Page 25 of The Deed to a Gangsta's Heart

“Whatever.” She groaned. “Adam is driving mecrazy! First, he randomly decides he doesn’t want to finish his residency a couple of weeks ago, and now he’s talking about leaving Memphis and moving to Atlanta. You’ll never guess what he wants to do with his life now.”

“Based on your tone, I’m not sure I want to know. Go ahead and tell me though.”

“He wants to start an OnlyFans page, Armor. The fuck? I don’t know what I did wrong. How did I go from having a future doctor as a son to a porn star?”

I was so caught off guard I couldn’t respond right away. If Adam was having an identity crisis, I got that. Mama was heavily influential in who we were to become. That was a lot of the reason why I rebelled as hard as I did.

I started selling drugs to help out with bills, but eventually, I stayed in the streets longer because she wanted me to pursue a life I didn’t want. She wanted him to be a doctor and me a lawyer. Her logic was I was aggressive and combative, which would have made me a good defense attorney. And she said Adam was caring and calm as a child and would have made a good physician.

Regardless of how much we tried to tell her that wasn’t what we wanted to be, she didn’t want to hear it. Let her tell it, she brought us into this world and would guide us until she left. Eventually, Adam accepted her plan for his life, though it was clear he didn’t really want to. I was proud thathe decided not to go into medicine if he didn’t really want to. But a porn star? That seemed a bit extreme.

“Are you sure he said OnlyFans, Mama?”

“Positive. I asked him did he mean something else, and he said no, so I said that’s the site they be making them pornos on ain’t it, and he said yes. He said he knows a couple who recently moved to Miami, and they’ve made millions. Now he wants to move to Atlanta so he can, and I quote, enjoy his life and make money doing what he loves.” She scoffed and I rubbed my temples, feeling a migraine coming on.

“Well, he’s a grown man, Ma. If that’s what he wants to do, we can’t stop him.”

“Can you try? I can’t tell people my son is a porn star. I already have to tell them about you.”

My brows wrinkled as I sat back in my seat. Nibbling my cheek, I took in a deep breath. She had a habit of saying offensive shit and not seeing just how offensive it was. I’d long since stopped caring about what her or anyone else thought about me, but it still irritated me to hear her suggest I was someone she couldn’t be proud of.

“What do you mean you have to tell them about me?” She sighed. “You had no problem telling them about me when I bought you a house. You had no problem telling them about me when I made my first million dollar commission and gave you half of that profit.”

“Yes, Armor. I get to say my oldest son is a millionaire. A millionaire and a murderer who did ten years in prison instead of the twenty five years he originally received. That’s a lot to be proud of.”

Chuckling, I stood and rolled my tongue over my cheek. My palm rested against the desk as I said, “I’m sick of you acting like what I did wasn’t justified. Clearly it was, or theywouldn’t have reduced my sentence. And let’s not act like the nigga I killed wasn’t beating you.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t the only person you hurt or killed. He was just the only one you did time behind. And you didn’t have to beat him to death!” she yelled, and the crack in her voice shifted my anger into hurt.

“So that’s what this is really about? You’re not ashamed that I killed him. You’re ashamed that I killed the man you called yourself loving. Never mind the fact that he was abusing you.”

She sniffled. “I didn’t call you for this. I called to see if you’d talk to your brother.”

“You know what, Mama? I’m done. I did what I did to him to protect you, and I will never apologize for that. I’m not in the streets anymore, and I’m tired of you making me feel bad about shit from my past. I think we need to take some time apart.”

Silence filled the line for several seconds before she quietly mumbled, “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying unless it’s an emergency, don’t call me. Don’t call me about Adam. Don’t call me about what you need, because it’s clear you don’t appreciate who I am and what I do for you anyway.”

“Armor, that’s—I…”

“I gotta go.”

I slammed the phone down before plopping down into the seat. My head was throbbing, and I knew it was the stress. Before it could turn into a piercing migraine, I headed outside to grab a blunt, but that turned into me driving away. I didn’t even know if Luci would be busy or not, but I needed to see her. Even though I didn’t want to call Adam, I did. As pissed as Mama made me, I still wanted to check in and see where his head was at.

He answered the call with more joy in his voice than he’d had for our last few calls, and I wondered if that was because he had finally decided to take control of his life.

“Wassup?”

“You a porn star now?”

Adam laughed. “Your mama is extra, bruh. I didn’t tell her I was doing porn. I said I was moving to Atlanta and was considering doing OnlyFans with my lil shorty. We’ve been fucking for about a year now. One of her girls saw a video of us in her phone and uploaded it on some jealousy shit but it went viral. She is a social media influencer, and she already makes good bank, but she’s looking for a partner for her videos. Since that video went viral, she made some good money off it before it was taken down and wants us to do it regularly. I told her I’d think about it since I was moving out that way.”

“Well, if you don’t plan on doing that, how are you going to make money?”

“I don’t know yet. That’s the fucking problem. I’ve revolved my future around the life Mama wanted me to live and now I don’t know what to do. That’s why I’m going to Atlanta. I need a fresh start.”

“I feel you, and I’m proud of you for taking control of your life.”

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