Page 37 of Deuce

Deuce’s head snapped in my direction.

“See what happens when you be messy?” Mace said.

“I wasn’t being messy,” Deuce defended. “I was trying to be nice.”

“After he put a gun in my face,” I mumbled.

Deuce chuckled. “You know what I think, Salima? You cool with danger as long as it ain’t you. You got a thrill outta me putting my gun to ol’ boy’s head tonight. You like the idea of a nigga making a muthafucka respect you.”

“I didn’t ask you to come save me or make anybody respect me. As far as I’m concerned, you were doing your job as my boss to intervene. In any other instance, you could have stayed over there with the bitch that had her ass in your lap, and I would have handled that nigga myself.”

He laughed. “You sound bothered.”

“I wouldn’t give you the power to have me bothered, Stanley.”

His family stood back stifling laughs as he glared at me.

“Y’all fucking?” Kerrion asked, pointing between the two of us. “You sound like a toxic ass couple.”

I laughed. “Hell no. Maybe I should just go home.”

“It’s three in the morning,” Deuce said, waving his hand. “You think I’m gonna let you drive around this part of the city by yourself?”

“Excuse you?Letme? Nigga, you ain’t my man or my daddy. You don’tletme do shit.”

“Look, just bring your ass inside and let’s get some food. I’ll make sure you get home safe. I know your lying ass is hungry.”

I frowned. I was starving, and we were already here. Maybe if I sat far enough away from him, I wouldn’t have the urge to throat punch him.

“Fine,” I said.

“Fine,” he mimicked. “Stubborn ass girl.”

He walked ahead of everybody. I fell in stride alongside Maceo. He playfully elbowed me.

“You got my bruh flustered and shit,” he said with a chuckle. “Whatever is going on between you two is about to be entertaining as fuck.”

“Ain’t nothing between me and that menace but space.”

Even as I said the words, I wasn’t sure that I believed them. This man irked me to no end, but he also intrigued me. He was just so damn arrogant, and it turned me off as much as it turned me on. Still, here I was, taking my ass into this place to get food with people I didn’t know all because it was him that invited me.

What. The. Fuck.

I satwith my people in Pico’s, a twenty-four hour spot for people of my family’s caliber. From the outside it looked like an abandoned building. Inside was nice as hell though. It was all black with red accents. The lighting was dim, and they only played old school hip hop and R&B.

It was owned by Cobalt, one of the OG’s around here. The only people that frequented this place had ties and illegal dealings. It was where we could be comfortable and ourselves. Most of all, it was neutral territory. There was no fighting, no retaliation, none of that.

Cobalt didn’t play that shit. I’d seen him put a bullet in a few people who wanted to start shit and get out of line. Nobody bat an eye, nobody said shit because we knew what it was.

When we came in, Maceo tried his hardest to sit beside Salima. I canceled that shit with a slap to the back of his head.I didn’t care what he promised her. She glared at me when I occupied the seat next to her, but remained quiet.

“I wasn’t expecting it to look like this,” she said, looking around.

“Well, you shouldn’t assume,” I mumbled as I lit my blunt.

Jaeda snapped her fingers. “Don’t you two start again.”

“What’s with the snapping of the fingers?” Salima asked. “Is that a family thing?”

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