Page 34 of Grown Folks Confessions: Black Lush

I didn’t get to prove to him that he’dalwaysbeen my person.

And now, no matter how he felt about me, I knew Ares. There was no way he wasn’t going to give it a go with Audrea now that they were having a child together. He hadalmostbeen mine, but I lost him.

Just like I’d lost my parents.

Because apparently, Layla Payne didn’t know how to keep those she loved around. In the end, all the shit the movies and books said was false.

Just because you loved others, didn’t mean they loved you back. And even if they did, love was rarely enough to make them stay.

grown folks years begin:

WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU DIDN’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BEING GROWN … UNTIL NOW.

fourteen

Grown Folks Confession #14: Life is a lot like looking for your phone. Most the time, it’s in your hand.

4 Years Later…

ARES

“Man, why the fuck are we at this hotel?” I asked, glancing around the small conference room at my cousins. “My flight from Chicago to New York wasn’t cheap. Shit was $500 roundtrip.”

“Nigga, please, you’ve spent more coins at the strip club,” my cousin, Demetrius, teased.

Nectario “Rio” shrugged. “All I know is we all got that cryptic ass group message from an unknown number, and since y’all seemed to be down for this out-of-town meeting shit, I agreed, too.”

“Constantine knows these folks,” Midas answered. “Only reason I agreed first was because if bruh says we good, we good.”

“But his ass ain’t here,” I stated, glancing around the room. “And it wouldn’t be the first time your brother talked us into some crazy shit.” Even though my brother, Theseus, usually had his head on straight, back in the day, whenever he hung out with Constantine, they talked us cousins into doing some reckless shit.

“Trust me, we good,” Midas assured. “When I talked to Constantine, he told me this was a meeting we needed to take.”

“Well, why ain’t Eros here, too?” one of my younger cousins, Alessandro, asked. “He left the group message before any of us even responded.”

I smacked my lips and waved off his question. “Cuz, you already know my brother ain’t on no spontaneous shit. Besides,” I glanced around the room, “quite a few of us Hoods weren’t even in the message. Looks like those of us that are always down for some bullshit got the invitation.”

“The bad seeds,” Caesar said in our grandmother’s voice, causing us all to laugh. “You already know Grandma Dolores would be turning over in her grave if she knew all the shit we got into after all that time she used to have us in Sunday school trying to make us better men.”

“You ain’t lyin’,” I agreed, shaking my head. “My mom taking over Sunday school wasn’t much better, but Grandma Dolores constantly told me I needed to be more like Theseus and Eros, or else I’d end up dead or in jail for never taking life too seriously.”

“Nigga, I did end up in jail.” Caesar laughed. “And even if I say I’m never going back, let’s be real, it’s like my second home.”

I shook my head, but there was truth to what he was saying. Caesar had just gotten out of jail a few years ago for possession. At least I think that’s what he was in there for. He’d been in and out of jail so much throughout our life, the family had a hard time keeping track, chucking it up to like father, like son. I’d never even met Unc and he’d died in prison soon after I was born. Still, Cease and I had always been close as hell. We all were.

Our family was heavy on testosterone, too, often causing women in our neighborhood to offer condolences to our mothers for birthing so many rowdy boys. I barely had any female cousins, and even though I’d had it pretty good growing up, all my cousins hadn’t had it easy.

Although my pops had passed away years ago, my dad was always present in my life and my mom was a saint. But I had more uncles in jail than I could count, aunts who had walked out on my uncles and cousins because they couldn’t cope with being in the Hood family for one reason or another.

I remember growing up and hearing all the church folks call us “those” Hoods as if they needed to preference whatever ignorant thing they were saying. By the time I got to high school, though, my brothers and I, along with a few cousins, had changed the narrative to those sexy Hoods. Or those damn Hoods, with a moan at the end.Around the same time you fell even harder for Layla.

I slightly shook my head free of the thought. It had been over three years since our marriage was annulled and I still thought about that woman every damn day. Especially when I couldn’t help but credit her as the first girl I ever heard moan in a way that buried itself deep in my heart.

But in my male-dominated family, we’d all become victim of falling hard for a woman we never saw coming. The Hood men were known for the three F’s. Gramps’ generation was known forfamilyand had procreated like crazy. My dad’s generation was known forfightingand had cursed most us because some of our relationships rarely lasted. And my generation—which was the best one in my opinion—was known forfucking.

Fucking backwards.

Fucking missionary.

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