Page 37 of Where Is the Love

“I can see your wheels turning,” Jakari said as he shook my hand. “There’s no catch, man.” He handed me all the receipts for everything they paid. “Besides, you prolly gon’ be family anyway. Jess is really feeling you. You gon’ go out tonight with us?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see.”

I wasn’t going anywhere. I had to talk to her. This didn’t feel good, and I didn’t know if she had something to do with it or if I was overthinking. Then something she said came to mind.“You’re not a failure. Things will come together. This is just a storm… a test. Keep your faith. Okay?”

She knew.

CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

JESSICA

I was so ready to go out and turn up. My mental was clear, and my body was beyond satisfied. Brix had put it to my ass last night. I wanted to scream so bad. He’d pushed my face in the pillow several times. I hated to leave this morning, but Mama needed me to watch CJ. Grandma said she just felt sluggish and weak. Grandpa had been tending to her all day. When I called to check on her, he was feeding her some soup.

CJ had run my nerves raw. He wasn’t knowledgeable on my ‘beat a kid ass’ policy. I whupped his lil ass when I caught him playing in my shit. He had my clothes all over the place, and that was a no-no. I didn’t play about my money, my family, my man when I had one, and my fucking wardrobe. He was risking his life. Then he wanted to cry and scream that he was gon’ tell Mama, like I wasn’t a whole ass adult.

Tyeis thought the shit was funny. She was still sitting here laughing about it. “If you ever have kids, I feel sorry for their lil asses already. If they are anything like you, they gon’ stay getting their asses whupped.”

“Shut up, Ty. You ready to show Decaurey what he’s missing?”

“Hell yeah. You seen what dress I’m wearing? That shit fit my body like a glove, and it has holes on the sides up to my honey dew melons. If this shit don’t catch his attention, then I know something.”

“Something like what?”

“His ass is swinging for the other team, because ain’t no way he’ll be able to overlook all this body I’m gon’ be serving.”

I laughed as I heard my phone ringing. I was sure it was Brix. I hadn’t talked to him in a few hours. I knew the family had left their house already, because Jakari had messaged in our group thread asking about where we were going tonight. I picked up the phone from the dresser and answered. “Hello?”

“Can you meet me at the house for a minute?”

“I was about to get dressed. Are you coming with us tonight?”

“Jess, I need to talk to you. Now.”

He ended the call, and I frowned hard as I stared at the phone. What the fuck was he on? I was just in a good mood, thinking about last night and how much fun we would have with everybody tonight. “You good, sis?” Tyeis asked.

“Brix just demanded that I go to their house and hung up in my face.”

“Oh shit.”

“Oh shit is right. He’s clearly got me fucked up. I’ll be right back, because I need to let him know he done fucked with the wrong one.”

I stormed out of the house. Brix had to be tripping. He had me fuming. I got in my car and burned off, not bothering to tell anyone other than Ty where I was going. She would fill them in. When I got there, he was outside, pacing back and forth. Nothing in Nome was more than a few minutes away, so I got here quickly. He lived on the same highway as my mama, but he lived on the other side of it where the name changed from 326 to 365.

I got out of the car and slammed the door then stormed up to him. “This is the first and only time you gon’ demand shit out of me and hang up in my face. You haven’t met this Jessica, but this is gonna be your fucking introduction. Don’t let the fact that you’ve known me—”

“Did you tell them?” he asked, cutting off my rant.

“What?”

“Did you tell them?” he enunciated.

“Tell who what?”

“Your family. Did you tell them about my dilemma?”

“No. I wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t even let me pay for dinner.”

“Did you know?”

---