Page 25 of Are You Going to Love Me

“Yeah, I wrote you like seven letters telling you I was coming home. You gon’ let me in, or am I standing out here talking to you through a screen?”

She darted her eyes down the street as if someone was going to come and put a stop to her communicating with him. His thick brows met in the middle.

“The fuck you looking for?” he questioned.

“N-nobody,” she muttered, unlocking the screen door and stepping back for him to walk through.

The moment Maximus stepped inside, he realized Keon had definitely held some details back from him. The pungent stench of rotten food and staleness filled the air. Maximus couldn’t stand this shit. A representation of his childhood on a loop. While in prison, the inmates teased him for how neat he kept his cell. The reason was this shit right here. The further he roamed into the space, the more he was repulsed. Empty liquor bottles scattered about, ash trays full of cigarette butts, roaches from blunts and whatever else he couldn’t make out.

“You didn’t even bother putting the fuckin’ groceries up?” Maximus muttered, turning around and looking at her. “You were doing so good…what the fuck happened?”

He studied her. Dry skin, sunken eyes, chapped lips, and her housecoat swallowing her up. If he was mistaken, he would have thought his mother was a junkie by the sight of her.

“Ain’t shit happened,” she responded in a defensive tone. “Where you get off coming in here and talking to me like you’re better than me?”

Maximus’ frown intensified. “What you on?”

He grabbed her arm, but she yanked away from him. “You ain’t no better than me. You a fucking murderer. Gang banger, drug dealing ass nigga. You ain’t shit and you gon’ come in here and talk to me like you’re saint Maximus.”

Parts of him had become numb to her while craving her approval at the same time. It was a sick cycle. Had he been looking at this from a different lens, he would have known his mother was trying to protect him, keep him out of jail, or being shipped back to prison.

The front door opened, and in strolled Augustus.

In the mess of the living space, Maximus spun around, finding his Judas.

“I got some shit, don’t fucking smoke all it up either,” Augustus said, his back turned to his brother and mother as he closed the door. “I got to make it back so Mama don’t fuck my ass up.”

Before the door could be closed completely, Maximus charged him, sending him and Augustus through the door and off the shifty porch. Maximus, almost fifty pounds heavier than he was when he went to prison, easily overpowered his brother’s drug-riddled body. Pound for pound, Maximus punched Augustus in his face before standing up and removing his dirtied shirt.

“Get the fuck up and fight me, nigga. You was bold then! Come on.”

Augustus straggled to his feet, spitting blood and his front tooth out. Augustus didn’t care about fighting Maximus. Not right now, at least. He was hours removed from a fentanyl high and wanted a boost. But later, Augustus was going to be on his ass. The issue with that was Maximus would square up with him any day, anywhere, about his respect. In his eyes, Augustus was no longer a brother but a foe. And anyone associated with him was the enemy, too.

Augustus staggered up the steps, waving Maximus off. “Bitch ass nigga.”

The only thing that kept Maximus from putting his brother in the dirt was the vibrating of his phone in his pocket. Retreating from his mother’s spot, he started up the block where he parked Keon’s car.

“Yeah, I’m on my way back,” Maximus announced. “You should’ve fuckin’ warned me she was on that shit.”

Maximus snatched the door open to Keon’s Impala and slid in behind the wheel.

“I told you that you were going to have to see that shit for yourself. Gus was there?”

“Yeah, beat his ass too. But he’ll be popping up back around, I’m sure.”

“Try and shake that shit from your shoulders, we got that meeting with UVE in two hours.”

“I’m on the way. You got some gas?”

“Yeah, already rolled,” Keon replied. “Get here.”

Ending the call, Maximus left his old hood and headed across the neighborhood to Keon’s place, where he’d been crashing on the couch since getting home. He had more than enough money to rent a spot, but this meeting today would determine where he decided to lay his head.

Maximus didn’t utter a word as he walked through the small, one-bedroom apartment shirtless. He grabbed his stuff and headed straight back to the shower. Washing, dressing, and making himself look like something, he met Keon in the living room.

Keon handed him a blunt. “Go in there with all this off your shoulders.”

Maximus scoffed as he sparked up. “Easier said than fucking done.”

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