Page 3 of Love me Like XO

“Exactly,” Irish chimed in. “I don’t know why she’s coming to the wedding anyway. It ain’t like she’ on board with it. Fuck she gonna bring her drunk pissy ass mama for anyway.”

His end statement earned a laugh from me. He was right, but his delivery was horrible.

“Are y’all coming through tonight?” he asked, referring to his fight party Ree just told me about.

“Probably. My feet hurt.” Ree fake yawned.

“Bitch, yo’ feet don’ hurt. Lil’ hook’em is just tryna avoid Benson.” He cut his eyes in my direction.

I coughed hard as hell. “And if I was?”

“That’s yo’ cat shorty. I told you not to get involved with that nigga from jump. We make good money together, but that’s about it.”

Ree laughed. “What, you saying he’s a ho too?”

Irish threw his hands up in surrender and shook his head. “Some niggas ain’t for you. He ain’t for you and all that shit with him and Kandace is for the birds. That bitch be out here throwing bleach on bitches for him. That’s just too fucking crazy. He likes that shit though. Some niggas love that toxic mess.”

I shook my head. “It’s just sex, Irish.”

He nodded. “I hear you, but if that bitch throws bleach on you she’ll wish she was that fucking bleach.”

“On my mama,” Taree chimed in.

My siblings and I talked for a while longer, before leaving the shop. I was tired as hell and seconds from bailing on Ree when I realized she drove today, so it wasn’t like I had shit to do but ride the passenger while we headed to this place.

“This place got burgers?” I asked peering out of the window as her crazy driving ass went way above the speed limit as usual.

“And alcohol. You’re good, ‘Em.”

I nodded sitting back in my seat and enjoying the rest of the ride. When we reached the spot and she parked, I was hesitant as fuck to go in, because she made sure to leave out that this was a hood joint. Nothing against the hood joints, because I grew up in the hood, but every hood function ended with some slugs. It was never a moment when it didn’t, and bullets of course had no names.

“Really, bitch?” I asked as soon as we took a seat at the high table.

“Yeah, really. They’re fine in here and I needed something to look at, and probably give my time to.”

I laughed at the lie that escaped her tongue. “And Hadees?”

“What about him? He’s probably eating dinner with his mom right now.”

I shook my head. “You knew he was a mama’s boy when you met him. Hell, you sai?—"

“We were sixteen, Em. Now we’re grown as fuck, and he still thinks his mother is supposed to do everything with us. Shit she even spends the night at his house on the weekends.” I could tell that irritated her.

“I get it. Have you talked to him about it?”

“Have I? The nigga sees no problem with it, as a matter of fact he says he likes having his two favorite women under the same roof and that when we get married, he wants her to move in with us.”

I chuckled at the expression on her face.

“I just hate it because we have history. Ten years of that shit. Ten years of nothing changing and us forever being stagnant.”

I got where she was coming from one-hundred percent, but I also knew my sister enough to know that right now she was talking like this but next week she’d be ready to marry the nigga. Love was funny that way.

AIMES “ZERO” HUGES

Usually on days like this I closed the spot or steered clear and let somebody else run it, but I allowed Malik to talk me into sticking around and seeing what was to the money. Though it seemed to be a good idea I still would’ve liked to be in other spaces. I didn’t too much do the car scene or crowded spaces, but here we were. Though I owned Wally’s, I didn’t much frequent here because niggas were stupid, and drunk niggas were even stupider. I usually stayed in the office and had the bartenders and waitresses to tend up front under my watchful eye.

“You would’ve had your old ass in the bed. Look at all this potential in here.” Malik walked over to the bar with a beer in his hand.

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