Page 46 of Quasim: King Inferno

The tap on my window caused me to slowly open my eyes and my brother was standing there with Rayce in his arms, and his locs tied up. “Why the fuck you out here with your eyes closed? You know we got an extra room.”

I killed the engine and climbed out the car and followed behind him. Closing the door behind me, I entered the code and secured the house. Blaze placed Rayce, who was bright eyed and bushy tailed, down in the bouncer and nodded for me to follow him out back.

“She not going to start screaming?”

He chuckled. “Nah… she got some of her mama’s milk and a little bit of cereal… Jean showed me how to make a knockout bottle.”

I nodded and took a seat on the patio furniture outside, overlooking the skyline. My brother went back inside, coming back out with a wooden box.

He kept his roll up and weed inside this box and had been doing it since we were younger. The box used to be Gam’s sewing box until Blaze got a hold of it. I watched as he pulled two pre-rolled spliffs out the box and handed me one with a lighter.

“Appreciate it.”

“Look like you could use a whole one to yourself… shit, I could use a whole one, too. We had a pregnancy scare.”

“Is it really a scare when you always hollering about wanting to knock her up again.”

He snorted and sparked his spliff and took a long pull before settling back into the chair. “She wants to have this summer, and I want that for her. Don’t matter how much I’m ready for the next baby. I saw the fear in her eyes tonight, and I don’t want that shit for her. Selfish of me to want that when my wife is trying to adjust back to being herself… feel me?”

“Yeah. She all good though, right?

“Stressed, but she’s good. Work been stressful, too, so I ran her a bath, got her favorite snacks, and made her go to bed early while I handled Cherry.”

“She still on maternity leave, though.”

Blaze cut his eyes at me in anigga, now you knowlook. “Her ADA acts like he can do a better job than her but calls her for every fucking thing. Even with her being on maternity leave, she’s been going into the office and working from home. It’s about to come to an end, though, and she’ll be back full time. Which is why this Bali trip is important for me… I want her to relax and have funwithoutworrying about Cherry.”

I remember when Blaze came to my house with tears in his eyes, stressed, and hurt all at the same time. Fucked up because Brandi had given him his ring back and didn’t want to marryhim. The shit broke my heart seeing how hurt he was, because he truly loved Brandi.

He hated the bitch now, but he did love her at some point.

The first time I met Brandi, I knew she wasn’t shit. At the time, me and Blaze were in a weird space. A space where anything coming from me was an attack. He was already struggling with being the second son and holding resentment because I had to step into the role as King Inferno, head of the Inferno Gods.

When we were younger, he used to call himself the spare because he was the second son, and everything was built for me to take over. The shit used to break my heart because he was more than that.

Moms literally gave me a built-in best friend that was blood. It didn’t get any closer than that for me. As he got older, and when I forced him into school, he distanced himself from me and the family. Brandi became the center of his universe, and I could tell that bitch wasn’t up to no good. Our shit was rocky before she came around, it was when he became serious with her that shit really was fucked.

Every suggestion or piece of advice from me or my pops was an attack on him. Shit, his relationship with our pops was still slightly strained because of it. Pops never liked Cherie, but he really didn’t fuck with Brandi. Told Blaze he was being a bozo by trying to wife a fucking skeezer – his words – and Blaze flipped the fuck out.

It was fuck everybody. Him and Brandi versus everybody, and she secretly ate that shit up. She liked me and my brother being at odds with her weird, lopsided head. The only reason I didn’t slip into the crib that she shared with Martin and slit her throat was because of my niece. Ryder saved a lot of people from meeting their maker, and she didn’t even know it.

Seeing him then, and now witnessing him be a husband to a woman that was worthy of the man he was, did something to me. I wasn’t an emotional nigga in the least, but seeing my little brother happy after what he had gone through brought out that side of me.

“You didn’t come over here to stare into thin air… what’s on your mind, Sim?”

I took the longest pull, releasing the smoke before speaking. “She told me she loved me.”

“I knew this.”

I turned to look at him. “The fuck you talking about?”

“Blair told us that she loved you soon after the honeymoon… said she was in love with you. I can see that shit when I look at her, too.”

“Why the fuck you didn’t tell me?”

“Wasn’t my business to speak on, Sim. She was venting and I respected that by minding my damn business… I’m just confused on why the fuck you act scared of the girl.”

“I don’t act scared.”

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