Page 72 of He Thugged Me First

“What about me?” he asked. He looked annoyed and confused.

“He’s trying to put a contract out on you.”

I looked from the woman to Quari for what felt like hours before Quari responded.

“And what you?—”

“C’mon now, you know how I go. You’re family, so I came to you to see what you want me to do. Plus his pockets aren’t deep enough to do shit with anybody.” She looked at him with unwavering loyalty in her eyes.

He nodded his head before he glanced down at me. I could see the worry in his eyes, but not for myself or our child physically but mentally. He feared that I would panic or somehow grow angry with him about this, but how could I? Maybe I should’ve gotten angry or cursed him out, but I couldn’t. All I could do was hold our daughter and stare at him as he paced the floor and spoke into the phone. What I had gathered was that he didn’t know who this Clay was.

“I’m sorry, Love.” He had a very familiar expression on his handsome face. It was one much like the one he’d had when he was going to work.

“What do you have to apologize for?” he asked. I genuinely couldn’t figure out why he would believe that I was angry at him. Hadn’t I dealt with everything else with a grain of salt as well?

“That i?—”

“Nope, you don’t get to do that. You handle this like everything else and bring your ass home to me and this big head child.”

He laughed. “You ‘don't even curse like that.” he shook his head with a smirk. “And my daughter’s head ain’t big and if it is she gets that from your side of the family.”

I shook my head though laughter. “Nope.”

The waymy brain works is I bury things so I don’t worry about them. That is how I’d managed not to obsess over the fact that Quari had possibly one of the most dangerous occupations known to man. For the most part I did a good job at not worrying, but right now I was worried out of my skull and all I could do is look down at the little girl who was a perfect mixture of us both. Even at three days old Sophia put me in the mind of her father and I couldn’t imagine him not being here to raise her with me.

“I know that look.” The sound of a female voice made me look up and it was Gina standing there. Gina had told me that she was coming by the house, I just didn’t know what time. Then their cousin stepped from behind her and walked over to where I sat on the sofa staring down at Sophia.

“I know that look well.” Century voiced as she took a seat across from me.

I looked up at her confused as to what she was talking about. “Huh?”

“You know what keeps a man in a hard place sane? Knowing that his home will be the same when he gets out of that hard place. A man, especially the niggas we belong to will never lay all of his burdens down on you, but he’ll place them beside you. He isn’t looking for you to carry them or any of that, but he’s looking for you to build him up and let him know it’ll be alright from time to time. Hell yeah we worry, it’s a part of life, but if you believe in faith and a higher power then you know everything will be just fine. I can’t tell you how many times I worried about the safety or wellbeing of Gemini when he was out here. HellI think I worried more about that man than he worried about himself.” Century placed her hand on my knee reassuringly.

“Same, if I had a dollar for every worry I had about Klusive every time he goes back home, I promise you I’d be swimming in it. Just gotta have faith and know everything will be fine.”

I nodded my head. They were right, and I did have faith.

“Now onto other things, why the hell does my niece look like cement?” Gina asked, as she picked Sophia up from the sofa.

“One being that her father is stubborn and refuses to shop for her without me, and she is the same baby who wouldn’t let us see her gender until she came popping out. However her godmother had the same fit moments ago, so I estimate that she should be on her way here in a few hours.”

Century and Gina laughed. Their presence was somewhat helpful, especially since Quari had left early this morning and left no indication as to when he’d be back.

Chapter 17

MAZZIER -A FEW WEEKS LATER

Life had found itself moving along and leaving me to bother with my own shit. Somehow I had looked up and my life was a fucking mess when I thought I had everything figured out. I thought I knew all that I wanted, but two brushes with death had me moving differently. Shit, it had me on another level. Nobody had to tell me, I knew I was fucking up at first, but now here I was trying to get my shit together. That night at the bar opened my eyes, now I was going to meet with that old friend, Johnson. It took him a while to get back to me because he was now a political figure and all of that, but he had requested we meet this afternoon after I did my routine breakfast with Dolly. At this point she was the only way I heard anything about Gayze, because she's stopped talking to me. That night at the hospital I felt like she had something to say to me, but she didn’t. At this point I was sticking to my guns though. I didn’t have the time or mental capacity to be chasing her. She’d get over whatever it was soon or later.

After I dropped Mel off at school and promised to be the one picking her up, I dropped by Dolly’s house. To my surprise mysister’s truck was parked out in front. Once I got out of the car, I continued up on the porch and walked into her open door.

“What did I tell you about this door, old lady?” I asked walking into the living room where Dolly and Mecca sat in the halfway packed up home. I had to be missing something because her home was halfway packed up into boxes.

“What I tell you about that old lady word, boy?” she looked my way before picking up her house shoe and tossing it at me. Her old ass was spicy and had been that way my whole life.

“Now yeen getting it back.”

She laughed.

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