell. Rylan and Angel had gotten back from their honeymoon around a month ago, and Angel had been threatening to go into labor ever since. She was on bed rest, but she remained in good spirits. She loved my lil brother so damn much. I truly believed she would go to hell and fight the devil for that nigga.

I took a deep breath as I stretched my legs out. As soon as my mama and Tyeis came out of there, we would be able to go in. Once I offered my congratulations, gave him a cigar, and laid eyes on the baby, I would be out of here. Those two A/C repairs I had scheduled tomorrow morning wouldn’t give a damn about me being sleepy, especially the one at Uncle Storm’s house. I was dreading that shit.

I knew he was going to give me a hard time. It wouldn’t be him if he didn’t. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be there, and I only had to deal with Aunt Aspen. With the way I was feeling now, I knew I wouldn’t be in the mood for his bullshit. “Yo, you good?”

I glanced over at KJ. “Yeah, man. I’m tired.”

“Yeah, you worked all day, huh?”

“Yeah. That sun ain’t playing with nobody.”

“Tell me about it. I was practicing in it. Guess who I ran into though?”

I turned to him, intrigued by the smile I heard in his voice. “Who?”

“Cassie.”

I frowned slightly, trying to figure out who in the hell he was talking about. “Nigga, who?”

“Cassie. Uncle Price’s daughter. My dad’s friend that did all the dirt work for our shit. The one who got the contract, not too long ago, to haul our shit to grocery stores.”

“Oh, damn! She used to chill with us and play video games when we were younger. What she up to?”

Cassie was somewhat of a tomboy growing up. She would hang with us all the time when we were kids. Most times, she was with her dad when he came to Nome. She wasn’t an only child, but she was so much older than her siblings. Her being with him on jobs was her escape from them. However, by the time we were like sixteen or so and she was able to drive, she stopped coming.

“She’s a professor at Lamar, teaching an elementary education class. I don’t remember what exactly. I just remember it has to do with that. I supposed she wanted to take after her stepmom with that.”

I frowned at him slightly. He was feeling her. I could tell by the way he was avoiding my eyes. He and Cassie were closer than she was to Rylan and me because we weren’t always there when she was. Whereas I would sometimes tease her about her braces, KJ would always take up for her. I used to think he liked her back then, but he would always deny it.

“Well, did you get her number?”

He frowned as he stared at me. “Naw. She’s engaged. She ain’t no tomboy no more, man. I mean… fine as fuck.”

I gave him a slight smile, just knowing he was going to try to keep that tidbit to himself. “I thought you were crushing on her when we were younger.”

“I was. I should’ve shot my shot back then.” He slid his hand down his face. “I was too worried about what y’all would think. It was the immaturity in me. I missed her when she stopped coming around. I eventually forgot about her.”

“Was she feeling you back then?”

“When we were around fifteen, she asked me if I was feeling her one evening when she was at the house. Me, like a big dummy, told her no and that we were just friends.”

“What made her ask that? Were y’all having sex?”

“Naw, nothing like that. She was in her feelings, talking about her biological mother, and I hugged her, trying to comfort her. We ended up kissing. It wasn’t all involved, but it had a lil heat behind it. That was it.”

I nodded, and before I could say anything else, I saw my mama come out of the room with a big ass smile on her face, happy about her second grandbaby. As she got closer, I stood from my seat and stretched. “Y’all can go in now. They’ve gotten her all cleaned up and situated. Angel did so good, and I’m so proud of Rylan and how he helped her through it.”

“A’ight, a’ight. How many of us can go in at once?” Uncle Storm interrupted.

Mama rolled her eyes as Aunt Tiff pushed him. She didn’t bother responding to him. She grabbed Dad’s hand, and I followed behind them to the room. Jakari and Yendi were right behind me. I assumed they would let all of us go in first, because when I glanced back, I didn’t see anyone else behind us, except Decaurey. He left his twins with Uncle WJ and Aunt Liv. When we walked inside, Rylan had his long ass in the bed with Angel and the baby.

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