Page 3 of Read the Room

“What I think of you doesn’t matter, Kevin. The only thing that matters is myself and my child.”She meant that from the bottom of her heart.“I know you’re graduating, so I wish you well in all your endeavors.I’ll make sure I call you once the baby is born and not a moment before.”

Her cool, calm, and collected attitude about this situation took Kevin by surprise. He had a pregnancy claim or two in the past. One resulted in the girl agreeing to an abortion, which he paid for in full. The other, the girl refused and self-proclaimed herself as his baby mama from hell. She gave him hell the entire time she was pregnant. Her silence came with the paternity results proving that he was not the father. After a few more words, the call ended.

Tsireya sat in her disappointment for a moment to allow herself to feel all of the feelings. She gave herself an hour to cry and wallow in the hurt, sadness, and disappointment. After that hour, Tsireya got up, straightened her back, and put her warrior hat on. It was time for her to grow up even more because she was about to step into a new chapter—motherhood.

A Few Years Later…

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Right there, AK!”Alexi yelled into my ear as if I didn’t have an eardrum.

She knew I didn’t care for that loud shit, but yet, here we were. The only time she got loud like this was when she wanted me to think I was doing more than I actually was.

After our three years together, I had taken the time to learn my girl. If her ass was doing all this extra shit, it meant she was about to hit me with a big money request. Alexi was twenty-four when I got with her. At twenty-six, I was already a made nigga. I started to beat the block when I was thirteen years old to make sure my grandmother didn’t have to struggle too tough.Beulah Mae Jordan, Mama Bee or Ma as I called her, was my everything. Mama Bee was what the block called her.

By the time Alexi met me, I already had several businesses or was a silent partner in others. I would never call myself the connect, but I was the weight man. Just about everything flowed through my hands when it came to getting what was needed to make certain demographics feel good. I learned from my mentor, Geo, how to move and not to move when it came to how to effectively and intelligently manage my money. I took over Geo’s empire when I was twenty-three years old with my best friend Sullivan, or Sully, right by my side. A lot of niggas didn’t like that he chose to pass it down to me, but I’d proven myself to be the man that could take the shit to higher heights.

Alexi was spoiled beyond belief, and that was my fault. Not really my fault, because you’re supposed to spoil your woman. Where I messed up at was not making sure she was worth spoiling. I had love for my girl, but I couldn’t say that I’d ever been in love with her. I wasn’t a nigga out here on ho shit. That was the shit that got niggas caught up and killed. One of the lessons Geo taught me was to find your queen as soon as possible and lock her down. Stay true and loyal to your queen.

My name was never in these streets behind another bitch after I made it official with Alexi. My issue with my girl was just that she still had a girl mindset. She had yet to fully transform into a woman and was still making moves like a little girl. With age and growth, maturity should come, but that was not what I saw when it came to Alexi.

“I want to have your baby! Give me your baby!”

Welp, that’s the end of that shit.My dick softened instantaneously. There was nothing sexy about what she said. You would have thought that she knew that since this was not the first or second time that she’d said that and my dick went on limp mode.

“Man, get up.”

This was that shit about being a faithful nigga. Most niggas would have had another bitch to slide into when their girl pissed them off, wasn’t doing right, or just because. I wasn’t that man. Mama Bee always told me that ‘too many bitches in the mix turns life into messy soup.’I hated soup.

“AK, what the fuck? I only had like two nuts,” Alexi complained.

She sat up with her back against the headboard. She was a naturally beautiful girl, but like a lot of women, someone had riddled her with insecurities. The second year in our relationship, she told me that she wanted to go on a girls’ trip. I gave her the money without the knowledge that this girls’ trip to the Dominican Republic was to go to a build-a-body clinic. She came back and looked like a completely different female.

Was her new body bad? Yes, to the average, basic nigga. I wasn’t him, so I preferred my woman natural. When we discussed her new body, she claimed she did it for me, but I knew better. My girl loved attention from other niggas more than she loved it from me. She had this stupid concept that other men should want a taken woman more than the man who she was taken by. I agreed that men wanted a woman that was wanted, but not when the woman did extra shit to draw the attention.

I stood from the bed to get what I needed to handle my hygiene. I had shit to do today.

“Shit, at least you got those two. I ain’t get shit.”

I heard her mumbles about what I said. Since she didn’t say it loud enough for me to hear, I assumed it was something disrespectful. She knew I didn’t play that disrespectful shit. She knew how far to take it with me before she went too damn far.

Today was the day that I went to spend time with Mama Bee. I moved in with my grandmother when I was ten yearsold. Mama Bee had my mother Maelee, or Mae, when she was thirteen years old. My mother had me when she was sixteen. My grandmother was always heavily involved in my life. When I was ten, my mother met a man that wanted to take her with him out of state. She wanted to take me, but Mama Bee didn’t like the idea.

She suggested that my mother leave me with her. At first, my mother told her no, but after the dude said it was a good idea, she agreed. My mother came back often to see me, and I even went to her once. When I came back after that first time and told Mama Bee that I didn’t like the dude, I never went back again. The same dude that I didn’t like was the same bitch nigga that took my mother’s life when I was fifteen years old.

My mother’s death devastated me. It wasn’t like she was never around. I talked to her almost every day and saw her just about every other week. She was there for my birthdays, football games, and other shit. Nathan Doorman was the man that took her from me. Geo made sure that I was the man that took Nathan from his family. He was the first body of many that had fallen by my hands.

When I finished with my hygiene, I walked out of the bathroom with a towel around my waist. Alexi was where I left her on the bed. I anticipated that since she hadn’t asked me what she wanted.

“You good?” I asked her.

Her shoulders lifted to her ears. “I’m good. Do you want my mouth to catch that nut that you didn’t get? I’ll take care of that for you.”

Oh, she must want something big.

“Yeah. You could do that. I don’t need all that fancy shit you like to do. Just get this nut out of me. I got shit to do,” I instructed.

She rolled her eyes as she climbed off the bed naked. Her body was sculpted nicely, but I hated that it didn’t do much to me just at the mere sight of it. When she got in front of me, she dropped to her knees before she loosened the towel from around my waist. My dick hardened after she jacked it a few times. Her tongue circled the tip of my dick as she looked up at me.Here she goes.

“Alexi, get the nut out, baby. I don’t need a dick sucking production.”

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