Page 4 of Wasn't Supposed To Be Yours
I was sitting at the table, under the pavilion, and he was outside of it, posted alongside June, and about ten other dudes. It was Tank. June’s friend. The one that for whatever dumb assreason, everyone thought that me, and him would be a thing. Even with the kind of guys that I’ve dealt with in the past, and the type that I had, I would be lying if I said that Tank wasn’t an attractive looking man. He was honestly drop dead gorgeous, but in a very masculine kind of way.
I had a thing for chocolate men. Men that had rich chocolate skin, and that was well maintained, and Tank had just that. I loved a man with a good physical shape. Tank had that too. That body on him was worked out in a way to achieve it. The way his muscles were flexing out of his shirt, you didn’t just get that overnight. You had to put in work to get it. Then, his hair. I usually didn’t even like a man with hair. I preferred a man with waves, or a bald head. It’s like, I could make an exemption for him because he had beautiful jet-black hair, and it was styled in single twist, just as it was the past couple of times that I’ve seen him.
You could just tell that self-maintenance was a part of his routine. It showed in his skin. It showed in how well-groomed his facial hair was, and the hair on his head. He was super tall, like a professional NBA player.
The look that Tank had on was different, but damn, I liked it. His look screamed that he didn’t give a damn what anyone had to say about his outfit because when he put it on, he liked it. He had on a clean white tee, that I could see from here that was hugging his chest. That’s how I knew his muscles were so big. Since the top was short sleeved, the tattoos that I usually hated on men were showing, but again, it’s like an exemption was made because the tattoos on both his arms, looked like beautiful artwork that told stories. I don’t know if I was tired because of that long ass flight and it had me talking crazy, but I wanted to lay with him and use my finger to trace each of his tattoos, as he told me the stories behind them.
On top of the white tee that he was wearing, was a black overall from Carhartt. He styled the overalls by having one strap undone, and that’s what really made the look so sexy. I could usually do without the big, bulky chains because it screamed that you wanted too much attention, but I wasn’t even tripping off the big Cuban around his neck, and the matching bracelet on his left wrist. He had the nerve to spread his legs a little bit, as he continued to boldly look at me, and all I could do was shake my head because there was no way that his ass was that damn fine.
“Fuck with him, D. You can’t even hide the fact that your attracted to him,” Tommie caught me, and called me out on it.
“Look. Look. That’s the girl he came with,” Free shot, stopping me from commenting back to what Tommie said to me.
I swear I broke my neck to see who the woman was. My eyes landed right on her, and because I’ll give credit where credit was due, I’ll admit that she was beautiful. Chocolate just like I was, which proved that he might have had a thing for dark skinned women. She had a nice body on her, and she was much shorter than me. I’ve never seen her before though.
I followed her with my eyes, watching her as she walked over to Tank, and the rest of the men that were posted up with him, and she boldly stood right in front of him. She asked him something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. He just nodded his head to whatever was asked of him.
“You know her?” I asked Free.
“No. She came with him. I asked June if that was his girlfriend, and he said that he don’t get in his business like that, so he doesn’t know,” Free responded, and I nodded my head.
“They look good together though,” I said, ready to drop it, and when I said that, both my sisters laughed.
“You a fuckin lie. I want him with you,” Free replied, and all I could do was roll my eyes to that.
I wasn’t interested in dating men right now. I was in grind mode. I wanted to put all my time and energy into my brand. A man will slow me down, especially if it’s a man that I like. I already admitted to having daddy issues, so when I like a man, I get attached, and I didn’t want that right now.
I also wasn’t going to fuck with a nigga like Tank. He just moved back to Miami, according to June, so I know he has a lineup of hoes that he needs to get out of his system, and fuck. Plus, I wanted my own man. I knew what came with fuckin another woman’s man, and I didn’t want that for me again. Whatever fantasy that my sisters, and everyone else had of me, and Tank getting together, they could go ahead and dead it because I’m 100% sure that that it’ll never happen.
Chapter 2
Tavion ‘Tank’ Briggs
Temptation in Plain Sight
“Can I just get the keys to your car, so that I can wait inside? I don’t know anyone out here, and I’m lowkey ready to go,” Renee said to me, with her hand out, so that I could drop my keys in it.
Renee was someone that I was dealing with at the moment. We weren’t in a relationship or anything, but we fucked around. It wasn’t one of those things where I was playing her, stringing her along, and feeding her with a bunch of lies because the two of us had an understanding of our shit. What we were doing right now didn’t come with any attachments, or any kind of commitment. A nigga could walk over here right now, and look at her, and ask her for her phone number, and I couldn’t get mad because we weren’t in a relationship. Vice versa. She couldn’t get mad if a woman approached me right now either, trying to run game.
I met Renee about five months ago. She worked as one of the waitresses at an upscale lounge here in Miami. People hear waitress, and they might assume that she was struggling for money, but that wasn’t the case. The lounge that she worked at was called Aura, and it was in Brickell. Aura was an upscale lounge, and when you went there, that wasn’t a spot whereyou would see a lot of young, street niggas that’s beefing with another crew, and their ready to shoot up the spot. Aura was a spot where people with class, and money would chill at. On any day of the week, you could walk in there and run into your favorite athlete, rapper, or movie star. If not that, you’ll run into a hood famous nigga like me, that had just as much money as your favorite rapper.
Aura is where I met Renee. She was my waitress that night. I’ve always had a thing for dark- skinned women, so when she came to the table, introducing herself, I immediately found her attractive. Even with that, I had no intentions of trying to put down on her and see what she was talking about because I’ve only been in Miami for a little over six months, and hopping in a relationship with a woman wasn’t the kind of timing that I was on right now. I was on a hunt for success, trying to put more money in my pocket, and I knew that women could be a big ass distraction, but just like a man, always thinking with the wrong head, I fell for all that game she was putting on me that night. She kept coming to the table with shots, giving me compliments, and she was bold with her shit, telling me that she liked what she saw, and she wanted to explore her options with me.
I loved a woman that was bold. Something about a woman standing in front of me, looking me in my eyes, and telling me what she wanted out of me. That did something to me. I gave in, and we exchanged numbers, and we’ve been fuckin around with each other ever since.
It wasn’t my intentions to bring her with me today to June’s little girl’s party though. I was handling business today, and Renee wanted to roll with me, so I let her. These days, I was so locked in with the goals that I set out for myself that I’d completely forgotten about the party until June hit me earlier, reminding me about it. No time to really stop and get a gift, sowhen I pulled up, I found Free, and I put a stack in her hand, telling her to get Liberty whatever she wanted.
June was my nigga from way back. Me, and June went to grade school together. I was born and raised in Miami by a single mom. My mom was originally from Alabama, but she moved to Miami when she was nineteen. She had me by the time she was twenty. Growing up, I would spend the school year in Miami, but in the summer, I would go to Alabama, where my grandma and my pop- pop was, along with the rest of the family that I had out there. Even though I was born, and raised in Miami, those summers that I would spend in Alabama with my grandparents, had really shaped me into the man that I am today. Shit, my pop- pop instilled so many lessons in me, taught me how to be a man, and I knew that it was his teachings that taught me how to hustle. When I say hustle, I’m not even referring to selling dope, even though I had my years where I messed around with that too. I’m mainly talking about just finding a way to make a dollar. My pop- pop used to always tell me that as long as I had hands and feet, that I should never have to be in a position where I didn’t know how to make money.
I had a dad in my life, but that nigga wasn’t consistent. With no disrespect to my mama when I say this, but the kind of parent that he was to me was based on my mama giving him pussy or not. If he couldn’t get that out of her, then the nigga wouldn’t come around, and do his part. Bitter ass nigga that allowed personal issues that he had with my mom to get in the way of his parenting. My dad was older than my mom. When she had me at twenty, he was already twenty- four, and you would think that with him being a little older than my mom, he would have been wiser, and mature, but that wasn’t the case.
My mom left Alabama right after high school because she was chasing a better life. She felt like her opportunities out there weren’t going to be as big if she moved down here to Florida.She came out here with a home girl, who had family here, so they were staying with her home girl’s aunt. My mom enrolled in culinary school because she wanted to be a chef and have her own soul food restaurant one day. She met my dad within three months of her moving to Florida, and within a few months, she was pregnant with me and had moved in with him. I had a close relationship with my mom, so she’ll often tell me about some of the shit that she endured with my dad. Never any physical abuse, but he was a serial cheater, and he was mentally abusive towards her. She endured that shit for the first three years of my life because she wasn’t working, and she’d taken a break from school because she didn’t have anyone to watch me while she would go to school. My dad was always on the move, hustling, so it wasn’t like he could watch me during the day.
My mom would tell me how my grandparents were always in her ear, telling her to just come back to Alabama with me because she had a lot of help that way, but she refused to do it. It’s almost like she had to prove a point to them. Prove to them that it was all worth it, when she decided to pick up, and move to Florida.
By the time I was four, my mom went ahead, and put me in school, and she was able to enroll in culinary school again, and at night, she would work at a restaurant as a waitress. It’s like my dad didn’t want her to be able to do better for herself because he figured that when she wasn’t working, and she was solely depending on him, that she would stay, and she would endure the shit that he was putting her through. If she found a job, and went back to school, he knew that the chances were higher of her leaving, and that’s exactly what she did by the time I turned five. She was able to move into a one-bedroom apartment, and it was just the two of us. The nigga wouldn’t help her with shit. For years, I watched my mom slave, working at different restaurants, just trying to get her experience in, so one day shecould have her own restaurant. She would sell dinners out of the apartment that we lived in, and seeing my mom bust her ass like that, that was the sole reason I started selling dope by the time I was a junior in high school.
I had it made up in my mind that I had to be the man in her life that was going to get her out of the fucked-up situation that she was in, even if I had to risk my freedom to do it. I can laugh about it now, but I still think about the time my mom found a half brick of cocaine stuffed at the bottom of my dirty clothes hamper. Man, she fucked me up so bad in my bedroom that day. I remember her taking the wooden broom and beating my ass with it. If she didn’t fuck me up enough, her ass had my grandparents come down to Miami, where my pop- pop fucked me up again. He instilled so many lessons into me as a little boy, telling me not to get caught up in the drugs, and the violence that happens in Miami, and I would swear to him that I wouldn’t do it, but I fucked around, and I got hooked into that shit, and it didn’t matter how much they fucked me up because now the love for the money was there, and no beating that they could put on me would have me turning away.
