Page 37 of That Fire

Chapter 13

Royal

“So y’all jailbird asses made it out, huh?”

Seven shot me the finger. He did that shit so much I knew to expect it. It was Monday afternoon, and Seven had just gotten out this morning. They were really trying to break him. They didn’t know that Hendersons were hard to break. Uncle WJ suffered for over forty-five years before he finally gave up. It helped that we didn’t have jobs we could get fired from. When he got out, it was back to business.

Crew glanced at me but didn’t say anything. Jacob finally said, “It was bullshit, and they know it. They’re intimidated by us . . . scared as fuck. That was why they had to bring a small army in here to pick up Seven. When they saw we didn’t give a fuck, that made them angrier. The way they slammed Seven to the floor was uncalled for, and none of us were going to stand for it, whether they had guns or not.”

I frowned. “They slammed you to the floor?” I asked Seven as a slight smile fell on his lips.

“Mm-hmm. They just stacking them charges on top of each other and stacking them dollars they gon’ have to pay me. They tryna intimidate me, but that shit ain’t working. I hope I end up in Rachel West’s courtroom. She gon’ fuck them up when sheside with me. She don’t go for bullshit. Y’all saw what she did to that white woman who was disrespecting her Black lawyer. She was demeaning her own attorney in front of everybody. Miss Rachel was like,Hell no. Not in my courtroom!”

I chuckled. I remembered seeing that online. She gave that woman a hefty fine. That woman’s white tears didn’t move Judge West one bit, and she was white too. At that moment, I was proud that I voted for her.

“So what is Missus Taylor and Mister Berotte saying?”

“If I can take it, keep taking it. It’s all about to come crashing down on their asses. We have a meeting with them Wednesday night, and we go to court in the next month and a half.”

I nodded. They were finna fuck them up without lube. I went back to my lima beans as Crew said, “I heard the retesting turned out in your favor. Congratulations.”

I gave him a head nod and kept eating until Kingsley said, “For real? You’re their biological father?”

“Yeah, man.”

“I’m happy for you. That’s real, bruh.”

“Thanks, King.”

Everyone else started nodding and offering their congrats. There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment until my dad walked in, holding a big ass blunt in the air. I slowly shook my head as I tried to contain my smile.

“And the blunt of the fucking year goes to Royal Henderson! You gon’ need this shit with twins coming, my boy.”

“Dad, this shit ain’t gon’ make it that long. I’m gon’ smoke this shit this coming weekend.”

He laughed and shook my hand. Although he’d already congratulated me, I truly believed he wanted to do that shit in front of Crew. That nigga looked salty as fuck, and that shit was wearing me thin. Brothers should be genuinely happy for each other. Of course, like any other relationship, there wouldbe disagreements and maybe sometimes, straight up fights, but the betrayal, dishonesty, and disloyalty shouldn’t be there. It still should all be done in love. I didn’t feel love from my brother anymore, and that shit didn’t sit well with me.

Unfortunately, that was something that I couldn’t make right. He would have to be the one to make it right. Our relationship probably wouldn’t go back to the way it was though. I didn’t trust him to be on my team. He couldn’t be happy for me, because he wanted what I had.Aaliyah.She was my primary focus now. While it would hurt to lose my brother, I had to come to the realization that I’d probably lost him a long time ago. I just didn’t know it until Aaliyah entered the picture.

I slid the blunt in my shirt pocket. That shit was fat as hell. I slowly shook my head as I saw Seven trying to swipe my shit. “You better gon’ ’bout yo’ business, nigga.”

He laughed and pushed me playfully. “Let me know when you smoke that shit. I need to be somewhere near so I can be in the rotation. I got a feeling that shit prolly strong as fuck too. You smoke that by yourself, you gon’ be out for two days. Aaliyah might end up in labor fooling around with yo’ ass.”

I laughed, because he was probably right. When I was high, I was always extremely horny. Being that I always wanted sex on a normal day, that wouldn’t be good for anybody. We would definitely have to have Nikki back over. I would kill both of their pussies. I surely couldn’t have Aaliyah hurting or have my babies coming early.

“You right, nigga,” I finally admitted.

Everybody laughed hard as hell. I finally finished off my food and went to put my shit in the trash, when Ryder J approached me. My anger surfaced out of nowhere, because the shit he told me was unnecessary. It nearly caused me to turn my back on Aaliyah. If I would have been the type of nigga to let his angertake over without trying to listen to reason, we wouldn’t even be together right now.

“Cuz, I just want to apologize for the shit I told you. You right. It was unnecessary. PJ not even here to say otherwise. That shit didn’t even matter. For some reason, I was looking at Aaliyah as the enemy, especially when the first test said the babies weren’t yours. I realized that he said hewantedto fuck her. That didn’t mean he did. So I’m sorry for the bullshit my loose lips caused.”

I nodded as he held his hand out. I slapped it, then gave him a half hug. “Thanks for that, man.”

He nodded. “Congratulations. I hope them kids don’t turn out like Bali and Noni.”

I chuckled. “Naw. We’re having a boy and girl, but I’ll be damned if they gon’ be that bad.”

He laughed as I threw my trash in the receptacle. I needed to get home and check on Aaliyah. We were supposed to be finally going to her parents’ house tonight. We were supposed to go a while ago, but that was when shit popped off out here with the FBI. I needed to let Mr. Red know that I was going to take care of his baby with everything in me. Aaliyah was my one, and there was no doubt about it for me.