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“Oh my God! Three? Already? I remember when everybody found out that you had a daughter. You hid that entire pregnancy. Taniya, right? She was so cute, with her little chunky self. I haven’t seen her since the last picture you posted on your Instagram page, and that was when she was a few months old,” I remembered.
“Yeah, you know a nigga wasn’t trying to be a daddy, at least at the time I wasn’t. I hid that because of the circumstances. That wasn’t my girl or nothing like that, just a little shorty I was fuckin’ on, and she got pregnant by me failing to protect myself. Hell, I didn’t even know she was pregnant until it was time for her to give birth, but that’s a story for another day.
“People on Instagram are too fuckin’ ruthless, so I don’t be posting my baby on there. One of them miserable ass bitches will fuck around and call my baby ugly because I didn’t want to fuck them or I did fuck them and left them high and dry, and they’ll use that and create a fake page and talk down on my child. So, to avoid knocking a bitch’s head clean off her shoulders, I hide my daughter from all that shit. Here she is right here, though,” he said and pulled his phone out to show me the wallpaper that was on his phone of his daughter.
Baby fever hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw his beautiful daughter on the screen. She was the spitting image of her father. She had those same hazel eyes that he did, and she had a bunch of curly, brown hair, with big cheeks that I just wanted to bite.
“She’s so beautiful,” I cooed, and then I passed him back his phone.
“Thank you, Choc. That’s my baby right there.” He beamed, and I could tell how much he loved his daughter, just from his smile alone. I’m not sure why, but his smile ma
de me smile.
“Saturday night and Trip got you in the house again?” he asked me, and I waved him off.
Everybody swore up and down that Trip had me on a leash, when actually, if I wanted to go out, I could. It was me who liked to be boring and relax on the weekend, knowing that Monday would come around too damn quick.
“Trip don’t got me doing nothing! This is how I enjoy spending my Saturday nights,” I shot back at him and playfully rolled my eyes.
“You a damn lie! What’s shorty’s name again? Your best friend? Mahogany, right? I bet she out somewhere in the club, listening to the City Girls with a bottle in her hand, screaming out the lyrics to their song word for word. Ain’t that how she do it? You ain’t with her because you know Trip will call your ass first thing in the morning, talking about who told you that you could go to the club,” he joked.
I laughed because that was definitely some shit that he would do. He’d done it way too many times in the past.
“If you must know, Mahogany is on a date tonight,” I let him know.
“And what about you?” he said, his voice turning serious.
“What do you mean what about me?”
“A date. Do you be letting these niggas take you out on dates?”
“No. Now, when I think about it, I have never really been on a date. Trip and I got together when we were young. We didn’t have any money to do anything or go anywhere. When we got older, and Vonte was here, it was mainly about Vonte. Then, when we moved in together, it was like in his head, he already had me, so he didn’t have to do all the date nights and stuff like that. You know, all the stuff that a guy does to a woman to try to win her over? On top of that, I was working, going to school, and raising my son, so I didn’t have the time,” I let him know.
“Swear I didn’t even come over here to talk about no shit like this. I haven’t seen you in years, so I just wanted to pop up on you and Vonte. His lil ass always talking shit, going around boasting that he the best in NBA 2K, so I wanted to come over, beat him in a couple of games, and go on about my night. But since we on the topic, Choc, let’s talk about it. So, what, you supposed to have a happily ever after with Trip while he’s doing time for the rest of his life and you in the outside world? Shorty, I know that shit gotta get lonely.
“We had to bypass the kitchen to get in here, and I saw the ice cream and wine. That’s like code for a woman saying she lonely. Not to cross the line in our friendship or no shit like that, but Jashae, you fine, and you know that. You been fine since a teenager. Any man would be happy to have you on his arm. Why you depriving yourself of love like that?” he asked me.
God, he sounded just like everybody else in my life aside from Vonte because he swore he was the parent and I was the child and told me every chance he got that I couldn’t have a boyfriend.
“I don’t want to hurt Trip like that. It’s bad enough he has to spend the rest of his life in there, so I can only imagine the way that I would hurt him if I moved on. I done got so used to it being this way that I don’t even feel like I’m missing out on anything,” I voiced.
“Shorty, you missing out on a gang of shit! Trip and I go way back, but you know me and the nigga fell out years ago when he started being on a bunch of shit that I wasn’t on. I’d sell a dime bag here and there, hell I’d even kick a door in and steal from a motha fucka if I had to, but I was only doing that shit to help pay for some of the shit that I needed to box. Although I was raised in a two-parent household, my parents weren’t banking in money like that. All they money went to fuckin’ bills, and because I wanted to box, I did what I had to do to be able to get what I needed.
“I’m not proud of that part of my past, but at the same time, I wasn’t on that gang banging shit and running down on niggas and beating them up just because I had fists and knew how to use them. That’s the type of shit that Trip was on, and once I knew that, I removed myself from that situation. I’m not here to change your beliefs or nothing like that, I just want to give you another opinion and let you ponder on that shit. You talking about you don’t want to hurt Trip, but Choc, what do you call the shit that nigga did to you and Vonte? He had a choice to run down on that nigga or let it go.
“Not to make myself sound better than the next man, but if I had a baby mama at home and a seven-year-old son, it’s fuck whatever beef I got with a nigga because I wouldn’t give another motha fucka on this earth the power to be the reason I lost my freedom. If that nigga loves you like he claims, then he wouldn’t confine you to some ghetto, ‘Ima hold my man down’ type of love. The moment that judge banged that gavel, I would have set you free, shorty. I would have gladly let you go. Only job you would have had was to keep me updated when it came to my son,” Miami said.
I didn’t know what to say next, so I didn’t say anything. I also never knew the real reason why Miami and Trip had fallen out. Trip told me years ago that they’d stopped talking because Miami started thinking that he was better than everybody, especially after high school when he’d moved away and went to box in college. Not to side with another man over my baby daddy, but Miami’s story sounded more accurate.
For at least another hour or so, Miami and I sat on the couch just talking about pretty much everything. I bragged on my son for his basketball skills, and Miami promised me that he was going to make it to the next game. In the middle of us talking, I heard the door turn. I knew it was Vonte coming back home from the movies. When he didn’t come in the den where we were, and I heard him heading up the steps, I called his name out. He had to have known that we were in the den because Miami’s car was in the driveway, plus he could see the light on.
“Giovonte!” I called his name out.
A few seconds had gone by before he made his presence in the den where we were.
“My bad, Ma, I’m tired. What’s up, Miami?” Vonte called out.
His face lit up a little bit when he saw Miami, but as a mother, I could still see that something was wrong with him.
