“Fuck all that reunion shit! What do you mean, end my existence, Scott? I’m your mother!” There was actual shock written on her face. It was like she thought that she could dowhatever she wanted to do to him, and he would just take it on the chin. The audacity was dangerous in this place.
Scotty glared at her with hate. “Were you my mother when you burned my shit down? Fuck out of here with that shit! You’re my mother now?”
“You act like you don’t have insurance. They would have paid out, then you could have given me some,” she callously said.Wow!
All the men in the room laughed at her stupidity. Scotty addressed me instead of her. “Baby, please take care of this so we can leave. I’m ready to go home.”
“Of course I will. I love you,” I professed. When I stood to my full height, he walked over and kissed me softly. My lips lingered on him for a brief second before they disconnected.
After our kiss, he exited the room, and Killian followed him. Lashonda called out to him as he left. I guessed it had finally hit her that today was the day she met her maker or the devil. Scotty’s desire to not see the end of his mother was understandable, even though he knew that it had to happen.
There was fear in Lashonda’s eyes when my attention landed back on her. It was obvious the drugs had begun to grab a tight hold of her appearance. She was a beautiful woman, even now, but that wouldn’t last for long. It was funny that all this time we had been in here, she hadn’t made a peep about her boo dead in the sheets.Bars!
“You . . . you don’t have to do this. If you let me go, I’ll disappear. Scotty will never see me again. He won’t even know that I exist anymore,” she bargained.
With pity, I responded. “You should have thought about all of that before you decided to bring heartache to my man. You know, regardless of how your bitch-ass treated him, he still loved you. That’s why he still made sure you were taken care of whenhe didn’t have to. You played with that, so now this bullet is going to play with your brain cells.”Bars!
Her hand lifted when mine did with my gun.Pew.One bullet between the eyes was her end. There was no need to belabor this. My man was ready to go home.
Some Time Later
Back to Sanity . . .
It’d been a little bit of time since we got back from Chicago. As I knew it would, the experience bothered Scotty more than he wanted to admit. Killian had been in constant touch with Scotty. At first, he wasn’t receptive to it, but after a conversation with my father, that changed. I wasn’t sure what the conversation was, but it changed Scotty’s outlook on the situation.
I really thought the turn could also be attributed to the day we went over to my parents’ house to find Killian and Logan there. Scotty and I were confused about how this meeting came about because Scotty never gave my dad Killian or Logan’s information. When asked, my father made it clear that streets were connected, so he was able to get in touch with whoever he needed to.
In my father’s eyes, Scotty was his son based on our relationship. He wanted to know Killian’s intention when it came to his relationship with Scotty. Blake Travis Collins didn’t play about me or Scott Chad McLeod. I loved that for us.
“Bae, he likes his steak medium rare,” Scotty said when he came into the kitchen. His hands rose in surrender when I glared at him with tight eyes. “I just wanted to remind you.”
Tonight was the night that Ace came over for dinner. It was funny to see how nervous my grown man boyfriend was to interact with someone that he interacted with multiple times. Ace found out that Scotty was his cousin a few days after we got back from Chicago. With the news, he chose to step away from the shop, which I believe hurt my baby’s feelings. Scotty was a man’s man, so he acted unfazed.
Scotty grew up with no cousins. As far as he knew, his mother was an only child whose mother had passed years ago.Now we know differently. Not only was Lashonda’s mother alive and well, but she also had two brothers and a sister. Killian gave Scotty his grandmother’s contact information, but he hadn’t used it yet.
“Scotty, get out of my kitchen. I know how he likes his steak, and I know how to cook steak. You should know that.” If he didn’t get off of my last nerve, it would be a problem.
Arms wrapped around me from behind, then a kiss landed on my neck. “I’m sorry to get on your nerves. I love you.”
“I know, nigga. I love you too. Now get out of my kitchen.” I shooed him.
He chuckled, kissed my temple, then left the kitchen. I wondered if I would be nervous if I was in this kind of situation . . . probably so. I glanced down at my watch.Let me finish this.
The New Normal . . .
Lashonda was dead, not by my hands, but by my request. If I had to be honest, she died a long time ago in my heart. It was hard to admit that about the woman that gave you life. She gave the definition of why some children needed therapy.
One thing that I didn’t count on was the effect that her death would have on me. Foolishly, I thought it would just be a blip in my atmosphere, but it wasn’t. I mourned this woman that had been damn near horrible to me. She never gave a fuck about me. Shit, when we used to go to the little ice cream shop, I thought that was on something genuine. Now I knew that it was just a ploy for her to get a paycheck.
Since I left Chicago, Killian called or texted me every day. I shouldn’t even say called. He video called me. I asked why he didn’t just call. “Now that I have the chance to connect with you directly, I won’t take that for granted. I want to see your face when I talk to you.”
He and Logan cleaned up the Lashonda situation. I thought that they would get rid of the body, but they didn’t. They put her in a place that she would be found. The police chalked it up to a junkie that got caught up, and it ended in death. When they called me as her next of kin to report her death, I took the news like any estranged son would. I wasn’t devastated, and I couldn’t fake like I was.
Blake and I took another short trip to Chicago to have her body cremated. There was a rose garden that my mother spoke about a lot when I was a child. She told me that it was the place that gave her peace, so I figured that would be where she wanted her ashes spread. My girl suggested that I call her mother, brothers, and sister that I now knew she had. In my mind if they hadn’t talked to her in this many years, there wasn’t anything for me to inform them about. Afterall, I wasn’t even supposed to know that they existed.
“Baby, Ace just pulled up,” Blake called out from the dining room.
When I suggested that we invite Ace to dinner, I thought it would be at a restaurant. Blake suggested that we have it at her house. I moved in with her a little over a month ago. It wasn’t a hard push to let Blake cook, because my girl could cook. Steak, garlic potatoes, and asparagus were on the menu.
