Page 33 of Queen of the Pole

Any other time a man came at me, telling me how they wanted me to stop dancing, it would quickly turn me off. I wasn’t turned off right now. I think it’s because he wasn’t giving me an ultimatum. This man was so sure of himself, that he really believed that it would be me to come to my senses, and want to put up my dancing shoes.

“If you’re this good of a man, how come you don’t have a girlfriend? I’ve never heard stories of you having a girl. Are you the secretive type? Are you the type to have a wife, and kids at home that the world doesn’t know about?” I asked him, just trying to get a better understanding of him.

People liked to say that I could have any nigga that I wanted. I could say the same thing about Wolf. He was so damn fine, and he was paid. Niggas like him don’t get turned down. I know the selection of women that wanted him was long. If that’s the case, then why the hell is a nigga like him single?

“I’m private until I don’t have to be. I’ve dated, but I’m not like a lot of these niggas that gotta post everything online, and that’s why people can’t go around saying who’ve they’ve seen me with. I feel like it’s a certain kind of peace that I get from being single. Every woman that I date, almost immediately, they start putting me on a time stamp to ask them to be my girl, and they start talking kids, and marriage. I want those things, but I’m also not trying to rush into it. That’s it. It’s no technical answer,” he said.

“What’s your type? You look like you have one,” I went on.

“I don’t have a type. I’m picky though,” he said, and that answer didn’t surprise me at all.

“I’m assuming that women you go after have to be doctors, lawyers, or have other high paying careers, right?” I asked him.

“Man, I don’t give a fuck about none of that. My dick not going to get hard just because I meet a woman that’s a doctor, or a CEO of a million-dollar company. I’m picky in terms of character, intentions, and a person’s heart. I told you that I’m a peaceful kind of man. That’s all I really be looking for. Everything else will fall in line,” he finished.

The second he stopped talking, my phone started ringing in the cupholder. We both looked down, and could see not only Hitta’s picture appear, but the contact name that I had him saved under. He didn’t have an actual name in my phone. Just emojis. It was an eggplant emoji, hearts, money, and the kissing emoji.

I quickly silenced the call. Just like I did him a couple of hours ago, his as started blowing up my phone. I knew he wasn’t going to stop, so I ended up turning my phone off. Wolf just told me that he wanted a woman to bring him peace. I probably wasn’t going to be that woman. Hitta would go out of his way to make sure that if I fucked with Wolf, there wouldn’t be anything peaceful to come out of it.

“You ain’t gotta decline that nigga calls while you around me. You don’t owe me shit,” Wolf said after I turned my phone off.

“I didn’t do that for you. I did that for me. For my own sanity,” I let him know.

“I hate that nigga for you,” he blurted out. His response shocked me.

“You know Hitta?” I just went ahead and asked him.

“I don’t know him personally. Same way you did your homework on me, I did my homework on you. That night at the club, I asked my brothers about you. They told me that he was the nigga that you fuck around with. Prior to that, I didn’t know who he was. He came in my shop the other day. Him and another dude. I saw all I needed to see from him and heard all I needed to hear for me to know that I hate him for you. Nigga too disrespectful,” he went on to tell me.

“You’re not the first one to tell me that you hate him for me. Everybody tells me that. I’ll find my common sense one day. I just never really believed that there was a better nigga for me. I expect them to all treat me the same. That’s why I never left him. I feel like if I leave him and get with another man, he going to do the same thing. I know you said that I put every man in a box, and I agree with you on that. I truly believe that all men cheat. They’ll all lie to you, and embarrass you,” when I said these kinds of things out loud, you could really hear how broken I was.

“If you do anything for me, I really need you to get rid of that mindset because it’s not true. Every man ain’t gone dog your ass out. It’s some out here that’ll value you and treat you good. You would have to leave that clown ass nigga alone in order to see that,” he left it at that.

I didn’t say anything else to him after that. I never ate any of the food, or the snacks that he got me. The weight on my shoulders just felt so heavy tonight. I was also still thinking if Hitta had a baby on the way with Obsession. Then, my mind was thinking about all these things that Wolf just said to me.

Everything that he was saying to me sounded so good. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was all game though. I would think that he would want better for himself. No idea why he would even entertain a woman like me, especially when there were so many other classy women in Miami that he could get with. According to him, that wasn’t important to him. I guess the only thing that really mattered to him was a person’s heart, integrity, and their motives.

CHAPTER 9

WARREN ‘WOLF’ BENNETT

Ipulled up to Bennett’s Aviation Group this morning. The company that my father owned and passed down to my brothers to manage. The business operated out of Miami Opa- Locka Executive Airport. Although I don’t always see eye to eye with my father, when it come to this business, and seeing the blood, sweat, and tears that he put into building something like this, I couldn’t help but to offer him my respect. To know that this business was black-owned, and there was mostly black staff that worked for the company, was inspiring in itself.

This location held corporate offices, private terminals for when customers flew out of the airport privately, and more than enough space to house the fleet of aircraft that the company owned.

I could have very much still been a part of this company, just like my brothers were. Part of the reason why my father was so upset with me is because I chose to leave. I was the child that had my father’s hustle. When it was passed down to us, I remember him telling me that he was mainly passing it down to me, but he didn’t want any conflict with my brothers, so he passed it off as if he was handing it to all of us.

When I walked away from it, I crushed the nigga. He didn’t expect me to do that. I just knew that he would remove the shares that I had within the company, but he didn’t. My shares with the company were the only involvement that I really had. I wasn’t hands on with this business anymore at all.

I only came down this morning because my brothers had been hitting me all week, telling me about the aircraft delivery that was happening today. This was the biggest aircraft acquisition in Bennett’s history. It was something that my pops had been trying to acquire since before he retired, but things didn’t align at the time. Even though he did his thing behind the scenes, and he allowed my brothers to take over the company, he was still hands on whenever he needed to be.

My brothers had been explaining what the aircraft was going to look like to me for months, so here I was, stepping out of my car, headed for the building, prepared to see it in person.

There was staff on deck, in which I knew personally, so I spoke, while making my way inside of the building. I headed in the direction of the ramp, which would lead me outside. Walking down the ramp, I could look out of the big glass windows, seeing that it was already crowded outside with people. The newest aircraft was stationed right there for everyone to walk around, take pictures, and admire it. I geeked out about this kind of shit, so I walked a little faster, and before I knew it, I’d made my way outside.

“There you go, nigga. I didn’t think you were going to come. What’s up?” that was my big brother, Kingston saying to me, as he walked over in my direction.

He had a woman standing next to him that wasn’t his wife. We all took certain character traits from our father, and Kingston just happened to be the nigga that took the trait of cheating. He was a bold cheater too. It’s one thing for him to fuck hoes on the side, and try to hide the shit from his wife, but he did it loudly, and out in the open. There were so many people standing out here and anyone could have snapped a picture of him and this woman together and sent that shit to his wife. He moved sloppy as fuck.