Page 31 of Smoke

“Damn! Just hurt my feelings.

I laughed. “Don’t be dramatic. I just… I’m surprised you’d want to be friends. I mean, I’m a client.”

“You’re cool people. I like chilling with you… even if you eat nasty ass pregnant shit.”

“Whatever! I eat real food too. If you want to be friends, maybe we should do more than eat.”

“Hold on now. I like to eat too.”

I almost found myself asking“Eat what?”,but I held it in. This man didn’t need to see that side of me. It was bad enough that I was attracted to him. He just had this way of making me all hot and bothered without even doing too much. When he pulled me onto his lap the other morning, I could feel the stiffness of his dick pressed against my ass. I knew that man was out there fucking up some walls.

I didn’t want to end up dickmatized.

I’d already been hoodwinked and bamboozled once. The last thing I needed was for it to happen again. We could be friends, but I needed to remind myself that that was all we could ever be.

I sat in my office,looking over profits for the month.

We’d been doing exceptionally well, and I could fuck with that. It didn’t really matter if we had a slow month here or there. I wasn’t in this business for the money, because my paper was long. I did this for two reasons: the love of guns and the need for people to protect themselves. Did I fuck off with a few of my clients from time to time? Yes, I did. Did it ever get in the way of me making my money? No, it didn’t.

It was always business first.

When I was teaching, I was very thorough and hands on. Now once the session was over, that was a different story for some. Case in point, Peach. She booked sessions to perfect her aim in case her son’s father came lurking again. He was a career criminal and liked putting his hands on her when she refused to let him get his family back. It wasn’t that she was scared of himbecause Peach was a hood chick, and she fought niggas. She was just sick of his shit.

We started messing around about five sessions in. Truthfully, my cousin was right. Her training should have been done a while ago. She just loved coming to see a nigga, and I loved making her cum. As bomb as the head and sex was, it was about time to cut that short. After ghosting her the other week, I hadn’t been answering her calls, and I had Kaylynn taking over her sessions.

I was trying to wrap my head around the budding attraction I had to Romi. Fuck budding… the attraction was in full bloom. I’d never been one to miss out on a booty call for some Netflix and chill type of shit. Still, I liked being around Romi. After seeing a different side of her at my brother’s wedding and spending one-on-one time with her, I was intrigued, to say the least.

I could tell she had a lot going on, and she needed a friend. Here goes my unfriendly ass being friendly as a muthafucka. The thought made me chuckle. I never had female friends because I always ended up fucking them. If Romi wasn’t pregnant, I’d slide right up in her. It was bad enough that I thought about that while she was carrying another man’s baby.

She was just so damn beautiful. I could appreciate that with sex off the table. Add the fact that I liked her personality, and you might as well say a nigga was somewhat smitten. That shit made me laugh out loud.

“What. The. Fuck,” I said, shaking my head.

I had to talk to somebody about this shit. It wasn’t gonna be Kaylynn with her nosy ass. My brothers were out of the question, and so was my pops. I thought about my sisters, but they all gossiped with each other, and it would get back to my brothers. My mama would immediately think she was getting another daughter-in-law, and I didn’t need that pressure.

The only person I could think of was my stepdad. The nigga was cool people. I had mad respect for him. He’d always been theparent to offer advice when solicited, so it made it easy to talk to him. I decided I would slide through after work to holla at him.

A knock on my office door broke my thoughts. I looked up to see Kaylynn standing there.

“What?” I asked, looking back to my screen.

“Peach is here.”

“Okay? Go handle that.”

“She’s demanding to see you.”

“Tell her I’m busy.”

“She already tried to bring her ass back here, nigga. I told you to stop fucking that girl. When she goes postal and fucks your shit up, I don’t wanna hear your mouth.”

“Fuck, Kay! Goddamn!”

I stood from my seat and brushed past her and out to the front. Peach was standing at the counter with her arms crossed and a big purse on her shoulder. When she saw me, she kissed her teeth.

“Come here,” I said, motioning her to me.

She stormed over, and I pulled her into the back hallway.

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