Page 90 of Quasim III: King Inferno

I hugged and kissed her. “I missed you so much, Peach. Are you staying with us this week?”

She smiled. “Yep, I’m out of school for holiday break. Mommy took me with her to her friend’s house in Miami for Thanksgiving… his house was so big.”

Meer cut his eyes and sat down in one of the chairs. Thanksgiving came and went, and we didn’t celebrate. My mom cooked because she was used to doing it, but no one was in the celebratory mood.

I stayed in bed all day and then went to bring Blair some food. She refused to leave Quasim’s side, and I couldn’t blame her. I would have done the same with my husband and wouldn’t have made any complaints about it.

“Oh really?” I looked over at Meer, surprised he allowed Brandi to introduce Peach to her new man.

“Water head deserves happiness, too,” he spit the words out like they tasted like lemons. Despite Meer hating Brandi, I could also recognize that he felt she deserved some of the happiness that we had.

Don’t get me wrong, he still couldn’t stand her. He just wasn’t against her moving on and having someone, too. Brandi had gotten her act together and came correct, so I didn’t have much to say to her when she came over to pick Peach up. Our situation was cordial, and I preferred it that way.

Peach clung onto me as I sat on the edge of my desk. “Wanna have a girl spa night tonight?”

She smiled. “Yes… can we keep Cherry in her bouncer?”

With Cherry about to turn a year old, my baby was all over the place. If she wasn’t buckled down, she was crawling all over. Everyone was betting on when she would get up and walk.

“Don’t hate on my baby, Peach.” Meer called her out.

“Alright, then when she has red nail polish all over her body, don’t complain, Daddy.” She called her father out.

“Why we doing red nail polish anyway… Gams already said she’s too young for red nails.” He reminded me what both Gams and my mother told me.

Growing up, I could get my nails any color I wanted except red. Red was associated with being grown, and I couldn’t disagree more. How was the color of nails and long hair considered grown on a little Black girl?

When I used to get my hair braided, my mother would tell the braider not to make my braids long. She couldn’t help but make them long because my actual hair was long. I never understood how or what was associated with being grown.

“We’re not doing that with our girls, Meer. I told you that I want her to be free to explore whatever, as long as you and Brandi are cool with it. Brandi doesn’t mind that she wants red nails. She sees me and Blair with red nails and just wants to be like us… nothing more.”

“Nanny has red nails now, too.” Ryder reminded us.

I raised my brow at him. “Don’t give me that look, Sug.”

“All I’m saying is we know what kind of girls we are raising. She doesn’t want to be grown; she just wants to follow the long line of Inferno women that have red nails.”

Peach squeezed me. “Yep. And I’m gonna ride a bike like Suga mama, too.”

“Don’t push it just yet, Peach. Soon as you’re old enough, it’s on,” I whispered to her, and she grinned while kissing my arm.

My office door opened before he could respond. “Have you seen the news?” Skyler questioned.

“No, what happened?” Every time I turned around, there was something going on and I was sick of it. The late hours and always being on go was starting to pull at me. I missed being able to hang with Peach and Cherry on the weekend.

I missed being present with my daughter and not having her being bounced around from my parents’ house, Erin, Alaia, or Gam’s house because her mother was out here doing everything but raising her.

The mom guilt consumed me because I felt like I needed to be better. It didn’t matter how much everyone tried to tell me I was doing a good job; I didn’t feel like I was doing a good job.

Skyler pulled something up on her phone and came over towards me. “Lucia has her partner barricaded inside of her house and is threatening to kill them both.”

Peach gasped and Meer came over and held her hand, pulling her behind him. My heart dropped. Irie was only in this position because we put her there. When we told her everything, she wanted to help more than anything and now her life was in danger.

“Yo, Skyler, take her back out there with you,” Meer told her as she held Peach’s hand, and they quickly left.

I held Skyler’s phone and watched the news and squad cars outside of Lucia’s house. Running my hand through my hair, I paced in front of my desk until I felt Meer’s hands around me.

His lips touched my neck and just feeling and smelling him next to me calmed everything around me. “Breathe, Suga…you didn’t know this bitch would do some shit like this,” he reminded me.

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