Page 20 of Give Me All Of You

“Aye, Haze. You ready?” My brother came from where I figured was the bathroom, since I noticed he walked in the back when they first came in.

“Yeah, we can bounce.” I stood up, but after I was on my feet, I bent down so that I was hovering over Rue’s small frame. My action made her lean back and rear her head up to look me in the face. “You’re going to answer when I call?” I asked, extremely close to her face. I could see her breathing hitch in anticipation of me kissing her. As bad as I wanted to, I refrained.

“We’ll see.” She played tough. Chuckling at her response, I pressed my lips against her forehead before I stood to my full height. When I looked over at my brother and Journei, he was saying something to her and her expression was void. I’ll ask him about that shit later. The girls got up to walk us outside, but I turned around and stopped Rue at the door.

“Nah. Don’t come out here. It’s late. Just make sure you lock up good. As a matter of fact, go ahead and lock the door so I can hear you lock them. I’ll tap on the door when I know you’ve done it.” She looked like she wanted to protest, but I wasn’t bulging until I knew she was locked in. After hearing the locks turn, I tapped on the door and headed to my car.

“You headed home?” I asked him as I unlocked my doors.

“Yeah, I’m about to let Teresa go home. She said Lu was resting, so I’ll be in unless some shit pops up,” he explained.

Nodding my response, I got in my car and drove in the direction of my house. I had a few meetings tomorrow, and I needed my rest in order not to snap on these muthafuckas.

∞∞∞

I just wrapped up a meeting with a man who wanted to get the rest of their family here from Ghana. He already had his son with him and now he was sending back for his wife and two daughters. The trip will take about two months, but he’s been over here almost two years and finally able to get them here so that they can be together. Shit, may be illegal, but I love bringing families together and giving them a second chance or a better one at life. Twenty minutes after Mr. Bediako, or Mr. Robinson since that’s his new given name, Rock came into my office looking stressed as fuck.

“Wassup, bro? You look like you going through it.”

Sighing as he took his seat, he swiped his hand over his head before letting it fall.

“Man, the doctor came to the house today to check on Lu, and he said that she has about two or three weeks left, if that long.”

Damn. I felt bad for my brother. He loved Lu more than he loved himself, and I can’t imagine what he was going through. Hell, we all loved Lu. We were all hurting, but I know not as much as my brother.

“I hate this shit for you, for real. You know I got y’all with anything. Just say the word. As a matter of fact, take some time off. I’ll get Ced ’nem to step in and handle things with me. Don’t worry about this shit. I got you.” I knew this was a lot on my brother and in the upcoming weeks, he had to mentally prepare to lay Lucretia to rest. We’ve known for a while that this day was coming, but you can never be fully prepared for it.

“I appreciate that, bro. I’ll still do what I can. I don’t want to keep idle because then I’ll run myself crazy. Outside of the issue we had with Lander, everything else is on the up and up, so we should be good for a while. You good, though? What are you going to do about the arrangement and shit? Have you even thought about?”

Leaning back in my office chair, I let my head rest on the back of it before I sat up and faced my brother.

“I thought about, and I get pissed off every time I think about the shit. I know how shit can be with most of these families, but Pops never pressured us to do that shit. I feel like if he didn’t push the issue, who the fuck is this nigga to do so?”

“The head of the fucking families. I mean, I get it, but what can you really lose my getting married.Wewill lose a lot more if you don’t,” he expressed.

“This shit is crazy, bro. The only female that I deal with like that on a regular basis is Kari, and I’ll be damned if I give her that fucking option. I’d give all this shit up and go flip a fucking burger before I do that shit.” I was deadass too. If I had to do this shit for the sake of the family, I would, but it for sure wouldn’t be with Kari’s annoying ass.

“Why not hire somebody then? That way you won’t have to deal with Kari, and you can put a prenup in place and y’all can agree on an amount. As long as it’s not an outrageous number, I say do it that way.” He shrugged.

“I’ll see. Right now, I’m about to get my ass out of here. I might pop up on Rue’s ass.”

“How’s that going?” he asked.

“It’s going. I hit her up earlier to check on her and shit.”

“Shit, I say see if she’s down. You already like her.”

He had said nothing I haven’t thought about, but she has too much shit going on with her baby daddy and I’d have to kill that nigga for fucking with her if we ever got to that level.

“I’on know. Shorty got a lot of shit going on. I don’t want to add to that. Right now, we’re just two people getting to know each other. No strings attached. No expectations,” I countered.

He nodded, and we went our separate ways. I hopped in my truck, and he got into his and left the freight yard at the same time. As I drove through the city, my phone rung. Like clockwork, Kari was blowing my line down. I’ve been ignoring her ass all damn day. You would think she would get the picture. Instead of ignoring her like I wanted to, I answered because had I not she would keep calling, then I would have to go over to her house and choke the spit out of her ass.

“Wassup?” I answered.

“Wassup?” she asked incredulously. “I’ve been calling you all day and all you can say is ‘wassup’?”

See, this is why I would never be serious with her ass, because she didn’t know her place.

---