Page 14 of Anything Necessary for Her
“No. I do what I do so you won’t fucking have to. I didn’t get in this shit for fun, nigga.”
“Man, fuck you!” He waved me off and tried to step off, but I grabbed his ass up by his pajama shirt, slamming him into the wall.
“Fuck you say?”
Wyatt stared into my eyes, mouth balled up and nostrils flaring before relenting, saying, “Nothing.”
“Thought so, lil nigga. You think you grown, but you not. Keep running ya fucking mouth, and I’ll give you a grown man ass whupping.” I dropped him.
Fixing his collar, he said nothing as he stomped toward the back where his room was.
Needing a release, I went to my own bedroom, the master, and showered in the en suite. After, I rolled up and sparked the shit to inhale as “Double Up” by Nipsey Hussle flowed gently through my room so that I wouldn’t wake the house.
I oscillated between sipping the Don Julio from Asif, to taking tokes on the blunt until my system relaxed. I would never know true tranquility.
As much money as I had, I couldn’t even live alone because my fucking mama was incompetent and had been since a nigga was around ten years old. Therefore, I had to assume the parental role for my brother and sister.
I had rare and spotty memories of the days when my mama was sober, but for the most part, she’d always been unavailable, unpredictable, and lacking any maternal instincts since I was a boy. I’d been in the streets since I was in elementary, finding ways to make bread and feed myself. Some of those times while she was out with a new nigga, getting knocked up, hence the two additional children. Though if you asked her, Wyatt and I shared a father, which I didn’t fucking believe.
I’d caught my first body when I was twelve, so by the time I met Asif, I thought I wasthatnigga. My life had me thinking I knew every fucking thing until he showed me I didn’t know shit.All I knew was the quickest way to end up dead or in somebody’s prison.
My phone rang, and when I looked to see it was Gaia, I sent her ass to voicemail and put my shit on silent.
As I lay back, listening to Dom Kennedy run his verse, I prayed a nigga would be able to sleep tonight because it was the only time I got some semblance of peace.
When Banks’s face appeared behind my shut lids, I allowed it. Though alarmed by this, I still welcomed the calm just her perfect ass face brought a nigga for some reason.
“Okay, it’s . . . free dance time!”I shouted to my junior dance class.
Prolific had started having little ten-dollar dance classes and asked for some of the dancers to volunteer teaching. Only a few of us agreed to it, which was surprising to me. I loved having the opportunity to meet little girls who had the same dreams as me, and for only ten bucks. When I was their age, my parents had to pay hundreds of dollars for my ballet classes, and the instructors weren’t nearly as nice as me and some of my peers.
As the little girls danced around the room happily, a man in the doorway of the classroom caught my eye. Like every other time I’d seen Low since Vegas, my stomach began churning, and my palms started to sweat. I’d never met a man who made me nervous yet excited at the same time.
Making my way toward him to find out, one, why he was here, two, how he even found me, and three, if he knew aboutBrenden Maddox, I did my best to keep my composure and not show him how anxious he had me feeling.
“What’s good?” He frowned, almost as if he hadn’t been expecting me.
“Did you hear about the boy?” I whispered, getting right to it.
“Damn, Banks.” He leaned up off the doorway. “I did.”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
He stared down into my eyes momentarily before responding, “Weain’t doing nothing. I got it covered.”
“Let me help you. You did this for me.”
“I appreciate that, baby, but I been doing what I do for a while and don’t need any help.”
“I don’t want you going down for anything.”
“I won’t.” He inhaled sharply just as one of my students, Waverley, rushed up and hugged him.
The sight made me smile and step back, though I was confused on their relationship. Low didn’t have a kid, did he? Shit, maybe he did. It wasn’t like I was keeping tabs on his ass over the past years.
Once he stopped coming around and I started to get older, I rarely, if ever, thought about him. That was why it was so insane the effect he had on me now. It was nostalgic, reminding me of the days I was crushing on him hard.
Only now it wasn’t as childlike and unworldly. It was real.
