Page 8 of Quasim: King Inferno

She shifted in the bed and looked over at me on the couch. “Do you want to switch? I’ll sleep on the couch… I know the couch can’t be that comfortable.”

I would take the couch as long as I knew she was comfortable. My only concern was her being comfortable, physically and in life. With Blaze and Capri taking over her room, we had to share the room. I stepped out while she changed, and she remained quiet while I prayed.

Anjo and I had a mutual respect for each other that just worked. It was the reason I was so in love with her and kept trying to convince myself that I was tripping. I couldn’t love again like that… not someone that could possibly leave me.

Cancer was serious and I knew because I had gone through it before. The last time I went through it, I watched my daughter become a shell of herself. So weak and fragile that shewas practically staring into my eyes and begging for death to save her.

So much pain…

So many tears I shed with her.

Seeing your baby in pain wasn’t something any parent should have to experience. I watched as her skin peeled from the radiation, how her lips cracked because they were so dry. Her beautiful curls falling from her head and holding her as she cried and asked me if she was still as pretty as her favorite princesses.

I heard the bed creak and saw the white short set Blair wore to bed making its way over toward me. “Can I lay on you, Quasimmy?” She asked.

No words were exchanged as I nodded my head, and she carefully climbed on top of me. Her small body not making a dent on mine. She looked into my eyes and gave me a small smile before kissing me on the cheek and resting her head in the crook of my shoulder.

“Anjo,” I stressed.

The moment felt so good that I didn’t feel like I deserved this. Blair felt like one of Gam’s cookies after a stressful day. The perfect cure for whatever you were going through, and I never wanted the feeling to end. Never wanted to lose her. Her soft skin gliding against mine, and the smell of her freshly washed hair was a cure for all the bad things that swarmed my mind.

“We don’t need to talk about our feelings tonight... I just want to feel your arms around me…Please, Simmy.”

I obliged and wrapped her in my arms, kissing her forehead. She cuddled deeper as I grabbed a handful of her ass, and she giggled while kissing my jaw. “You hardheaded.”

“I am.”

“Gonna handle that.” I whispered and squeezed her tighter as we both laid on the couch, instead of the king-sized bed that was a few feet away from us.

“I look forward to the day.” She whispered back as she placed another kiss on my jaw before making herself even more comfortable.

With the balcony door opened, we could feel the warm breeze caressing both our skin. Not too long after holding her, those soft snores returned and I rested my lips on her forehead, kissing it a few times before sleep had entered my body. Almost like it was contagious, and I could only catch it when Blair was near.

“Fuck,” I muttered when I saw that I hadn’t stopped the machine in time to avoid it overfilling my coffee mug.

The settings weren’t right for my mug of choice, myonlymug of choice, so I always had to hit the highest setting and snatch the cup away and turn the machine off when it reached the desired height of my coffee mug. I carefully walked over toward the sink and poured the extra coffee into the sink before bringing the piping hot cup to my lips.

Taking a sip of the black coffee, I nodded my head in approval as I looked out the kitchen window at the stray cat that I kept fed. Her hoe ass better not had brought any more babies to my damn front yard, or she was gonna end up hungry.

Before going into the living room, I swiped my bible off the counter and went to go dive deep into the word this morning. My scriptures every morning always kept me levelheaded, and closer to God. Without it, there would be a lot more dead muthafuckas laying around. The minute I stepped out that front door, I acted like I had never heard the word or prayed to our father a day in my life.

It was hard staying grounded in the word when you were a real-life demon to others. I got comfortable on the couch as Iopened my bible on my lap and flipped to where I had left off yesterday morning.

The silence consumed me once again, and I took a deep breath as I read the words. Gams had given me this bible when I was fifteen years old. She gifted both me and Meer the same bible, both of them had our names inscribed in the back.

Meer’s bible had caught fire when moms burned the apartment down. I like to think the reason my brother was here today was because that bible was in that room with him. He always got choked up when he spoke about how he stared at the posters in his room, knowing his time on earth was coming to an end.

I like to say my secret power was having a praying grandmother. Gams made sure we knew the bible front and back, and that we stayed rooted in the church. Me and Meer grew up in the church, Meer singing and me playing the piano.

With the chaos that my father was causing in the streets, and my mother chasing behind him, she needed to keep us both close to something. The older we both became, the further we strayed from the church, but Gams never judged.

That wasn’t her.

Unlike other judgmental church folks, that wasn’t my grandmother. She never forced it down our throats. She knew the roles we had to play, being Quinton Inferno’s sons, and knew the damage that we had caused since we were young.

The minute I was old enough, I jumped off the porch and right onto a bike and had been moving ever since. Meer was right behind me before I redirected his ass and made him attend college.

My brother wanted to follow in my shadows, and I wanted more for him. This role was already mapped out for me the minute my mother pushed me out. I was always going to stepinto the role of King Inferno, head of the Inferno Gods. Did I expect to step into it sooner rather than later?

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