Page 7 of The Hellcat Barbies: Aubree
When I got the news that Ish had been killed, I instantly erupted into tears. Ish was a cool ass dude that didn’t bother anybody. My heart ached for his mother, and Brasi. I wantednothing more at that time than to go to him and wrap my arms around him. I would have put our drama to the side and been there for him. But I couldn’t. Two pretty ass females walked up on Brasi and Cook, and I had to turn my back. I wasn’t about to watch that shit.
The Hellcat Barbies were my safe space. I could let my hair down and relax around them but suddenly, I wanted to be anywhere other than the track. Knowing that the tears I shed six years ago and the heartbreak I felt wasn’t the end of it all had soured the fuck out of my mood. If I wasn’t over him in six years, would I ever be?
“Hey, Bookie Butt,” Breezy approached me with a smile on her face. “I have tequila in the car if you want some. My honey is driving, so I’m good to get a lil’ tipsy.”
“I definitely want some,” I mumbled. It wasn’t a shock to me that Lucci wasn’t too far behind Breezy. He would live in her skin if he could, and I loved that for both of them. I could tell they were in love, and that was a beautiful thing.
I didn’t get jealous when I was around couples that had good healthy love. It gave me hope. I wasn’t afraid to move on after Brasi. If he didn’t want me, somebody did. Unfortunately, none of the guys that wanted me tugged at my heart strings or made me feel like a giddy schoolgirl the way Brasi did. I would have loved nothing more than to have found the man of my dreams and built a beautiful life with him, so when Brasi came home, I could have shown him that he did in fact do me a favor. But that wasn’t the case. He broke my heart for absolutely nothing.
The first sip of tequila was easing down my throat when I felt a tug on one of my curls. I turned around slowly and came face to face with a smiling Nice. For the second time that day, my heart sank. Usually, it would have been good to see Nice. But knowing that Brasi was close by made my gut churn. Maybe if Nice wasn’t his boy, it would be kind of fun to flaunt him. Instead, it felt likeI was doing something wrong. Like I had violated in some way despite not having a clue that they were friends.
Forcing a smile, I ignored the twisting of my intestines. “Hey.”
“I didn’t know you were going to be out here today.”
Rather than responding, I sipped my drink. Nice was a busy person, so even though most days he checked in, we weren’t at the stage yet where we ran everything by one another. I couldn’t say for sure that Nice wasn’t looking for anything serious, but he was a street nigga. I knew what came with his lifestyle. Brasi had been a street nigga too, but he was different. He was definitely one of one. Sleeping around, constantly being out in the club, those kinds of things didn’t appeal to Brasi. He was a great person to be tied to. Even when we weren’t in a relationship, I was confident that he wasn’t dealing with other women. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of faith in Nice.
It was still early, however. I also knew that soon, he’d be trying his hand at having sex with me. Since seeing Brasi, the thought of sex with Nice made my skin crawl. I wasn’t sure what was going on with me, but I didn’t like it.
“What are you doing when you leave here?”
“I’m not sure yet. My shoulder is much better, but I don’t want to do too much. I’ll have to see how I feel.”
“I get that.” Nice stepped closer, and I resisted the urge to step away. “Hit me up if you feel like company later.”
“Will do.” Another forced smile.
When Nice walked away, I glanced up, and Brasi was staring at me. My heart slammed into my ribcage. The organ was beating like I’d been caught doing something wrong. Brasi looked away before I could catch the emotion flickering in his eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was regret, anger, or jealousy. Whatever it was, he didn’t look too pleased. But he was the one that left me. He pushed me away and broke my heart in the process, so hedidn’t get to look at me like he was the one that was disappointed in me.
No amount of tequila helped my mood, so after watching a few races, I got in my car and left. I was no longer in the mood to be around people. Especially not Brasi or Nice. The fact that I couldn’t relieve stress by playing football was another factor that played into my piss poor mood. I drove home blinking back tears. Life would never be perfect, and I was old enough to know that. My parents had been married for thirty years, and I was sure for my mom it was like living in the Twilight Zone. My father had a great job as a foreman on a construction site for years. Then one day, when Autumn and I were thirteen, he had a heart attack, and he never went back to work.
My mother had a job at a retail store and between that and my father’s social security check each month, things were tight, but we managed. My father wasn’t the kind of person to open up about his feelings, so I never found out what changed with him. Maybe he felt like less than a man because he couldn’t work and provide, but he became emotionally detached. He only said enough to get his point across. Most days, he was out in the garage all day doing God knows what. He and my mother weren’t in a good space, but she refused to leave him.
I never wanted to settle or live in misery. I’d remain single before I did all that. Sometimes, loneliness meant being at peace. Most days, I was happy. But since Brasi walked into my house with Nice all that had changed. It seemed that all the healing I’d done over the course of six years had come undone. And that shit was enough to drive my ass into depression.
CHAPTER 4
BRASI
Followingthe directions of the GPS, I pulled up in front of the destination I was guided to. Nice’s BMW was in the driveway behind a hunter green Audi. I hadn’t said anything else to him about the brick that he offered me. He approached me though at the racetrack and told me I could meet him at this address to get it. If he was insistent on giving me a brick of coke, then I was going to take it. I had already given Cook his car back and copped a Benz. I had also met with Chicago and looked at the house he was going to let me rent. It was in a nice, quiet neighborhood, and he’d remodeled the hell out of the house inside and out. The rent wasn’t even that much, and I could only thank God that Chicago was willing to help me out the way that he was.
I signed the lease and paid first month’s rent and deposit. All I needed was furniture and to move the dope that I had, so I could get some more money in my pocket. I was going to break two bricks down, but the one that Nice gave me, I was going to sell whole. Anything I made off the shit was great because I didn’t pay anything for it. Cook told me that the going rate for most bricks was around $25,000. I was going to sell the one that Nice gave me for $22,000. That way, I wouldn’t be sitting onso much dope. That $22,000 was going straight into my stash. Once I moved the two bricks I got out of my mom’s attic, my career in selling drugs would be permanently over.
I rang the doorbell and seconds later, a short, brown-skinned woman answered the door. She had to be around 5’4, and she was bad as fuck. “Brasi. I’m here to see Nice.”
“Oh okay. Come in.”
Stepping over the threshold, I waited for her to close the door behind me, and I followed her to the living room where Nice sat on the couch smoking a blunt watching television. I didn’t miss the square shaped package that rested on the coffee table.
“What up, bro?” Nice smiled as I entered the room.
“Bae, I gotta go,” ole girl whined before I could respond.
Nice pulled some money from his pocket and passed it to her. With a grin on her face, she leaned down and pecked Nice on the lips. First, Aubree now this chick. Seemed that Nice had a girl for every day of the week. I didn’t know if Aubree knew about ole girl, and it wasn’t really any of my business.
When she left the room, he grinned at me and shook his head. “What I tell you the other day? If I didn’t give you that money, I’d give it to somebody’s sack chasing ass daughter. Shorty be killing my pockets.”
“That your girl?” I asked casually.
