Page 34 of Read the Room

He ran into my arms to wrap his arms around my neck. I looked up at Lo, who wore a smile. Today, when Lucas came home from Mama Bee’s house, he decided that he just had to have chicken nuggets and fries for dinner. That was not what I prepared for dinner, so that was not what we would eat. When I told him no, he had the nerve to tell Ethan to go get him some. Ethan told him no, so he started to show his ass.

I figured he just had a long day or missed his nap. Fast forward to dinnertime when Lo was home, I set Lucas’s plate of spaghetti in front of him. This little boy picked his plate up and threw it toward me. When I grabbed him to lift him out of the booster seat, he hit me. Lucas was far from a perfect two almost three-year-old, but he had never done anything like that.

Lo stood up, looked at me, then asked me one question—Can I handle my son?After I gave him approval, he grabbed my baby up, went into the living room, and tore his behind up. Well, he hit him across his bottom like five times. After, he sat on the floor with Lucas and explained to him why he spanked him and what he did wrong. My emotions were all over the place, so I went into the bedroom I shared with Lo.

I never had to spank Lucas. Sure, I gave him a pop here or there, but I never spanked him. What turned my emotions upside down was Lo’s cautious effort to explain why he spanked him. When I was younger, if my mother spanked me, she never cared to tell me why.

After Lucas loosened his arms from my neck, he turned around to face Lo. It was then that Lo’s smile broke through.

“Come here, man.” He scooped Lucas up in his arms and hugged him. “You did good, man. Remember, you can’t watchLittle Einsteinsfor three sleeps, okay?”

“Okay. I ’pololize for not reading the room.” Lucas’s voice was soft as he kept eye contact with Lo.

Lo cupped the back of his head. “It’s alright, man. I don’t always read the room right.” We both laughed when Lucas dropped his mouth, and his eyelids widened. “Yeah, I don’t, but real men sit down, think about it, apologize if they have to, and do better next time.”

With a smile, Lucas said, “Okay, I do better next time. Three sleeps? Tonight is sleep one?”

“Yes, tonight is sleep one,” Lo confirmed. He kissed Lucas’s cheek. “Okay, we’re gonna go clean the floor before we all sit down and eat.”

Once my baby was on his feet, he ran out of the room after he told us that he would get the mop. He wasn’t allowed to get the cleaning products, but he could get the equipment.

“Thank you so much. I don’t know what happened. He’s been fussy since he got home.”

He pulled me into his arms by my ass.

“He’s two. Trust me. We got more hell upon us.” He kissed my lips. “It’s all about knowing how we deal with it. Wait until we have our lil girl.”

He let me go, smacked my ass, then told me to come on so that we could eat.

A lil girl?

During dinner, I decided it was a great time to broach a certain sensitive topic. Lo’ak was careful with his words when he was in front of Lucas. I wanted to use that to my advantage.

“Hey, baby. A little bit ago, my mother got in contact with me. She invited me to lunch, and I think I’m going to go.”

His eyes flicked upward from his plate for a brief second.

“No. That’s not going to work. We’ll talk about it later before we go to bed.”

He eyed me coldly, which let me know that he more than likely knew that I brought it up at that time to be slick.Observant niggas make me sick!

Shit was crazy right now.My team was working overtime to get this Jeremy nigga, who for whatever reason, won’t come up off this price on my woman’s head. From the word on the streets, he was just salty as fuck since we shut all his traps down in the most disrespectful way. See most would have robbed their traps, but nah, that was not what I wanted to do. I didn’t want his dope or money, because technically, it was mine. I wanted him to know that it was fuck him and all that shit, so I set all his traps on fire at the same damn time. The firetrucks were busy that night.

Jeremy’s little crew called themselves knocking off people in my crew, but the problem was that he was knocking off niggas who had no connection with me. That was what made this shitdetrimental. I wasn’t sure who his informant was, but they gave him horrible information. The people that Jeremy’s crew were hitting were people from another crew that was not connected to me and other innocent people. He was bringing too much heat to the streets. There were certain times in the streets where crews had to come together to defeat a common enemy.

Jeremy was smart by not coming in to do his own dirty work. He sent lil boys who didn’t know any better. People who were clearly expendable to him. A person who cared wouldn’t send their people on suicide missions. For every one person that Jeremy’s crew took out, our combined crew took out two of his. That wasn’t good enough for me or Sully. We wanted Jeremy.

The streets had me coming into the house later than normal and more agitated. When I was in a relationship with Alexi, I didn’t give a damn about when I came into the house because I could pacify her with money. That was all her ass cared about. Tsireya was not that woman. She would rather my time over my money. That was the type of thing that made me love her.

Reya never complained when I came in later. Dinner was in the microwave, the house was clean, and Jedi was in bed. She took care of the house and her schoolwork. When Reya’s classes started, Simone suggested that I allow Jedi to go back to Mama Bee’s. SJ had started going to Mama Bee after he got out of school, so I said that was cool. Ethan or Joey did the drop off and pick up.

Last week, I told Sully that I needed to have my ass in the house by a certain time. My relationship with Reya was new, so I felt like we didn’t have enough time invested for her to give me this much grace. Sully had been with Simone for so long that she had a full understanding of what shit was. Plus, Simone managed a strip club that stayed open late.

I was happy that I did start coming home earlier because as fast as Jedi got used to me being there, he got used to me notbeing there as well. I never wanted him to get used to me not being there. What Reya didn’t know was that Mama Bee had been on my ass too. She called me over to her house about the change in Jedi’s behavior. I didn’t think I was the cause of it, but she felt different.

She pointed out that he never had a real male influence until me. I came in and got him used to a routine, then it abruptly stopped. After an hour of conversation, I made the choice to put my new family first and delegate a little better. Tonight let me know that I made the right decision. When that lil nigga threw that plate of spaghetti on the floor, I think my heart stopped. It started to pump again when he hit his mother though.

Tonight was the first time that I’d disciplined Jedi physically. Reya and I had a conversation previously about what methods were alright with her as far as when it came to me disciplining Jedi. Spanking in moderation was fine.

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