“And believe me, they are. He be on some grimy shit with them beasts. Robbing people and shit. I watched them eat a cat. I told him he done got all he could out of them. He needed to stop before shit goes south. Girl, you making me miss the fight! Come on inside and see what your husband wants.” She turned around and left me sitting there. I needed a few more minutes. I looked at the two albino pit bulls and had to agree with her. Those muthafuckas should be put to sleep. At one point they started fighting each other and they wouldn’t stop growling and gnashing at the teeth. After about ten minutes, I got up to go join the party in the basement.
To me, the fight didn’t get good until the last round, when Chavez, Jr., who I was rooting for, finally knocked Martinez down. I jumped up screaming. But it was too late. Martinez had already won all of the other rounds. I watched as Trae and the other men talked shit and then money changed hands. Finally, around one thirty, the last of the guests left. Kyra and I started cleaning up the basement while Rick and Trae went out onto the front porch.
“You sure are happy right about now,” Kyra said to me.
“That’s because Trae said he was going to eat my pussy and fuck me until I fainted. So hell, yeah, I am very happy.”
“Ewwww, save me all of the gory details, please, ma’am.”
“Well, you asked. Now, hurry up and help me clean up, and then go and get your man. Because I am assuming that there is going to be some serious fucking in your room tonight. Or are you gonna use my front porch again?”
“Whatever, bitch!”
“Umm-hmm. What did you say to him? Why is he looking so discombobulated?”
“Damn, you don’t miss a thing, do you?”
“It’s my house, I’m not supposed to. Plus, you stormed out of the party. So what happened?”
“I dropped a bomb on that ass.”
“What bomb? What happened?”
“I told him I missed my period.”
The serving bowl I held, dropped right out of my hands. “No fucking way, Kyra!” The bitch had the nerve to leave me standing there and go over and plug in the vacuum. I went over to her and cut it off.
“What, Tasha? You told me to hurry up.” She turned the vacuum back on. I reached over and turned it back off.
“Bitch, you better stop playing with me. Were you just fucking with him, or were you serious? What did he say?”
“Yes, I was very serious. That’s what his ass gets. A fuckin’ dose of reality. But I think he was getting ready to say I can’t keep it. But I cut him off and left him standing there.”
“What? No, he didn’t! That creep.”
“I said the same thing.” She turned the vacuum on and went over the carpet.
When she finished, I asked, “So what’s going through your mind?”
“All kinds of shit. But mainly how I now have the focus on me and this will show me where his heart is at, because I damn sure ain’t gettin’ rid of it.”
Well, I’ll be damned.
15
JAZ
“Faheem, we don’t have to move. Anybody could have taken Steele out. You are in a wheelchair, baby.”
We had been having this same argument for the last week, and I was tired of it. At the same time, it looked like it was an argument that I was losing. I was still in school, Kaeerah loved her school, I loved my house, and the bottom line was, I didn’t want to move. Moving hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“Jaz, I’ma say it one more time. And it will be my last and final time. We are moving. Start looking, and start packing.”
“So you mean to say I gotta quit school? I can still be traced, Faheem. If someone wants to find us, they can.”
“We will pay to get the records sealed or some shit like that. I don’t know. Find you another school. You should have thought about that before you went out playing vigilante. You the one made it hot for us around here. You made your bed, now you gotta lay in it. And if you fuck with Oni, I swear I’m leaving you, Jaz.”
It felt as if someone stuck a pin inside me and sucked out all of my air. I was obsessed with taking this bitch out personally and now this?