Page 7 of For the Love of City
He stopped his pacing and turned to me surprised. “Who?”
“Reina.”
“Reina? Wanna be a down ass bitch Reina? With her old ass? I saw her trying to flirt with some of them boys on the corner and I had to let them know that was Dae’s old lady. She really out here trying to find a sugar kid or some shit.”
“A sugar kid?” I hated to ask because Travis didn’t have sense most of the time so I already knew it was something stupid.
“Her ass was old enough to be they mama so I can’t call them her sugar daddy.”
I started to laugh and I wasn’t sure if it was from the weed, his words or both. It felt good though to have this nigga take me out of the hateful headspace I’d been in.
“Bruh, she offered me this girl.” Getting that out sobered me up again and pissed me back off. I rubbed at my face trying to determine how I was going to tell this girl why she was here.
“For what?”
With the way Trav’s head was reared back, I knew he was about to go off the same way I had. When I got word that Reinahad gotten a beat down I’d just go on with business as usual. Shit, I might beat him to talking to some girls that cooked for us to do the honors.
My brows rose cause I knew this nigga wasn’t just talking about how wild people were but now wanting to act naïve. “What you mean for what? What you think?”
“Just like that?”
“Ain’t seem to give two fucks what I did with her, which is pissing me off.” I was itching to grab that blunt again but I braced my arms on my knees to stop myself.
“She know?”
And this is why despite being a fucking clown Trav was always gone be my nigga. He might be a fool, but he had a heart of gold. He hadn’t even met this chap yet and he gave more of a fuck about her than her damn mama.
“Nah. I refuse to be the person to damage her self-esteem like that. I can tell that she probably ain’t heard a kind word since her daddy died. Hearing that her mama didn’t care what happened to her on top of her giving her up is too much. I can’t break her like that just cause her mama’s stupid. She’d internalize that shit real quick and then we got bigger problems on our hands than what to do with her when we gotta make a play. Didn’t we?”
“Yeah but I’m saying some shit you ain’t gone be able to hide. Does her ass look smart?”
“Does she look smart? Like explain this to me like I’m as stupid as you sounding right now because what does looking smart have to do with anything? I swear I be wondering where I picked you up from.”
“I’m saying if she looked like she had any sense she’s probably already figured out her mama ain’t shit, City. Me and you were much younger than her when we realized it. Besides, we supposed to be linking with them niggas next week to finalizethis protection shit. So that we ain’t sitting on the block and can really run shit the way we need to. How we gone handle that?”
I hadn’t even thought about the meeting we had next week, which showed just how off my square I was. That meeting had been the only thing I gave a fuck about for the last few weeks since the connect fell into my lap and now Reina’s ass was fucking up not only her kid’s future but potentially mine as well.
I scratched my cheek hating that I hadn’t shaved before I left the house. Shit was itching and was gone have me scratching like a fiend if I let it stay too long.
“We not missing that. The last thing I’m going to let them do is move on from us. But one thing I won’t do is pass her over to the next nigga that Reina might try to ship this girl off to. They might not end up as solid as us, lil baby gotta be traumatized and then we gotta murk that nigga and her mama. Not to mention carrying the guilt because we could’ve prevented it. Nah, not on our watch.”
“Facts. So it’s take your daughter to drug business day or some shit.” He nodded like the plan was set but the only problem was we hadn’t discussed any of this shit with her.
“I can’t call it.”
“Damn. So we got a kid?”
It seemed like the realization of this had just hit him and he looked mildly discomforted. Trav’s pretty boy ass had his braids freshly done and as always was dressed and looking like he just stepped out the house. Because of how he was neglected he had a thing about cleanliness and making sure he looked good. My mama was neglectful but she was never dirty. It’s the one thing I could give her credit for.
“Apparently, my nigga.”
“How she taking this shit?”
I looked around because surely he could see the damn girl wasn’t nowhere near me so how the fuck would I know?
“How you think she taking it? How would you feel if the mama who has basically ignored you for the last few years upped and dumped you with a grown ass man you ain’t even know?”
Again, all he could do was nod his head empathetically. We knew we were two stand up men but she didn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if her ass didn’t try to hop out a window or some shit the first chance she got.
