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I knew damn well marriage wasn’t the topic of discussion for either one of them.
“Nothing is up with us at the moment. I’m just enjoying him. You know him better than I do, so just out of curiosity, have you ever seen him settle down with anyone? We don’t have those type of conversations when we get around each other, and certain things I don’t want to know the answer to. I guess I’m too afraid of finding out the answer,” she said.
“Jabari has always been wild. When I say always, I mean always. He used to come to Miami for the summers, and at thirteen years old, I caught this nigga in the stairwell of the projects that we used to stay in fuckin’ two bitches. I can’t get that shit out of my head to this day. I ain’t never in my life heard this man even express shit about wanting to get married, have kids, none of that shit.
“At the same time, I ain’t never see the nigga chase after no woman either. I see the chase that he has in his eyes for you. He won’t tell you, but I’ll tell you that the nigga damn near begged for me to have Jashae bring you that night when we all went to watch the fight. I know Jabari is feeling you, but that’s one stubborn motha fucka right there, so good luck on that one. I know you probably feeling him too, but just like him, your selfish ass won’t admit it either. Y’all were made for each other, though. Two crazy ass people will make such a perfect couple,” I let her know, and she laughed.
“I don’t want to wake up Choc, but I’ll probably be gone by the time she wakes up. I gotta get my baby girl from the airport,” I said.
Saying it made me smile. I Facetimed her just about every day, but that was nothing compared to being able to actually see her.
“That’s fine, I’ll be here. You gotta bring her little pretty self over here. We never got the chance to meet her,” she cooed.
“I will. Fuck you sounding like you got baby fever for?” I joked.
“Nigga, please! I’ll never. If I ever get pregnant, I was drugged because I wouldn’t willingly let it happen,” she boasted.
I laughed at her comment, all the while thinking that I didn’t know how the hell my cousin was going to deal with her shit. Mahogany was cool as fuck, though. I liked her for Jabari, so I hoped that they were able to tolerate each other long enough for them to work out.
The next morning
I ended up leaving Jashae’s place a little bit after five this morning. My baby girl and her mother would be landing at 7:30, and I still needed to get back home so I could shower and shit. Lord knows I didn’t want to leave Shae, but I had peace of mind, knowing that Mahogany was over there with her. If I didn’t have prior obligations, swear I would have woken her up with breakfast in bed and all.
I had every plan to come back later just to check up on her. She’d been talking about wanting to meet Taniya, so I felt like this would be a good thing for her. Anything that a nigga could do to put a smile on her face, I was willing to do all of that. I drove on the dark road with just a few cars on the road with me and used this time to think about life in general.
I had received a phone call earlier in the week, and they wanted me to fight again. Not to actually get out there and do it professionally, but for a fundraiser. I hadn’t picked up a pair of gloves and got in the ring in years. I stopped doing that shit because when my ole girl died, I just knew that the shit would never feel the same. The fight that they were asking me to participate in was for a good cause. It was scheduled to take place in two months in Las Vegas, and I still hadn’t made up my mind whether I was going.
The anniversary of my ole girl’s death was coming up in a few weeks, so I think that played a huge role in why I was a little bit in my feelings about not doing the fight. If you didn’t know me personally, then you couldn’t understand how much I loved that woman and how she was my rock. When she died, it put a damper on the relationship that I have with my ole boy. Not that I blamed him for the shit because it wasn’t his fault, but just as much as I loved her, my ole boy loved her, so how could we have been there for each other when we could hardly be there for ourselves?
Although I took care of every bill that he would ever have and I made sure that he would always had money in his account, that didn’t mean I was doing my whole part as a son. I needed to start seeing him more. I promised myself that when I picked my daughter up from the airport, I was going to pay him a visit because I knew that it would mean a lot to him to see Taniya and me.
It didn’t take me long at all to get home, take the much needed shower that I needed to take, brush my teeth, and find a quick outfit
to throw on. In no time, I was jumping in a different car, which was more kid-friendly versus the green Corvette that I was originally driving. This time, I chose to push the Bentley truck, which had Taniya’s car seat in the back along with built-in TVs on the back of both the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat. There was no need for me to break the speed limit while I was on the road since there was hardly any traffic this morning.
When I was about fifteen minutes away from the airport, Tahira texted me, letting me know that the plane had just landed, and they were on the way to baggage claim. I texted her back and let her know where I would be parked, and that was that. Thirty minutes later, I was standing outside my car with my back against the wall, waiting to see my lil mama.
Every five minutes or so, someone walked up and asked to take a picture with me. I was cool with it for now, but the moment I got my daughter, I didn’t care to do the whole picture taking thing. I took daddy and daughter time very seriously.
In about another minute or so, I looked up and saw them coming out of the double doors. Out of all the cars and the people that were standing out here, my daughter’s little eyes managed to land upon me. The second she saw me, she dropped her little unicorn luggage, broke free of Tahira’s hand, and she took off in my direction.
“Dadddyyyyy!” she screamed at the top of her lungs as she ran toward me like she was in a track and field race.
Her long, thick hair was in braids, so they just bounced in the wind as she ran. I bent down, with my arms spread open, and the moment she was close enough, she leaped in my arms. I picked her up, spun her around, and kissed all over her face.
“Ohhh, daddy! I missed you,” she cried.
My three-year-old was literally crying with her little arms wrapped around me and her face buried in the crook of my neck. Tahira and I had decided to keep this little meet up a secret from her. She was just under the impression that she was going on vacation with her mommy. My daughter was beautiful. She had my entire face, every single feature that I had, but she had her mother’s chocolate skin complexion. She was three, a little thing, but had the imagination, the mouth, and the brain of a thirty-year-old woman.
“I missed you too, lil mama. How was your flight?” I asked her.
At the same time, Tahira was walking up. She was holding Taniya’s suitcase along with a carry-on. I put Taniya down so I could get the bags from Tahira’s hands.
“It was good. The plane was going to crash, Daddy. It was shaking and stuff. The man who was flying the plane kept talking on that loudspeaker and saying something about nerbulance,” she said, trying to say turbulence.
“Turbulence baby, it’s turbulence, and the plane was not going to crash,” Tahira corrected Taniya.
All I could do was laugh. I looked up at Tahira, and we came toward each other for a two-second hug. Although she was my baby mama, we were very good friends. Hell, still to this day, I went to her about personal shit. I even trusted shorty enough to have her file my taxes for me. We did damn good when it came to this parenting stuff and this friend shit, but as far as being in a relationship, that shit just didn’t work out.
