Page 48 of For the Love of City
“It’s just that simple.” Again, probing instead of definitive.
“Yeah.”
“‘Cause I’m Lyric’s friend?”
Now we got to what this was about. This hesitation for her to be upfront about what she wanted so she tried to downplay it all.
“Cause I’m your gotdamn man. Because I fucking love you, Porsha.”
I spoke harshly but I was also dead ass. The emotions that flickered over her face ranged from shock to awe to disbelief back to shock.
“The fuck? So you weren’t just saying that?” Her eyes were wide and her brows were damn near gone under her hairline. She was still wearing that tight ass cowgirl shit I couldn’t wait to peel off of her. But the first thing I needed to do was reassure her that she should never doubt my word.
“Why would I just be saying anything? Do you know how old I am? I ain’t just saying shit to anybody. Especially not someone I already got the pussy. Because that’s what you’re getting at. You think that access to your body is your payment for my concern for you but it’s not. The access to your heart is. Your allowing me into your heart is. And honestly, even if I didn’t have your heart I would still give a fuck about you because of the person that you are. You think that if this shit with us didn’t work out that I would just wipe my hands of you, Porsha? Where this nigga at so I can go fuck his ass up for how he got you thinking for real?”
I knew about the last muthafucka she’d let call himself her man and he was on my list of people to fuck up. But I wasn’t doing shit with her past until she agreed I was her future.
“I…I just thought after the last time that we talked that you weren’t on that type of time.” Her voice was tight with emotion and even in the dark I could see her wiping her face.
I reached over and put my hand on her knee. “Yeah, I’m not pressing you for shit. But what else did I say?”
“You said a lot of shit, City, narrow it down.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, since she was being sarcastic even as she was crying. “Smart ass. I told your ass that we know what we are. And now so does your home girl. And since none of y’all can keep a damn thing from the other I’m sure the phone tree has been activated. Then the one person you didn’t want to know about us is gonna be mad that she didn’t know about it from jump.”
She groaned, like the idea of that was stressing her out. “We are all way too close.”
“And you love that shit. You see how your girl took the revelation in stride? That’s exactly how Lyrie will take it.”
She cut her eyes at me like I was pushing it and maybe I was. But I knew Lyric loved Porsha and me loving her too wouldn’t be a problem. “You’re assuming.”
I huffed a laugh and shook my head confidently. “I know my youngin. The worse she will do is be mad we ain’t tell her spoiled ass sooner. But, aye, that lil Indian muthafucka—”
“He’s Iranian—”
My brows dipped harshly at the way I saw him pressing Yz until he saw that she had me looking out for her. And even then, his ass thought he could finesse her into going somewhere with him. Shady bitch.
“I couldn’t give two fucks what he is. He’s a problem and he liked being one. I know the people he’s out here representing and it ain’t a good look.”
“Somebody you do business with or somebody you dobusinesswith?”
“The latter. Him being out here on some creep shit gone have a whole investigation launched on him.”
“Cause you’re going to see to it, right?” She smirked like she was proud and I was glad she knew I was gone handle shit before it got too far. I’m sure Sampson’s ass was handing Yzzy her get right as we drove home.
“Fucking right. I don’t like that shit. The way he was looking at y’all? Nah. I know a gimme a hug ass nigga when I see one. How many times Yz had to tell that nigga to back up before I got there?”
Porsha didn’t bother lying because she couldn’t stand his ass either. “She was shooting his ass down all day. Shit, more than that, honestly.”
“And yet he still followed y’all to a bar in the middle of nowhere? Yeah, let me go ahead and make that call.”
“Make a call? Nigga, who are you?”
I took my eyes off the road to stare at her as I said flat as hell, “I’m Batman.”
She hollered laughing as I kept heading back toward my townhouse because she ain’t need to know shit until she needed to know shit.
“Nobody would believe this dry ass nerd sense of humor you have.”
