Page 6 of Love me Like XO

“I feel you, but if we’re the one starting it then we’ll finish it. Some things are necessary.”

“Alright then, I don’t want to hear your mouth when this shit starts with your over worrying ass.”

I spent the last half of my day at the warehouse before I went to visit my auntie in the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t sleep much because it was too much shit out here to do, too much money to be made.

“Still not sleeping?” My aunt looked at me, then over at the clock.

“I sleep, old woman. Probably about to get me a nap on your couch before I cut out.”

She laughed. “Go ahead to your room. Porter will be here in a few and so will the wedding planner. Don’t nobody wanna see you laid up on my couch sleep.”

I chuckled, still not believing she was getting married at her big ole age. “You’re really doing this, Tete?”

“Uh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I? Porter i?—”

“Is a good dude. He is, but that doesn’t mean you gotta go say vows.”

“And why not?” She looked at me for a while, before shaking her head. “Love is beautiful, Zero. Love is the reason we were put on this earth. To love and be loved.”

“I hear you.” I physically heard her, but I wasn’t listening. My auntie was the same person who used to say love was for suckers, now look at her out here finna be a sucka.

“Porter has some pretty daughters by the way and they’re some smart girls. You might mess around and like one of them.”

I waved her off. “Don’t be tryna play matchmaker, old lady.”

“I’m not.” She threw her hands up in surrender.

After she made me a plate, I went upstairs and closed my eyes for about forty-five minutes then I took a shower and dressed from my trunk bag before I heard voices downstairs. I for sure didn’t want to get caught up in that shit, so I went down the back stairs, only to be met with Porter standing on the back balcony pulling from what smelled like that good shit.

“Get up outta here while you can. Got my old ass in there trying cakes and shit.” He pulled from the blunt and looked off into the distance. Then he held it out for me to take.

I accepted it. “How many of them?”

“Too fucking many. I just had to call my baby girl to come help me with this shit.”

I pulled from the blunt seconds before I heard my auntie’s voice coming toward us.

“Toss it,” Porter spoke quick as hell.

I did what he said and flicked the perfect ass blunt over the banister, before looking toward the doorway that my auntie filled three seconds later.

“Empress is in the front, Porter. I didn’t know you were still here, Zero. ”

When I heard the name, I immediately did a double take, but before I could focus enough my auntie was locking her arm in mine and pulling me back into the house. “Come meet, Empress.”

Of course when we reached the living room there her fine ass stood acting like she was listening to anything the woman infront of her was saying. Porter walked over and threw his arm around her shoulder, before turning to look my way and my auntie’s.

“Zero, this is my daughter, Empress. Baby girl this i?—”

“We met last night at the bar,” she interrupted her father, who nodded.

Somehow my auntie suckered me into staying plus lowkey I was trying to see what was up with Empress, so it wasn’t that much suckering. While my auntie and Porter stood back, Empress and I ended up tasting the cake. I didn’t like none of that shit, but she delighted in the lemon one and the strawberry one. Both of them were too fucking sweet in my opinion.

When it was just she and I in the kitchen I finally took her all the way in. This fucking woman was radiant. “You’re going to fuck around and have a stomachache after this shit.” I glanced over at her while she tasted what seemed like the thousandth fucking cake.

“Probably. How did they sucker you into this?” She sat the little cake plate down and peered up at me.

“I was on my way out the door when she said yo’ name,” I replied honestly.

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