Page 56 of Wasn't Supposed To Be Yours
“You must be Tank?” my mom greeted him, with a smile on her face.
“Yes ma’am. Wow. I see Dionne’s resemblance on you. Ya’ll are just different colors,” he said to her.
“Calling me ma’am makes me feel old. Call me Antoinette. How are you doing?” she asked him, and I looked over at Tommie, who rolled her eyes. I knew she was going to do that because our mama swore she was a hot girl and didn’t want to be called ma’am in any lifetime. I laughed at Tommie’s expression.
“I’m doing pretty good. I can’t complain,” he let my mom know.
Their introduction was brief. I’m sure that with the circumstances of what Dionne was dealing with right now, that’swhat made it so brief. Any other time, my mom would have drilled him, just as she would do with any guy that we’ve ever brought around.
She told Tank that the two of them would have their moment to talk, and he let her know that that was fine. Tank walked over, and he spoke to me, Tommie, and Blake. He stood right in front of me, since Dionne was lying on me still. The flowers and the bear that he had in his hands, he sat them down on the small coffee table that was here, and literally like my sister weighed a pound, he picked her up, and he carried her to the back. I used this moment to finally stand, stretch my legs, and my arms.
I went into Dionne’s kitchen area, taking a seat at the island in one of the stools, as my mom was turning the stove off.
“I’m worried about her,” I whispered it because even though Tank had taken Dionne to the back, I didn’t want her to hear me.
“I am too, but I know that she is going to be okay. She’s just going to hurt for a little bit, but she’ll shake through it. Who the hell do you think could have done this shit? You know how crazy you gotta be to kill a fuckin dog?” my mama said, and I nodded my head, agreeing with her.
“You know the cops asked Dionne if she was currently beefing with anyone, so that they could find out who did it, but she said that she didn’t have any issues with anyone. You know she got into it with this girl that Tank was dealing with at the football game, and even when she told Tank that, he told her that he didn’t think that the girl had anything to do with it. She don’t even know where Dionne lives to do some shit like that. I asked her if she felt like Garrus had anything to do with it because you know at one point, he was popping up on her, but Dionne said that she didn’t think Garrus had anything to do with it because he was the one that bought her the damn dog. I don’t know ma. The shit is crazy. Even when I heard the audio, that shit sounded just like Dionne, so I can kind of understand why the girl at thepet spot gave him the dog. All this AI shit is crazy. That’s why I can’t get into it,” I voiced, and my mom stood back, with her arms folded, listening to everything that I was saying.
The food was eventually ready, and I was the first one washing my hands, ready to fix my plate. Tending to Dionne, I haven’t had anything to eat since this morning. My mom had thrown down, making herb- roasted chicken, with creamy garlic mashed potatoes, and some roasted asparagus. I knew that this was one of Dionne’s favorite meals, which is the reason why she cooked it.
Blake was the one to go to the back, so that she could ask Dionne if she wanted something to eat, but of course, she told her no. I was so worried about my sister. Seeing her like this was triggering the hell out of me, causing me to think back on that hurtful time in all our lives, losing Nivea. I knew that this wasn’t going to be something easy for her to get over, but I do pray that she would eventually grow to find piece with the situation because right now, peace was the last thing that she had.
Chapter 17
Tavion ‘Tank’ Briggs
Confessions From My Cousin
It was 11 at night, and I was sitting downstairs at the dining room table, with my laptop in front of me, paying bills. The house was quiet. Dionne was upstairs, in my bed sleeping. After 72 hours, I finally got her to close her eyes, and sleep. That girl was so fuckin heartbroken over losing her puppy, and it hurt me because I liked to think of myself as the person that knew how to fix shit, but this was one of those things that I couldn’t fix.
I’ve always boasted on being able to pretty much do anything, saying how my pop- pop had instilled a lot of lessons into me, but nothing could fix this. All I could really do was be there for her and offer myself to her in any way that she was going to need me.
When Dionne hit me the other day, I thought that she was calling me to let me know that she was about to head back to my crib. I didn’t think I was going to answer the phone to her screaming, telling me that someone had killed her dog. When she called me, I was still at the shop, but I dropped everything that I was doing, so that I could head to her. When I got there, the cops were there, and they were questioning Dionne, along with the workers at the pet care spot. I saw the video of the man that had come, and requested the dog, and I’d never seenhim before in my life, and neither had Dionne. I even heard the audio, and that was some freaky ass shit because it did sound like Dionne’s voice from the footage that we saw. With all this modern-day technology, there really is no telling how they were able to do that shit.
When Dionne and I got back to her condo, she asked me if I believed that Renee would have something to do with this. I had to tell her that Renee’s brain wouldn’t go that far to pull some shit off like this. Renee was a hood bitch. She didn’t know shit about getting someone to come to Dionne’s condo, and take her damn dog, so I quickly winged her out. Dionne told me that she wasn’t beefing with anyone, and she didn’t know anyone that would want to kill her dog. She brought up her ex-nigga, which was the married man that she was fuckin around with, but she winged him out too, saying that he was the one that bought the dog for her, so he wouldn’t go to these extremes to have Bagel killed.
I was fast with my questions, asking her when was the last time that she saw that nigga, and she was stumbling with her story. I don’t know if she was still shaken up because of the shit that had gone down, but the shit that she was telling me about the last time that she saw him wasn’t connecting.
I was deep in thought, thinking about a lot of shit, when my business phone started ringing. It was Chris, the head manager at my Pure 24k location in Miami hitting me. He’d closed the store tonight, so I’m sure he was just calling to give me an update on how everything went.
“What’s up?” I answered for him, putting the phone to my ear.
“We’re leaving now. Closed successfully. Ay man, I don’t know where you found this Favor cat from, but he’s probably the hardest working nigga that we got here. He be busting his ass. He stayed back, helping me close the store. We were stocking theshelves, and he helped us wrap that shit up fast,” Chris told me, and that made me smile because I was scared to put Favor on when he came to me, asking for a job.
I just knew that niggas would come home from prison, and feel like something was owed to him, and that’s how beef tended to start. Favor didn’t come home on none of that shit though. He was putting in major work, coming in on time, and he didn’t slack off, simply because he knew me.
“I like that. Yeah, train that nigga up, show him all the ropes because when I open this new location, I’ll make him the manager there if he keeps it up. I got history with Favor. I grew up with him. Nigga used to be heavy in the streets. Did some dumb ass shit a few years ago, and he went to prison for it. He came home, and it was hard for him to find a decent paying job, so he asked if he could work for me, and I put him on. Glad to see the nigga doing his job,” I responded.
“Oh yeah. He doing one hell of a job. You real for giving him a chance,” Chris let me know.
He then went on to tell me how smooth the closing process was today, and that he would be back first thing tomorrow morning. We wrapped our conversation up, and the second one phone call ended, my personal phone was ringing.
Rico was hitting me. I accepted his call, putting it on speaker, sitting the phone on the table.
“What’s good?” I answered.
“Shit. You home? I need to talk to you about something,” he replied, and through his voice, you could pick up on the heaviness of it. I could tell that something was bothering Rico since the football game.
