Page 73 of Love me Like XO

“Ain’t that how you lost her in the first place? This no relationship shit?” Empress asked.

“Man, I know.” He rubbed his hand down his face. Irish loved Zarali, but he didn’t know how to admit it. Shit he was probably afraid. Mommy issues and shit, right? Either way, Zarali has always loved Irish, but she wasn’t gonna let him make a fool of her, and she didn’t. Question now is if she still loves him or if she just wants sex from him.

“You see that message in the family group chat?” he then asked attempting to change the subject.

“Nah, what did yo’ father say.” I just knew it was him talking. Him or his ho ass daughter.

“He said some shit about us all being family and needing to come together. Basically his way of tryna alleviate the beef between Empress and Fiona.”

“Fuck boffum. When I have my kids and I’m one hundred, I’m fucking her up. Already told Zero that same shit about his sister.”

I cackled. “And if gang, gang don’t fuck with ‘em then I don’t either.”

Irish chuckled. “Sisters.”

“No, fuck that. I love our father, but he can take all that forgive and forget shit somewhere else. I wasn’t even two seconds out of the hospital and he’s telling me that we’re all blood and she was just Fiona. She might not have been in the driver’s seat, but she was there. I’m her blood and that was what she wanted to do.”

“Yo calm the fuck down. I’on need neither one of my ‘phews coming out too early or in any type of distress.” Irish mugged Empress.

I chuckled. “You might as well tell yo’ father that she ain’t for none of this peace shit he speaks of.”

“Not an aspect of it.” Empress stuffed the upside-down cupcake into her mouth.

“Well he ain’t only speaking it to her, but to you as well, lil’ Rambo. Considering the fact that you’re the reason she had to get stitches to keep her eye in the socket.” Irish directed his attention toward me.

“Welp. Tell yo’ daddy we ain’t kids no more. He can’t make motherfuckers kiss and get over shit, especially when Empress could’ve died. Her and his grandchildren. As a matter of fact if anything Fiona should have been forthcoming and remorseful. Instead I walked in and this bitch was trying to skip town.” Just thinking about that day made me want to pull up to my father’s house and beat Fiona’s ass again.

Irish nodded. “Told ‘em all this but he ain’t tryna hear it.”

“Well.”

“He has his way of dealing with his daughter and I have mine. Fuck all of the talking. Matter of fact let’s just change the subject. I don’t want to talk about either one of them anymore.”

I spent the better half of my day hanging out with my siblings until it was time for me to get my one appointment of the day over with and check on the shop. Though Empress had a manager, I still did what she usually did when she was there. Refilling stock, checking in and going over the numbers.

My customer for the appointment ended up being twenty minutes late, then when she walked in she acted like she had a whole ass attitude. She acted like she knew me, but I had never seen this bitch’s face a day in my life. Whereas it usually took me no time to get into the groove of things, with her I never fully got into it, because her bucket head ass wouldn’t stop moving. Then when I asked her to stop moving she’d suck her teeth and blink about a million fucking times.

Finally my professionalism jumped out of the window, and I couldn’t take it anymore. She had half an eye on andwas popping gum loud as hell with her eyes closed. Not to mention she was holding her phone up because she was on FaceTime with some ghetto ass broad who was not only fucking somebody’s man, but also trashy as fuck. From what I gathered she was a stripper from over east.

“Will you be still?” I said for the millionth time, only for her to suck her teeth.

“Unless you wanna leave up outta here with a half-finished job, I’d advise you to lose the attitude and keep still.”

“Gir—”

I pulled back and stood to my feet. “You know me or something? ‘Cause you came in this bitch with an attitude, and now you got the fucking audacity to be disrespectful.” Yeah, I was done because if I did any more I was liable to send this bitch blind and deck her in her fucking jaw.

“I mean you should know me shouldn’t you? Bitches think they’re the shit because they marry the hood ballers, but you not.” By now she was sitting up and gathering herself to leave. She even knew I wasn’t about to finish this shit.

I was thrown for a loop. “Excuse me?”

She stood to her feet like she was about to leave, but instead began to speak, “You Malik’s bitch right? I been sucking that nigga’s dick for years and fucking him whenever he wanted to and he wasn’t married. Now the nigga married to yo’ basic ass and won’t even take my fucking calls. It’s plenty of bitches he was fucking an?—”

I didn’t give her a chance to finish her statement before I sent my fist into her jaw. The first hit grazed her chin, but that left definitely landed, causing her to stumble into the corner. Then before she could recover I got her ass again, this time making sure both hits landed. Hos had to learn that I wasn’t the one to play with, and I was for sure not about to play about mine. I’d deal with him later. This bitch was about to be a messageto every other female that thought pulling up on me or booking through my site to address me about my nigga was a good idea.

Grabbing the Barbie doll ass weave she had, I lifted her fucking head. “Don’t you ever, and I mean ever bring yo’ busted ass back in my shit telling me about a nigga. Especially not a nigga who I know for a fact ain’t seeing ‘bout you. If you wanna see me, see me on the streets but this space right here is off fucking limits. Get you a good fucking look, because I promise you next time you won’t make it up outta here. Now get the fuck up and out before shit gets critical.”

As soon as I finished speaking I heard Jess, the shop manager, before he turned the corner into the space. “You good back here, Ree?”

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