Page 26 of Sugar Baby
“Oh God. Please don’t remind me. I’m starting to feel like the worst big cousin ever. Uncle Tony is going to keep you away from me, especially after he finds out my boyfriend did this to you.”
“Except he didn’t.” Tyreek patted the stool next to him. “Come sit down.”
I put the cookies on a serving tray, set them on the island, then sat next to him.
“Alright. Let me have it.”
I listened intently as he told me the exact same story from three days ago. He added to it that they weren’t robbing Sko; they were robbing Cash. Well, actually, they were robbing both. When Cash’s men found out, they picked the boys up and roughed them up. Tyreek was quickto assure me that Cash had nothing to do with that and had even punished the men for it.
“He was really mad about it, big cuz,” he continued, wiping the cookie crumbs from his mouth. “He sent bullets into their asses with the quickness, and you know that’s not his style.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, starting to feel horrible for jumping to the worst case scenario. I might not have known everything about Cash, but I knew enough to give him the benefit of the doubt and hear him out instead of assuming he’d hurt Tyreek.
“And you wanna know what else?”
“What?” I asked quietly as my mind raced.
“I was honest with Cash about why I’ve been trying to get so much money. Truth is, it’s because I do want to go to school and knew we wouldn’t be able to afford it.”
I gasped and clutched my heart. “Tyreek, you know . . .”
“I don’t want to hear it, Baby. You do enough for us. I didn’t want you stressing over how you were going to help me pay for school too. It doesn’t matter anyway because Cash said he’s going to pay for me to go as long as I stop being their friends and stay out of trouble.”
That made my tears fall. “He did?”
Tyreek nodded as he chewed. “He did. So I’on know what you gon’ have to do, but you need to fix things between the two of y’all. He’s really a good dude, and he cares about me. I ain’t never had no man care about me except Pops, so I’ma do right and make all y’all proud. And I’m sorry I’ve been giving you so much hell lately. You’re not a bad influence. You’re the best big cousin and sister I could ever have. I love you, Sugar Baby.”
Blinking away my tears only made them fall harder. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close. “I loveyou too, little cuz. You’re the best little brother a girl can have. And I’m so proud of you. You may have gone down a rocky path, but I’m proud of you for committing yourself to making it straight. And you know I got you.”
“Are you going to fix things with him?” he asked, releasing me. “You slapped the shit outta him, cuz. You better be glad his reflexes didn’t have him hitting you back. He was gonna have you flying across the yard like Debo did Red when he asked him about his bike.”
I cackled until my eyes watered. “Boy, what you know about that movie? It’s older than you.”
“So? It’s a classic. But I’m for real, Baby. That man vein popped out the middle of his head. God was definitely looking out for you.”
“If you don’t leave me alone,” I warned through my laughter.
Now that I knew the whole story, I did feel bad about that shit. I’d fix things between us later. Right now, my priority was my cousin and making sure his parents knew what was going on. I appreciated Tyreek affirming me and assuring I knew he loved me, but I just hoped his parents felt the same way.
It would have been a stretch for them to try and blame me for this, but I knew they’d want to spread the blame as much as they could. Even if all I did was withhold the truth after the robbery, that was enough to get on their bad side, and I hoped that wouldn’t be the case. They were literally all I had in this world, and if I lost them because of this, I wouldn’t be no more good.
Chapter
Sixteen
CASH
That situation with Tyreek and his friends had been plaguing me. I’d done a lot of shit in my day, but seeing them bloody and bruised and tied to chairs because they’d stolen from me broke something inside of me. My ethics and morals were being tested more and more these days. I wanted to retire even more now . . . especially if what happened caused me to lose Sugar Baby. Even though I knew she’d hear the truth eventually, I wondered if damage had already been done. If she’d trust me still. If she’d see me as a monster that she and her people weren’t safe with.
As I drove aimlessly, I thought about my next move and talked to God. I asked Him to give me wisdom through Mama when I finally talked to her about it. I didn’t know how much more I had left in me for this street shit. The product that was stolen could be replaced, but had things been taken too far and Tyreek lost his life, that was something I could never give back to Sugar Baby and her family.I’d never felt guilt over anything I did, but I felt guilty by association the moment I saw what Tremaine and Elijah had done to them.
As if God was tired of me running circles around in my mind, He had Mama to call me. I allowed the call to connect to Bluetooth and accelerated my speed.
“Wassup, Ma?”
“You tell me. I didn’t sleep all night last night, and I know it had something to do with you.”
That made me smile, because that was true. Any time I was going through shit and couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t either. I felt like that was God’s way of making sure there was someone on this Earth that could check in with me, because if I had it my way, no one would ever know when I was going through something.
