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I nodded once again and dried my face. “You’re right. You give amazing advice. Does that only happen when you’re high?”
He smirked. “Naw. I’m an intelligent nigga. The advice does get better when I’m high though because my mind is clear.”
I chuckled, trying to force myself into a good mental state. “So should I show up at the viewing tomorrow?”
“Hell yeah. Everybody gon’ be there, ready to turn up. It’s gon’ be at the family barn, where all the big shit goes down.”
“Okay. If I didn’t work at the school, I’d ask for a sample of your product.”
He pulled a blunt from his console. “Girl, fuck them people. You associated with the Hendersons now. The mayor got you covered.”
He chuckled as he passed it to me. “Jasper, I don’t even know how to smoke. I was just kidding.”
“Oh shit. Give me that back. You can’t be wasting my shit. I’ll show you though if you wanna learn. When we get to Liberty County, I got’chu.”
“Why Liberty County?”
“’Cause I got the judge on speed dial. I can get out of shit out there. Them people out here will throw me in jail without question. They don’t give a fuck who you are out here.”
I slowly shook my head as a smile played on my lips. I could chill with Jasper anytime. I would have never guessed Ashanni’s dad was this cool. Looking down at my phone, I picked it up from my lap and tried calling Jakari. It went straight to voicemail again. I sighed then set it back on my lap. “So how many kids do you have?”
“Two boys after Ashanni. So three total. Royal and Crew. Royal was hell on wheels, but he’s calmed down now. He’s thirteen and Crew is nine. He’s the typical, active boy. You want kids?”
“I do. I love kids.”
“You obviously ain’t spent much time around Storm’s other kids. Maui will make you think they are all like her. She’s the only one that turned out like her mother. Those twins and her two younger brothers will make you snatch your ovaries and fallopian tubes out yo’ damn self.”
I hollered with laughter as he continued. “You think I’m lying? I’m not even halfway playing. Bad ass kids.”
By the time I caught my breath from laughing so much, Jasper had pulled out his lighter and sparked up. He took a huge inhale then blew it out slowly and passed it to me. I stared at it for a second, then took a slow pull from it. Although I didn’t smoke, I could follow directions. Jasper’s silent instructions were great. A smile formed on my lips as I exhaled. I could see his eyebrows lift in my peripheral.
“I thought you’d never smoked before.”
“I haven’t. I just watched you. I’ll try to truly inhale and blow it out my nose next time.”
“A’ight. Don’t be getting choked. You gon’ be at Jesus feet for real.”
CHAPTER15
JAKARI
I’d fucked up… just what I was afraid I would do. I didn’t know why I thought I could handle a meaningful relationship with anybody. Yendi, although she had issues as well, she was perfect. She knew how to separate that situation from what we had. If she was angry at her mother, she didn’t take that out on me. While I could see she had a problem, she didn’t distance herself from me. I didn’t know how to do that yet.
I’d already called Serita this morning and rescheduled my appointment instead of doing it on the website. It was past time. When I told her who I was and what my issue was, she seemed to be stunned into silence. I knew she remembered counseling my mom, brothers, and Aunt Syn. Sometimes she still counseled Aunt Syn. After I gave a rough explanation of why I needed to see her, she said,I waited to hear from you for a while. When I didn’t, I assumed you had a handle on things.
Yeah, I thought I was handling it too. I wasn’t handling it in a healthy way though. After twelve years, I still felt guilt, anger, hatred, and hurt. I hated Avery Bolton and everything the image of him now represented. Seeing him with Shakari was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Everything came crashing down on me. I lost my heart. I truly believed that what I’d done to her last night was bothering me more than it bothered her.
I knew she was hurting, although she probably wouldn’t verbalize that to me. She said before that she needed to be handled with care… gently. What I did was everything but. It was like I couldn’t control my actions at that moment. I’d always been able to control myself until I met Yendi. Love found me, and I couldn’t stop the inevitable. The problem with that was I didn’t know how to handle her love for me or my love for her. Again… I thought I did until last night.
It had only been a week of us being together, and I’d already fucked things up. The odds of me hurting her again were great… overwhelmingly great. I promised her that I would never intentionally hurt her. While I made a conscious decision to leave her at the arena, I couldn’t force myself not to. I supposed I was a creature of habit. When I was hurt or offended, I needed to be alone. I didn’t like anyone seeing me in the state I was in last night, not even the people closest to me. On top of that, I was now embarrassed about what happened and my behavior afterward.
As I sat outside of the room Jess would be in, I lowered my face to my hands. I’d just gotten back to Nome an hour ago. I went home and showered then came here. Focusing on Jess’s issues would possibly keep the attention off my own.Typical Jakari. Deflect, ignore, and suppress.Noah probably thought I was a fucking fool. I was more than sure Yendi had gone back to her seat without me. Seeing Noah today would bring all that shit crashing down. Plus, we were supposed to go turn up with Nate after the game, whether they won or not.
I didn’t know how the game turned out, because I never got a hotel room. I sat in that Suburban all night and drove around, burning all my fucking gas, trying to rid myself of the reoccurring thoughts of failure, anger, and hostility. I wanted to fuck Avery up. To say I couldn’t control myself, I somehow kept myself from choking the fuck out of him. Maybe because it was something that just wasn’t in my nature to do. I rarely resorted to violence.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and stared at it. This morning, when I powered it on, I had so many messages. Most of them were from Yendi. There were also messages from Uncle Jasper and Nate. Apparently, no one else knew of my disappearing act, which meant they kept it to themselves. I couldn’t be more grateful for that. I didn’t need everyone blowing me up and trying to give me advice. Uncle Jasper knew that much about me, and either Yendi understood me more than I thought she did, or Uncle Jasper had told her to keep it to herself.
“Jakari what are you doing here already?”
