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I was too busy watching my ticket, so I could give two fucks about talking about Wolf. Seeing him at the casino last weekend, it sucked that I caught him at the wrong place. I couldn’t do my dirty work there. I made too much money gambling there. Wasn’t no nigga in the world worth me getting banned from the Hard Rock.

“How shit going between you and Joy?” he asked and her name alone was enough to piss me off.

“Man, I hate her ass dawg. I really tried to be cordial and mature about the shit, especially since we have a baby on the way, but I just can’t do her. I haven’t been fuckin with her like that ever since that night I took her to work, and she started talking all that shit. I told her not to hit my line until the baby got here. I ain’t doing no gender reveal, baby shower, none of that shit,” I let him know.

As we were sitting here, my phone began to ring. My mom was hitting me. I haven’t seen her since I pulled up on her that evening. I’m always on the move, making money, so I haven’t called to check in or anything either. That’s not the kind of relationship we had though. I never really called to check on her, and she didn’t call to check on me. For her to hit me on a random Thursday night, I know she was calling me for some money.

As much as I wanted to deny her call, I didn’t. There was this piece of me that still loved her. This piece that didn’t want her to be in danger, so I answered.

“Yo,” I picked up.

“Son, can you send me a few dollars? I need to pay my rent,” she asked me. I let out a hard breath. I knew this was the reason for her call.

“At least act like you give a fuck about a nigga. I haven’t seen or heard from you in weeks. Before you ask me for money, don’t you care to ask me how I’m doing? This the shit that I be talking about with your ass!” I snapped.

“You think I want to call you and have to ask you for money?” she screamed at me.

“Well, you doing it! Where them niggas you be bringing to the crib? Why can’t you ask them for a few dollars to help you pay your rent?” I barked back at her.

“If it was that fuckin easy, I wouldn’t be calling you!” she snapped.

“Any nigga you can’t get money from is a nigga you shouldn’t be opening your legs to. How much you need man?” I asked, changing the subject.

There was no purpose to continue going back and forth over the phone. We weren’t going to see eye to eye on it.

“Like five hundred dollars,” she said.

“Aight. I’ll send it,” I replied.

She didn’t even say thank you. She just hung the phone up on me. As much as I wanted to stall and not send the money right away, I didn’t do that because I didn’t want my own mama to be forced to call another nigga and have to beg. I also didn’t want her to have to do something sexual with one of them just to get five hundred dollars.

Even though she only asked for five hundred, I sent her one thousand. She didn’t thank me for it, either.

“You a better nigga than me, man. I wouldn’t be giving her ass shit,” Ced told me. He knew it was my mom that I just got off the phone with, without me having to tell him.

I didn’t want to keep talking about it, so I just waved him off.

Maybe five minutes later, our last player on our ticket did what he had to do, closing out or ticket. Like me and Ced just won the lottery, we started jumping up and down, screaming.

“Let’s go! That’s what the fuck I’m talking about!” I yelled, followed by sticking my hand out, so I could slap it up with him.

We celebrated for at least two minutes straight. I’m talking drinking the Don Julio out of the bottle, running around the apartment, the whole nine.

“Man, I’m cuffing my entire six figures. I ain’t sending Preston shit!” Ced spat, flopping down on the couch. That’s when I stopped celebrating, so I could look at him like he was crazy.

“Nigga what? Fuck is you talking about?” I asked, calming down from the celebration and sitting on the couch as well.

“You heard me. I’m keeping my one hundred g’s. I ain’t sending Preston twenty percent,” he repeated himself.

At first, I thought he was fuckin around, but there wasn’t a smirk or anything on his face, leaving me to believe that he was serious.

“That gotta be the Don and the weed that got you talking like that. You were there when we pulled up to the warehouse for the first time. He showed us what he’ll do to a nigga for running off with his twenty percent. I ain’t trying to underestimate him just because he’s a white boy. I feel like his pull is long. He gives me the kind of vibes that he’ll swipe out you and your entire family for playing with his money. Why take the risk, man? He been giving us winning tickets all week. Why duck the man of his bread?” I asked, not understanding him.

I’m not going to lie, I had every intention on ducking Preston in the beginning, but I couldn’t see myself doing that now. He was a cool dude. He was putting more money in my pocket. I’ll gladly hand him over his twenty percent.

“Preston don’t know I put this ticket in tonight. He gave that ticket to you. You shared the ticket with me. That six figures belongs to me. Technically, I don’t owe him shit. You do!” he snapped.

I was disappointed in my nigga man. I didn’t expect this from him. He was the one to put me on to Preston. He was the one to tell me how he had all this respect for Preston because he followed him on social media and saw all his wins. He got in good with the nigga, won off a ticket that he gave us, and now he wanted to buck him. That was green as fuck.