AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I sighed. “And sharp, too. Y’all ain’t tell me how hard raising girls is. The little thing thinks she’s the damn parent: telling me when to go to bed, when to wake up…tries to come in the bathroom when I’m taking a dump. Man, I have to lock my bathroom door—been doing it since she started walking!”
Zeb shook his head, convincing me he understood my pain. “Wait till you get a lady and y’all start arguing, and she takes sides. If she takes your side, you feel bad for your lady. If she takes your lady’s side, your feelings are hurt.”
“Damn!” I patted my chest, feeling that shit already.
We found the crowd gathering in the dining room. Ashira entered from the other side, rolling in a big ass cake shaped as four corporate buildings in various sizes. It actually resembled my business park.
“Oh, damn!” my cousin Tanya shouted while flicking away with her phone.
“That shit lit!” Cousin Sean thought it was dope, too.
“Where’s Chi-Chi,” Lex added for clarity, “the baby?”
Why did I go along with a nickname spelled differently than her mother’s but sonically was the same? That was why it never caught on with me, and I referred to her simply as Chivon.
“She’s in her room napping!” my mother shouted in an answer.
Chelsea snapped pictures of the cake, too, as she asked, “You think we should wake her?”
“No!” Ashira, Consuela, Amy, and I managed at the same damn time.
The whole room seemed to react to that snickering. It was no joke. Chivon would be the crankiest little bear if awakened before her body was ready.
“If we want to get through any part of this event, we should let Miss Momma rest,” Amy sagely advised the room.
Consuela added while shaking her head, “Yup. She wouldn’t make for a great guest at her daddy’s birthday.” An echo of giggles rang out from that.
“Shi-Shi was like…Unt-unt!” Chelsea joked about Ashira’s strong and swift reaction to her proposal.
Ashira shook her head, emphasizing her decision. “I’m wiser now. Think twice, act once now. Leaving the Glock in a locked box now,” she rapped the lyrics to Young Lord’s latest radio banger, “New Lord.” Her hand and fingers formed a gun. “Warn once, shoot twice now.”
Her girls, Shizu and Corinne, joined in, “Touch my lady, you see the flo’, clown. Fuck me twice, roll the dice, I foolyounow.She ask for one; I give her two now.”
What was once predictable wasn’t now even though it happened. Ashira snapped her fingers, kicked her leg into the air then dropped down into a butterfly twerk. She added a swinging technique to her hips as she quoted the next line.“Two babies, four cribs now. Shit is smooth now, she claimed the crown now. Hijacked my name, pull up to the bank, withdrawing from my shits now.”
The room went up in a mixture of laughter and shock, and I couldn’t help my reaction. Should we have been surprised by her antics? Likely not. Ashira was a natural performer. Good-hearted and funny to everyone in the room. It was cute. But not for me. Her ass was almost inches away, pointed in my direction. In just thin ass biker shorts, some of the baby fat leftover from Chivon’s gestation was still evident, and I knew this.
Unlike any person on the planet, I knew each inch of Ashira’s body by memory. That jiggle wasn’t there the first time I visited her place, four years ago when she was inappropriately dressed for company she didn’t know. Little did she know, I was a man who could’ve taken her pussy and snapped her neck with zero effort if my diagnosed proclivities had swung toward the path of sexual deviance. God knew she frustrated the shit out of me back then with her naivety and lack of awareness.
Still do…
That’s because I’d been cool on Ashira for about a year now, letting go of any hope I had of us being more than parenting partners. It had taken a while, but I slowly weaned myself from her hold as a couple and potential “forever.” It had been hard, yet a work in progress I’d been proud of.
But in this second, as I watched the effortless swinging act of her ass, I felt mesmerized. With shit being so crossed between us for so long, I’d forgotten this component of her personality. When her tongue pushed out and flipped up to reach her top lip, I found myself fascinated by how wide and long it was. Had it been that long since I tasted it in my mouth and felt it flicker over my cock?
And when she stopped and smoothly stood with an expression morphing into something bashful, that shit turned me on, too. In that moment, I realized how long it had been since we’d been relaxed around each other. No, Ashira and I no longer shared the chemistry we once burned with. Casual conversations we once took on had waned to zero. Shit, the most passion expressed between the two of us was me beating her ex’s ass while they were on a date about two months ago.
The chorus of the next few lines rang out in the room, snapping me from my crazy ass thoughts. Thoughts I hadn’t processed in so long. “Looking through my rear mirror before crossing lanes now. Fuck the money, fuck power, just my family now!On a beach, wow. No cameras, no rubbers, just my naked hoe loud.”
Ashira was cracking up with her girls. Peach had recited the lines, too, leaving out the profanity. Their chemistry was still strong and high-spirited, something I respected about the ladies. I mentally shook the shit off, not being able to afford to lose focus, which was somethingshewas known to cause me to do.
“Alright,” Chelsea laughed. “Alright!” She shook her head. “Leave it to Shi-Shi and her crew to start an impromptu concert—”
“We luh that shit, though!” my cousin-in-law, Antoine, shouted with his wife at his side, laughing.
Tyreek followed up with, “Word!” But I ain’t like the look in his eye as he stared at Ashira lighting the candles on the cake. My cousin wanted to fuck my baby’s mother since he got out of the pen last October after a four-year bid, and it was becoming more and more evident.
“C’mon, now,” Chelsea tried again. “We don’t have much time. The birthday boy doesn’t care for the spotlight. Let’s serenade him quickly before we get kicked out.”
