Page 48 of And It’s Still You

“And where in the fuck do you think you’re going, O’Shea?” Onyx yelled.

My head whipped around. “Who the fuck are you raising yo’ voice at?”

“I said yo’ name, didn’t I?”

“Aye, I don’t know what yo’ problem is, but you need to pipe down. Whatever got you worked up and on a power trip ain’t got shit to do with me. Watch yo’ mouth when speaking to me, Onyx.”

“It’s you that need to watch yo’ mouth. I’m yo’ father, O. I’m the head of JMG. What I say goes. You need to learn yo’ place and respect me. Now, get yo’ ass back over here, sit down, and let’s talk business.”

“Didn’t I already tell you that respect is earned? You should know me better by now. I don’t care if I did come from you. I’m not ’bout to let you think you can big boy me into doing some shit you want to do to prove a point. If you can’t get with the program, then I’m out completely. Y’all can handle this shit on yo’ own.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Cyn stood up with his palms up. “I don’t know what type of dick swinging competition y’all are on, but we can’t do this without O, Onyx.”

“Yeah, I agree with Cyn,” Tre stated. “We need him to do this, so I need for y’all to come to some type of agreement.”

Onyx and I glared at one another. Neither of us would back down, which wasn’t helping the situation any. The longer I stared at him, the closer I could see the pain showing behind his eyes. Had I truly been that blind not to see it all these years, or was it just now rising to the surface? Now wasn’t the time to worry about it, but I would be addressing it soon.

When neither of us moved or said anything, Tre rose to his feet and walked over to me. For a moment, I took my eyes off Onyx and gave Tre my undivided attention.

“Listen, O,” he started, speaking low enough for only us to hear. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and yo’ pops right now, but I need one of y’all to be the bigger person. We both know it’s not going to be him.”

“Why does it have to be me, Tre? I’m always the bigger person. Like he said, he’s my father. Why can’t he put his pride to the side and fix this?”

My relationship with Onyx could be exhausting, but it had never gotten to the point we were now. I wanted to fix it because, at the end of the day, he was my father. When we were good, everything was cool. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t always be like that.

“You’re right. Don’t worry. I’m on yo’ side with this,” Tre assured me and put one hand on my shoulder. “He does have a point, though. He’s over JMG. I know you’re thinking logically, not wanting to move too soon, but if his mind is made up on changing it to tonight, there’s not shit we can do ’bout it.”

“Yes, there is. We can convince him otherwise.”

“Does it look like he’s going to be convinced by any of us?”

I looked over Tre’s shoulder to find Onyx still mugging me. I dragged my tongue over my top teeth to keep from saying anything. Everything in me was telling me that we needed to wait, so I would try one more time to convince Onyx.

“I’ll try to talk some sense into him again.” I tapped the back of my hand against Tre’s chest and stepped around him. As I neared Onyx, he never took his eyes off me. It was pissing me off, but I kept it together for the sake of needing to talk some sense into him. “Onyx.”

He held his hand up. “My mind is made up, O. We’re moving tonight, so sit down and fall in line.”

As badly as I wanted to snap back, I didn’t. Slowly, I nodded and sat down. His lips spread into a pleased smirk, one I wanted to knock right off his face.

For hours, we talked about what we needed to do and how everything needed to go down. In the pit of my stomach, I couldn’t shake that something was going to go wrong. I couldn’t shake that we were moving too soon, but I’d let Onyx cook. He’d just better pray we all came out alive.

Once we had everything set in stone, I headed home to tell Moya the bad news. The thought of disappointing her made me sick to my stomach. Imagining the disappointment on her face had me sitting in the garage with my truck off for over fifteen minutes when I got home. I wasn’t ready to go in and face her, but she made her way out to me. My eyes followed her from the time she opened the garage door to the time she climbed inside my truck. Knowing what I knew, I couldn’t look at her for too long.

Immediately, Moya called me out, “Shea, why can’t you look at me?”

“I have some bad news, Love.”

The truck went silent, and it felt as if the air around us stopped circulating. I couldn’t even breathe in deeply. The suffocating feeling in my nose traveled down to my throat and heart. The only thing I’d promised not to do, there I was, doing it.

“What is it?”

Finally, I gazed at her while tugging on my chin hair. “Onyx changed the plans. We’re moving out tonight. In six hours to be exact.”

“Are you serious?”

“I wish I wasn’t. I don’t know, Moya. Something doesn’t feel right ’bout this to me, but I couldn’t convince him. I couldn’t convince him to listen to me. It’s as if he’s on some power trip when it comes to me, and I don’t understand why when I only have everyone’s best interest at heart.”

“Why does he want to move so suddenly?”