Page 37 of Down With the King of the South 2

I didn’t even know the full details of the story because she was crying and so angry on the phone, that I couldn’t make out what she was saying. It took no time for me to stop what I was doing, do what I had to do to get the money out for her bond, and now I was in here, pacing the floor and waiting for her to walk out of those double doors.

“Five minutes, sir,” the officer said, not even bothering to look up from the desktop that was in front of him.

His black ass couldn’t care less that I’d been out here all this fuckin’ time waiting for Shae to come out.

“You said that shit an hour ago. What the fuck do y’all got to do to make this process move a little bit faster? Hire more people? Y’all trippin’, man,” I snapped.

Lord knows I wanted to reach across that table and jack his ass up then tell him to go to the back and get her for me, but I had to be realistic. I was going to fuck around and be put in a jail cell too.

“Calm down, sir. She’s coming,” he nonchalantly said.

Because I knew that if I stayed in front of him and kept talking, I was going to do all the shit that the voices in my head were telling me to do, so I walked away. I didn’t sit my ass down, though. The whole time, my phone was blowing up with Mahogany calling, Shae’s grandmother, and her ole boy. They were all wanting to know if she had gotten released yet, but she hadn’t, so I didn’t answer the phone for any of them.

Almost ten minutes had gone by, and I was about to ask the cop again what the fuck was going on, but the doors had finally opened. Two women walked out first, and then I saw Shae. She didn’t look shit like she looked when she left this morning. Her hair was straight when I last saw her. How the fuck that shit was now curly and pulled back in a bun was beyond me. She was still in the same clothes from earlier, but the top was wrinkled. Her eyes were red along with her nose.

She walked with her arms crossed as if she was hugging herself, and I could see the plastic bag that she was holding onto, which housed her belongings. From what I could see, her cell phone and wallet were inside. I watched her as she scanned the room for me with her eyes, and then they finally landed on me. Instantly, she dropped her head in shame.

I walked over and pulled her into me. Her head crashed onto my chest, letting out every emotion that she felt.

“He could… have still… been hereee. She killed him. She killed my baby, Miamii,” she cried into my chest.

I didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about, but I didn’t ask any questions. I let her have her moment. For almost five minutes, I stayed wrapped up with her, and when her cries finally stopped, I gently pulled away. I examined her face just to make sure that physically she was alright, and when I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, we walked out together. My car was the first car in the row, and once we neared it, I popped the locks and helped her get inside.

The moment my ass hit the seat, and I was backing out, my phone started buzzing in my lap. It was Shae’s grandmother calling me.

“Here, this for you,” I said and passed her the phone.

When she saw the name on the screen, she released a sigh, brought her hand up to scratch her hair, and laid the phone in her lap.

“I don’t feel like talking to her,” she announced.

“Shorty, right now, it ain’t what you feel like doing. She’s been calling me since I called her to let her know what was going on. Talk to her and let her know that you’re alright. You going to worry her to death,” I said.

I could tell that she didn’t want to, but she ended up answering the phone and putting it to her ear. At the same time, I hopped on the main road, ready to jump on the turnpike after a couple of lights, so I could take us home.

“Hey, Ma,” Shae said.

Instantly, all I heard was a bunch of yelling from her grandma. I couldn’t make out shit that she was saying, but I did know that Shae was getting her ass cursed out. I liked the fact that no matter how grown Shae was, she still had enough respect not to go toe to toe with her folks. At the end of the day, she may not be the one who birthed her, but she was damn sure the one who raised her. That and the fact that she was also her elder.

“Yes, ma’am… noo… okay. Yeah, I love you too,” she dryly said, and then handed me back the phone.

She laid her head back on the headrest with her arm covering her eyes.

“You ready to tell me why you went barging into that lady’s shit? I had been calling Manny and trying to get his side of the story, but his ass was too fuckin’ scary to even answer the phone and face me. Fuck is up with you, Shae? You don’t know what that lady had in her house. She could have had guns, knives, anything in that house to kill your ass with. Shorty, they charging your ass with home invasion and destruction of property. Make this shit make sense,” I said.

I was staring at her every few seconds because she was trippin’.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to go home,” she had the nerve to say.

“You don’t got a fuckin’ choice! Yo, you realize that it’s almost midnight, and I just bonded your ass out of jail, right? Respect me enough to tell me what the fuck happened, given the fact that I could have chosen to let your ass it there until morning!” I spat.

“Then my daddy would have come, nigga!” she yelled.

“But you didn’t fuckin’ call your daddy, you called me! You want something to eat before I jump on this fuckin’ turnpike?” I asked, and she shook her head no.

I’ll laugh about this shit later. I was right in the middle of laying her ass out, yet I was checking to see if she was hungry.

“Don’t do no shit like that, yo. Don’t wave no other nigga in my face, even if it is your daddy. You felt comfortable enough to call me, so that’s what you did. I ain’t asking you to do shit but tell a nigga what happened. What made you do what you did?” I asked, this time in a calmer approach.

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