Page 12 of Only if You Catch Me
“I lost our child. You haven’t called or come by.”
“Toya, I’m dealing with enough. Irrelevant bullshit has had me stressed. I’m not in the mood to argue with you. If I come to see you, or if I’m constantly calling, it’s going to send mixed signals.”
“Send mixed signals to who? Because you made it painfully clear that you have no use for me if I can’t give you a child.”
“This shit is stupid as hell, and I’m not entertaining it. You be easy, Toya.” With flaring nostrils, I ended the call.
I had made my desires very clear. How things still got misconstrued, I had no clue. Maybe I should have just gone with a surrogate and been a single father. It seemed that femaleswanting to be baby mamas for a come up were out in the streets heavy, but I managed to find one that fell in love with my ass. She knew that I wanted a child. Not a relationship, not a wife, but a child.
I pulled up to my homeboy’s lounge. They served some of the best turkey chops that I’d ever tasted. Anything I ate or drank in Quan’s spot, I paid for, and I tipped the servers well. But everyone that had been employed there for longer than a month knew that me and Quan were cool. Us being cool added in with the fact that I tipped well, and the staff always went above and beyond for me. If I ordered a double shot, I was given a quadruple shot. If I ordered a turkey chop, I got two huge ones and extra sides versus the regular one chop.
I frequented the lounge because of the good food and excellent service. Plus, it was always good to show love to a black owned business. Quan had never been a dope boy. He was a college graduate with NFL dreams. He didn’t make it to the NFL, so he worked the hell out of his plan B and was doing quite well for himself. Being a regular and the owner’s friend allowed me the privilege of getting through the door without being searched. My gun was tucked in the small of my back.
I was headed for an empty spot at the bar when I spotted Tesha. A lemon drop was in front of her. Changing my direction, I went over to speak to her though I was sure I wasn’t one of her favorite people. “What up, sis?”
Tesha rolled her eyes. “Am I your sister?”
All I could do was sigh and shake my head. “I told you about putting me in the middle of that shit. I did all that I knew to do, and I didn’t condone it. That man is grown, shawty. He’s going to do what he wants.”
“You’re right,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m here celebrating. Please don’t kill my vibe.”
“You’re celebrating alone?”
“No, my realtor is coming. I’m celebrating the fact that I put an offer on a house, and it was accepted. Your boy is officially single and ready to do hoe shit like mingling.”
I chuckled. “I’m proud of you. Drinks on me,” I got the bartender’s attention. “Put her drinks on my tab. Let me get a double shot of Patron.” After my drink was ordered, I stared at Tesha.
“It’s like that, huh? You go to another realtor to get your house. Ouch, that hurts.”
Tesha shook her head. “I couldn’t risk you telling Ryder. It’s different this time. Last time I stayed with my mother for two weeks, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I don’t even know if I went back out of love or just wanting to leave my mother’s house. Ryder has made it clear that he’s not going to stop cheating, and I had to stand on business this time.”
“I respect that.”
I felt eyes on me. Intense eyes. Lifting my head, my orbs landed on Persia, and my dick bricked instantly. She looked uncertain about approaching, and it dawned on me that she was the realtor that Tesha was meeting. Small world.
Finally, Persia walked up on Tesha. “Hey, girl. I’m sorry I’m late. I got held up at home.”
Persia’s eyes were red. She was either high, or she’d been crying. Crying women were my weakness. I couldn’t stand to see it.
“Hey boo,” Tesha greeted Persia. “You okay?” she too had noticed Persia’s somber mood.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“This is my ex’s best friend, Kastian. Kastian this is Persia.”
“Nice to meet you,” I stared at her intensely. Partly because she was that damn fine and also because she looked troubled.
The situation with David had to be a tough one for her. I meant every word when I said he didn’t deserve her. Beinghonest, I probably didn’t either. Persia wasn’t the kind of woman that you willingly wanted to play games with. Even when her husband was in the wrong, she still held him down. That was admirable. Not taking the money back from me was admirable as well. I wondered how such a real female ended up with a lame like David.
“Hi,” Persia mumbled with a forced smile.
I gave a quick head nod and waved the bartender over. I asked her to add Persia’s drinks to my tab as well. I then went to find a booth to sit at. I didn’t plan to be there too long. I just wanted some strong stiff drinks and some good food. I downed my drink and ordered two more. There were quite a few beautiful women in the lounge, but I wasn’t on that type of time. Some days, I wondered why I wasn’t in a relationship. To a young nigga, sleeping around and having an abundance of women was fun. It was a flex. That shit got real stale after a while though. Dealing with multiple women had just as many headaches as being with one.
The good thing about not being committed, however, was as soon as the headaches started, you could leave. All that sticking it out, fighting to make it work, sacrifice, and work didn’t sound appealing at all. Most times, it was one person doing most of the sacrificing. Always seemed to be one person putting in more work than the other. My first lesson on love came from my parents, and that lesson was traumatizing indeed.
For many years, my father had two women, and it wasn’t a secret. As far back as I could remember, every argument, every knock down drag out fight, was because of the other woman. My mother cried, yelled, threw things, physically attacked him, but three or four days later, he’d always end up back in her bed. It didn’t take me long to figure out that when he’d stay with us for long stretches of time like two or three months, it was becausehis other woman was done with him. But like my mother, she always came back.
It was confusing to me because I loved my pops, but when he made my mother cry, it did something to me. When he would choke her or push her, it made me hate him even if it was only for that moment. The older I got, I didn’t care to be around the shit. I didn’t know what kind of hold my father had on my mother, but I never wanted to have that kind of love for a person. He literally took the life out of her. My mother went from being a fly, well dressed chick, to not caring. All a person had to do was look at her, and they could tell that life was beating her down. Finally, when I was fifteen, it came to an end.
