Page 2 of All This Love
Two days later, I sat with my left leg bouncing anxiously as my best friend, Rod stared at me with flexed jaw muscles. “Oh, so those niggas in Golden Waters want beef? Say the fuck less. Misha!” he yelled out for his girlfriend of five years. Her nosey ass probably wasn’t too far away. If I knew Misha, she was ear hustling. She didn’t trust Rod and thought everything was about another female. If we hung out, we had to be chasing women.
After I was robbed, I tried my best not to go to the hospital, but with the way my head was hurting, I couldn’t be for certain that I didn’t have bleeding on the brain. At the urging of my father, I went to the ER and had to get six stitches in the back of my head, but an MRI confirmed there was no internal bleeding. I had a pretty high pain tolerance, but I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the pain in my head. Since my father was with me and was going to drive me home, they gave me morphine and I went back to his house and slept for damn near twelve hours. When I woke up, the pain had gone from a ten to a four, and I drove my ass back to Charlotte.
I had given my cousins in the area all the information that I could on Scarface, and it took less than two hours for me to getthe name of him and the niggas he ran with. The head nigga was a cat by the name of Ivan. He was supposed to be a heavy hitter in the game, but he’d recently taken a major loss and allegedly owed the plug which would explain why he had to rob my ass. It didn’t matter, however. He did all that to get right with the plug, and I was gon’ torture the fuck out of his ass. There wouldn’t be any going to Golden Waters and straight murdering him. I was going to make him feel me. Become a thorn in his side, so if I did end up killing him, it would be because he came after me first.
Ivan and his crew didn’t know who I was. They saw me iced out driving a nice car and thought I’d be an easy lick. Little did they know, I had a crew of friends and family that would go to war behind me. Rod along with at least five other niggas were ready to pack up and ride with me to Golden Waters. Ivan and his minions weren’t going to know what hit them. I wanted to take everything from him and make him suffer.
Aside from selling weed, I stayed out the way. Stacking my bread and living life was all I cared about. I went out of the country at least four times a year. I didn’t engage in a lot of senseless beef. In Charlotte, I was well-known and well-respected. I walked around freely every day and was good in any hood. No one had ever attempted to rob me. Maybe that was one of the reasons I got caught lackin’ in Golden Waters, but niggas were going to hate the day they ever came for me. I was going to make sure of it. It wasn’t about the chain or the money they took. It was about the principle.
“What? Why you yelling?” Misha stood in the doorway with a frown.
“Take yo’ shit out of my Louis luggage that’s been in there for the past two weeks.”
Misha folded her arms underneath her breasts and snaked her neck. “And where are you going?”
“I’m going to Golden Waters with Onyx to handle some business. And I don’t want to hear shit because didn’t you and your hoe ass homegirls just come back from Aruba?”
Misha’s gaze flitted toward my busted lip before quickly looking away. It had to come from me falling against my car because none of those niggas hit me in the face. “I was gone for four days. How long are you going to be gone?”
“Stop asking me dumb ass questions,” he snapped. “You already know what it is. I’ll be back when I get back.”
Misha’s eyes narrowed, and I knew she wanted to curse Rod out, but she had more than likely become an expert at the art of picking and choosing her battles. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Rod loved her. But that was my homie and no amount of complaining that she did would have stopped him from coming to Golden Waters with me.
“I just got some raw ass dope in too,” Rod stated when Misha stomped off. “I’m gon’ take that shit to Golden Waters and hustle all in that nigga’s territory. They don’t know what kind of war they started.”
Rod was down for whatever, and his little brother, Lamar was a crash out on another level. He literally had to take medication to keep his mood under control and often, he’d go months at a time without taking it no matter how much people told him he needed it. Lamar getting mad and crashing out was as normal as Sunday coming once a week. It got to the point where if a person wasn’t a direct source of his wrath, they just learned to ignore him. I had a team full of shooters ready to ride for me and terrorize the streets of Golden Waters just because they liked the idea of pissing niggas off.
“Poochie told me that Ivan has a baby mama that does nails, and shit named, Tatum. I don’t know what their history is, but I’m on her ass first. As long as she doesn’t look like a fiend orsome shit, I’m gon’ record myself fucking her and make sure that nigga sees it right before I beat his ass black and blue,” I stated.
I never went looking for trouble, but Ivan and his crew had me on my best bullshit. I had just been contemplating moving to Golden Waters because it seemed so peaceful and serene. I was about to turn the city up.
two
tatum
Rollingmy eyes and sucking my teeth simultaneously, I waited impatiently for the money I’d requested to be dispensed from the ATM. With a deep scowl on my face, I flipped my super long, honey-blonde box braids over my shoulder. It always made me laugh when it was assumed that black people couldn’t naturally have blonde hair. My bronzed skin tone and natural blonde hair was proof that theory was a lie. Most of my childhood, I felt that I was weird. I was the only person in my family with blonde hair, and my skin had a red undertone to it. No matter how many people called me pretty, I still felt odd. As I got older, I embraced my looks and loved everything about myself down to the freckles that were sprinkled across my nose.
With an attitude, I snatched the money out of the machine. My paycheck deposited to my bank account at midnight. Barely nine hours later, I was down to a few hundred dollars. It was the last check I’d be getting from the job I had at a doctor’s office. I worked at the doctor's office for two years and had been doing nails on the side for the past nine months. Recently, my clientele started to grow to the point that I was turning down way too much money for my liking. When I calculated the missed money for two weeks to be around $1,200, I put my notice in at work.
I had four months’ worth of rent in my savings account in case my nail clientele ever fell off. I promised myself I wouldn’t touch that money no matter what. Which was why, I was pissed about taking money from my paycheck to pay the daycare bill that my daughter, Angel’s father was supposed to pay. Ivan was a worthless piece of shit and though I didn’t regret my child, I loathed the day I ever met his ass.
He was a fake trick. He liked to flash money in the club and wine and dine women until he got them where he wanted them. Then, he turned into a cheap, unreliable, abusive asshole. I was under his bullshit ass spell for five months before I saw the light. I wasn’t sure what it was about planning to be done with a man that made a woman fertile, but the moment I said I was done with him and meant it, I missed my period.
Ivan was the kind of asshole that a woman had to play nice with to get him to do anything for his own flesh and blood child. There was a time when I never nagged him just to keep the peace. On some pathetic shit, I even slept with him a few times, so he’d pay my rent or make my car payment. Ivan was the half ass father of four kids. Angel was three, and she wasn’t even the youngest.
Whatever naivete and desperation I possessed that had me ignoring each and every red flag that ever popped up to warn me about Ivan, I wanted it banished from my life. Back in the car, I looked over my shoulder to find Angel doing alphabet games on her tablet. Despite how much her father pissed me off, I had to smile at my baby. With her dark skin, big doe shaped eyes, and thick curly hair, I just wanted to kiss on her chubby cheeks all day. She was one of the only good things to ever come of me dealing with Ivan. With or without his help, I was determined to give my baby a good life. My parents helped me with her a lot, and I often felt guilty about it and slightly embarrassed. I wastwenty-five years old and had my first child with a deadbeat ass loser.
Angel’s daycare was close, so I arrived in no time. I put her things away, kissed her goodbye, and explained to her teacher that my mother would pick her up since the daycare closed at six, and my last client was at 6:15. When I added up all of the appointments, I had that day, I calculated $480. That didn’t include tips or any walk-ins that I might be able to take. If I could leave the shop with at least $520, I’d be elated. While every day might not be an $500 day, it was a damn good way to start my career as a full-time nail tech.
After stopping to get breakfast and gas, I pulled up in front of the shop four minutes before my first client was due to arrive. My food got demolished on the drive, so I had just enough time to rush in and get ready. It wasn’t unusual for men to come in and get manicures and pedicures. I’d definitely had some super fine men in my chair. However, the specimen that walked in the shop and let my name roll off his lips in a deep rumble made my kitty ache.
“Tatum?” his eyes roamed my frame.
“That’s me,” I responded politely.
“I’m Onyx. I have an appointment for a pedicure.”
“Nice to meet you, Onyx. Right this way,” I smiled before pivoting. He was more than likely a hoe. In fact, I was willing to bet my last dollar that he was a man with a wayward dick sleeping with any woman with a pretty face and ample amount of ass.
