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“Girl, please! If you ask me, that man loves your ass too much. You and I both know that he’s only acting this way toward you because he’s dealing with his father being sick,” she told me the moment I climbed in bed with her and made myself comfortable.
She always had it so cold in the house at night, just like how I had my home, so I found myself lying down with the covers pretty much over my whole body.
“Then why is he pushing me away like this? When I lost Vonte, that’s when I needed Miami the most, and he wasn’t even my boyfriend at the time. Why is it that when women hurt, we need to be around love, comfort, and support, but when a man is hurt, it’s the total opposite, and they would rather be alone?” I questioned like she could speak for every man and woman on earth.
“I wish I knew the answer to that, Shae. Everybody deals with the sickness of a loved one differently. Your father was the same way years ago when your mother died. He pushed everybody who tried to be there for him away. You still gotta love them and still somehow try to be there for them, although they act like they don’t want you there, but trust me, they do. Take it one day at a time with him. It’s still fresh. He kind of just found out about his father’s cancer,” she let me know, and I nodded.
“Would you have ever guessed that Daddy and Mahogany’s mom had messed around
?” I quizzed.
She released a sigh right before she got the remote and paused the TV.
“Never in a million years. That was a blow to me as well. Her and your mom had a relationship like you and Mahogany. When you saw one, you always saw the other. Your mom would be over my house pretty much every day because, for whatever reason, she was in love with your crazy ass daddy,” she said, followed by a laugh, making me laugh too. I always loved to hear stories about my mother, especially since I never got the chance to meet her. “She was glued to his hip, the same way you are with Miami. I wasn’t for a bunch of girls being at my house, but from the beginning, I supported what your parents had, although they were young. Your mom was so mature for her age, and I felt like that’s what my son needed, so I didn’t mind her coming over.
“I was a little disappointed when I found out that she was pregnant with you because they were both still young and babies in my eyes, but it wasn’t my call to tell another woman what to do with her body, so I had to accept that I would have a baby on the way. It broke my heart when your mother died because I thought of her as my daughter too.
“Literally, a year after that, her mother, which was your grandmother, died from a massive heart attack. She never got over the death of her daughter, which is why when Vonte died, I made it my business to be there for you because I didn’t want you not be able to cope with life after that because she sure didn’t. As far as your mother, Shae, I’m just as disappointed in him as you are. This wasn’t the type of secret that he should have kept. I could see if he and Mahogany’s mom had sex once, and that was it. Okay cool, you can take that to the grave because we all have some dark skeletons in our closet that we’re not comfortable with addressing, but a child was conceived out of what they did. A child that he pretty much watched grow up. If Mahogany decides that she doesn’t want anything to do with him, I can’t fault her for it. She has every reason in the world to be mad at him,” she said, and I nodded my head in understanding.
I stayed up with her for another ten minutes or so, just talking. The last thing I remember doing was reaching over and grabbing my phone from the nightstand, just to see if I had a text message or anything from Miami. When I didn’t, I called it a night. Right there in my grandma’s bed, I ended up falling asleep.
Toddrick “Miami” King
A month ago, I ended up buying Taniya her own phone, because, for months, her little ass had been asking for one. Lil mama didn’t want just a regular phone either. Her little butt wanted the same phone as me, which was the iPhone XS Max, or in her words, “the phone that unlocks with your face.” Because I was in a position to buy anything that my daughter would ever want or need, I went ahead and made that happen for her. Tahira had set the phone up for her and everything, and I swear that little girl calls me more than my own shorty.
The moment her eyes opened in the morning, she was calling me via Facetime, checking up on me, just to see how I was doing and how I’d slept the night before. Although Taniya was too young to type out her text messages, she would send me audio messages throughout the day, letting me know that she loved me or just trying to figure out what I was doing. One of her favorite things to ask me was when I was coming to get her. I hated when baby girl had to go back home to her mama, and now that the job Tahira had taken in D.C. was over, she was back with her mom for good. Now, I only got her for breaks from school.
The phone that I’d gotten for her was probably one of the best things that I’d ever gotten for her because now I didn’t have to use Tahira as the middleman, just for me to speak to my child.
The phone call that Taniya had made a few hours ago had me on a fuckin’ private jet to check some shit. My daughter called me irate, emotional, and I could hear it in her voice that she was scared as hell. She kept saying over and over that her mama’s fuck ass boyfriend had punched her mother in the mouth. Not only was she scared for Tahira, but she was crying, telling me to come and get her because she was scared that he was going to hit her too. As if shit in my life wasn’t already toxic, now I needed to deal with this shit.
When it comes to Tahira, at the end of the day, that’s the mother of my child, and because of that, I was doing what I was supposed to do. If she wasn’t right, then my daughter wasn’t going to be right because she wouldn’t be able to physically care for her the way I needed her to while I wasn’t there, so this trip was called for. I would be a lame ass nigga if I didn’t do shit about it. Now, if I went over there and Tahira decided to fuck with dude after this, then that was her choice, but from here on out, she couldn’t have that nigga around my daughter. If I found out that she did, then to court we go!
My daughter was afraid of that nigga. I heard that shit all in her fuckin’ voice while we were on the phone. Tahira didn’t even have the slightest clue that I was on my way to see her because Taniya had run into the bathroom and called me, and I told her not to say anything about me coming. I was already skeptical at the beginning about Tahira having another nigga around my child. But because Tahira had never given me a reason in the past to doubt her mothering skills, I didn’t even trip about the shit when I found out from Taniya that her mama had a boyfriend and she was around him at times. Any comfort I felt about another man being around my child had gone out the window from the moment I received that phone call, and I heard that damn panic in my daughter’s voice.
The whole plane ride, my mind was on my ole boy and my shorty. I felt like from the moment I found out about him having cancer, the shit had pretty much increased. He wasn’t in good shape, and just like years ago when I lost my ole girl to this same deadly disease, I was mentally preparing myself for his death. My actions lately, mixed with my words, were all things that came from me getting myself prepared for that gruesome day.
Let my shorty tell it, I didn’t give a fuck about her or my baby. That wasn’t the case at all. I’ll be the first to admit, that yes, I was madder than a motha fucka with Shae. I wasn’t about to sugar coat shit. She fucked up, and right now, a nigga needed some fuckin’ space. I didn’t like how she grew so fuckin’ comfortable to look me in my eyes and lie to me like that. Literally stood her ass right there and lied to me about why she’d changed her phone number.
Granted, I knew her ass was lying, but I also knew that she would slip up, and the truth would one day come out. And, sure enough, it had. It was too much protecting of that nigga in this relationship, and I was sick of that shit, man. Any other nigga would have been left Shae because, from the fuckin’ beginning, I felt like she was still holding onto something with his ass. I was giving her space right now to figure out what the fuck she wanted to do because she couldn’t have both.
In the beginning, I let shorty have it too fuckin’ easy. I didn’t even give shorty an ultimatum. Now, I was giving her ass one. I didn’t want her fuckin’ with that nigga, period! I didn’t even want her calling to tell the fuck nigga happy birthday. She couldn’t do shit with him, and I meant that. If she couldn’t agree to that shit, then she made her choice, and whatever we had is a fuckin’ wrap.
The private jet that I was on had finally landed, and the car that I’d rented for the next couple of hours was already waiting for me. I came to L.A. with nothing but the clothes on my back, my phone, and my wallet. I knew the way to Tahira’s home from the airport, so I floored it to get to her because I was hoping to get to the nigga before he left. I would wait for him all fuckin’ night if I had to. It was going on one in the morning in L.A., so who knows if that nigga had left, and if he had, who knows if he was going to come back.
The whole drive, I whizzed in and out of traffic with the music turned down low and all types of thoughts registering in my head. Before I knew it, I was pulling my car into the big development of nice ass houses where Tahira lived. There were two cars in the driveway, which both belonged to her, and I pulled my car right behind them both. It was a little cool out, so I zipped up the gray, polo hoodie that I had on and walked up the big driveway and over to the front door. I banged on that bitch with a purpose.
It took about two minutes, but the front door had finally swung open. When Tahira saw me standing on the other side of the door, I could see in her face how shocked she was.
“Who the fuck did you expect it to be? That nigga?” I asked, only because I saw the disappointment in her face when she saw that it was me.
He’d done exactly to her what my daughter had claimed, plus a little more. Her lip was busted, making it look like she’d had an allergic reaction to some shit. Her right eye was black, and I could see little cuts and bruises on her arms, making it so obvious that they were in this bitch tussling. I shook my head at the sight before me because never in a million years did I think that I would pop up on my baby mama and see her in this predicament. Granted, Tahira had a mouth on her that even made me want to punch her ass in it sometimes, but never in my life will I let a woman get me out of my element, and I put my hands on her.
“Why are you here?” she questioned, using her hands to close the robe that she was wearing.
Tahira was wide awake, more than likely waiting for that nigga to get home. She was a pretty girl; that much was true. She was smart too, so I had no idea why she was even allowing this nigga to dog her out like this. Not to boost her head up and cross the line, but I knew that she could have any nigga that she wanted, excluding me, so why the fuck was she even up waiting on this clown ass nigga to come home?
Any nigga who put his hands on his woman is a fuckin’ clown. Shae can work my fuckin’ nerves every day, talk cash money shit to me, but I’d never raise a hand to her. I already had the advantage because I was a boxer, so from once punch alone, I’d probably break her little ass!
