Page 21 of All This Love
June’s lips turned down into a frown. “I know how to put oil caps back on. Maybe somebody else messed with it after she left here. She could have had someone checking the oil or something.” He went straight into defense mode.
“Don’t let it happen again,” I warned him before walking off. I didn’t expect him to admit to it, and I wasn’t about to waste more time going back and forth with him. Walking up front, I sat behind the counter. I had another hour, and I would be off work. Being at the shop wasn’t bad, but I would have to get used to being somewhere for a set number of hours and not always being able to leave exactly when I wanted to.
The shop had been extremely busy for the past few days. I suggested hiring someone else, but my father was adamant about holding off. When we got too swamped, he’d come out of the office and help. He preferred to be working on the cars anyway. I had already learned the administrative stuff. I was getting a feel for working in the garage.
Being the boss or the almost boss had its’ perks for sure. Seeing Travis walk in threw me for a loop. He rarely came by the shop unless he needed his car worked on. “What’s good?” I asked him. The closer it got to me getting off work, the more my mouth watered for a blunt.
That was another thing about working. I was used to smoking whenever I wanted to. I had smoked a blunt before work, and that had been damn near nine hours ago. I was sober as hell and ready for my second blunt of the day. Of course, I could have sat in my car and got right, but I was trying my best not to take advantage of the fact that my pops owned the place. I was trying to follow the rules and be as professional as he expected everyone else to be. He wouldn’t care about me smelling like weed or having low eyes, but customers might. And they wouldn’t be wrong for not wanting someone that was under the influence working on their car.
“I came to deliver some news to you,” he grinned. “I felt like it was too good for the phone. I had to come tell you this in person.”
My curiosity was piqued. “Don’t beat around the bush, nigga. What’s good?”
“I know good and well you remember Scarface. Word is he’s still down pretty bad from being shot. On top of that, he feels some kind of way that he got into the shit from following Ivan’s orders. They said that man never visited Scarface in the hospital or reached out to him when he got home. Scarface is one of the few people that knows where Ivan lays his head at. He rolled up on that nigga and shot him twice. He might be paralyzed.”
My eyes bucked out of my head, “Are you serious?”
“Hell yeah,” Travis grinned. “It didn’t matter that you deaded the beef. Karma found that muhfucka anyway.”
I didn’t feel bad for Ivan, and it wasn’t just because he robbed me. I didn’t feel sorry for him because even before he fell on hard times and owed the plug money, he wasn’t doing right by his kids. I’d never even met Angel, but that didn’t matter. She existed, and she was a child that didn’t ask to be born. Ivan cared more about maintaining an image than he cared about doing for his own flesh and blood creations. One of the very people that he robbed me with had turned on him. Yeah, that was funny. He didn’t split the money with his accomplices or give Tatum any for their daughter. So, fuck him and his legs.
eleven
tatum
Lookingat my phone screen and seeing that Ivan was calling me made my face scrunch. He hadn’t been reaching out to me, so I was confused on why he was doing so at that moment. I should have ignored it. Curiosity got the best of me, however. It took a lot of effort for me to not answer the phone in a disrespectful manner.
“Yes?” was the best he was going to get out of me.
“Yes?” Ivan chuckled. “I got shot three months ago. I’m in a wheelchair, and you haven’t called to check on me once. You haven’t even brought my daughter to see me.”
“You don’t have a daughter,” I responded calmly. “I gave you plenty of time to be a father. All you had on your mind was females, clubbing, and going on trips. You acted like my baby didn’t exist most days, so I’m returning that energy. Fuck you and the wheelchair you rode in on.”
“Wow. You really are a fucked up ass person.”
“Yeah, yeah. Takes one to know one.” I ended the call just as my doorbell rang.
“Is that your friend, mommy?” Angel ran into the room as I was standing up.
I was finally about to let her meet Onyx. We had been going strong and finally made things official. I had forgiven him, and he was my man. Onyx no longer sold weed, and he worked at his father’s shop five days a week. He had moved into a three bedroom house, and he told me once I was comfortable with letting Angel come over, she could have her own room. That meant the world to me, and I was determined to try and make my relationship work. No matter how badly I wanted it to work, there were certain things that were deal breakers for me. Cheating was one of them. I could only pray that I didn’t let Onyx into my daughter’s life only for him to disappoint me.
I opened the door, and all I could do was smile at the sight of him standing there with two vases of roses in his hands. “One for you,” he handed me a vase filled with orange roses. “And one for you,” he passed Angel a small vase with pink roses inside.
“Thank you,” I beamed looking down at my daughter.
“Thank you,” Angel smiled bashfully.
“Angel, this is my boyfriend, Onyx. Onyx, this is my baby, Angel.”
Onyx extended his hand toward Angel. “It’s nice to meet you, pretty girl.”
Angel smiled and blushed. “Go put your roses in your room, baby, so we can go.”
She took off running, and Onyx pecked me on the lips. “She’s beautiful. She looks like she could be mine with that pretty dark skin.”
“She really does.” I chuckled setting my roses down.
Angel ran back into the living room, and we left. Outside, Onyx opened his rear passenger door for her, then he opened the door for me. We were going to lunch and then to play golf. Angel was a well-behaved child, and I wasn’t worried that she’d act out or be bad on the outing, but I had never had her around a man that wasn’t family or Ivan, and I was nervous. Halfway throughlunch, all of my anxiety had dissipated. Angel seemed to really like Onyx, and he was so attentive and good with her, it really tugged at my heartstrings.
