Page 27 of Saint Baptiste 2

Tasha frowned with disgust and shook her head. “Blaise, please. Like I said, Carlisle handled it, and he checks out.”

I stood there, in silence, just... watching. Letting them have their worthless exchange of words. Watched as the vein running down the middle of Blaise’s forehead was on the verge of bursting. Watched as Natasha nervously twiddled her rings, pretending to be the ‘grown ass woman’ she so badly wanted to convince us that she was. Just... watched and observed in silenced. Paid attention to the shakiness in her voice as Blaise’s raised, his laced with worry. He was nervous too. Realizing just how much of a handle we didn’t have on things. His eyes were shifty. Probably tormented by the fact that he had a daughter. A little girl who too would grow into a young woman and think she ‘had It’. Bro was spiraling. But what they both needed to do was fucking relax.

“Relax,” I said through a sigh.

They didn’t hear me.

Continued their worthless, heated exchange. Natasha called Blaise an asshole. Blaise called her a cheap whore. I’d heard enough.

“Chill!” I yelled, with my eyes locked on Blaise, finally getting both their attention. “Chill,” I repeated, this time a lot calmer than before.

I shifted my eyes to Blaise, and we did that thing again. Spoke a language that was understood only between him, Jah, and I. And... he relaxed. Enough. I would have liked for him to stop pacing, but he hadn’t. He paced, roughly running both of his hands over his thick hair. He needed a cut, badly. He was untamed. His beard was just as unruly. I made a mental note to check in with him. See what was up with the nigga. After what he’d said about Ari tripping, I could only imagine what he was going through.

Listening to Natasha... learning about this new nigga just now... made me do a bit of self-reflection. I hadn’t been checking in with my peoples. I always checked in with them. I was the one that made sure everyone was straight. I hadn’t though. I’d been so wrapped up in what the fuck I had going on that checking in with them had been the furthest thing from my mind. I was slipping, Slipping a little too much.

I couldn’t slip where Tash was concerned. Baby sis was too green. I needed to keep close ties on her. The type of ties that would go unnoticed. But first, I had to diffuse the situation. While I gave a fuck about what she had going on, I needed her to trust me. I needed her comfortable. The way Blaise was carrying on, wouldn’t work.

I looked away from Blaise and softened my expression before I put my eyes on Tasha. “Sis,” I stressed. “We trust you. This nigga B just bein’ B. You know him. You know us. We love you and want to make sure you’re safe. That’s all. It’s all love, baby.”

Her shoulders raised and fell with a light sigh. “I know what I’m doing. I’m safe?—”

“Would we be who we are if we didn’t make sure though, Tash? All bullshit aside.”

The corners of her mouth turned up with a grimace. “No.”

“Exactly,” I casually told her with raised brows before fishing my buzzing phone from my pocket. Nix, confirming a shipment. “Sit down for me, Natasha.”

She rolled her eyes, but her spoiled ass sat on the couch. Once she was seated, I locked eyes with Blaise and gestured towards the couch opposite of her. He brushed his hand over the top of his wild mane, pushed away from the armoire and made his way to the other couch to sit. He needed to pay attention to the difference between the way he handled her and the way I handled her. Blaise was no good with women. Neither of us knew what to really do with them. I mean shit, what nigga really knew what to do with a woman? But I knew enough to understand that they needed to be handled with a certain type of delicacy. Blaise didn’t know what it meant to be delicate. With anything or anybody. Shit, sometimes he struggled with Bebe too. However, because she was his daughter, he was as gentle as he could possibly be.

“Listen... Let’s do this.” I paused. “I’ll check in with Julian and see if we can move the date. If not, you’ll just have to be briefed on it when you return.”

As I made my way over to the couch Blaise sat on to sit beside him, I could feel Tasha’ eyes burning into me. “I really hope you’re not about to?—”

“This is the part where you listen,” I interrupted as I bunched the top of my slacks up to sit. “With your ears. Not your emotions. Take them shits out of it.” With my eyes locked on hers, I lightly nodded. “You hear me?”

She crossed her arms and Blaise lightly grunted. “Uncross your arms. Sit up straight and listen. You’re a Baptiste, right?” With flaring nostrils, he added. “Act like one.”

Tasha slowly uncrossed her arms and shifted around in her seat. Shoulders back, head straight, eyes locked. On Blaise. He gave her a light nod of approval, turned to me, and gave me the same nod, with different meaning.

I continued. “You want us to trust you. We trust you,” I interrupted before biting down on my teeth to bite back on my words. “We don’t trust him. With you. This isn’t about you.”

“If you trust me, me trusting him should be enough.”

Blaise laughed.

Not because what Natasha said was funny, but because it was sad. I understood the sentiments. It was sad. Sad because she didn’t get it. There was so much about this... so much about us that she didn’t understand. How sheltered was she? Who did she think we were? What family did she think she was a part of? How naïve was she, really? What had Samuel done to her?

Samuel failed her.

Not us.

“No sis,” I mumbled. “That’s... that’s not how this works at all, Natasha.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Before she could cross her arms again, I jumped up, snatched her hand and grabbed it. “Listen to me. I need you to really listen to me,” I stressed with a squint, deciding it was best for me to sit right next to her.

“To us,” Blaise added.

I looked over at him. I needed the nigga to follow my lead. I needed him to read the fuckin’ room. This was a delicate situation. Natasha was, indeed, a grown woman but she didn’t have the mentality of one. Natasha was like a teenaged girl, finally free. If we didn’t proceed with caution, she’d rebel. We didn’t need that. Shit, I didn’t need that. I had enough on my fuckin’ plate already.

---