Page 38 of Anything Necessary for Her
“What’s good?”I slapped hands with Asif as he ambled into the warehouse.
“Everything,” he halfway jested as we chuckled, moseying around the corner and heading to the back room.
“I fuck with it.” I nodded, falling in beside him. “Aye, you know Banks teaches my baby sister’s dance class?” I mentioned nonchalantly, or as nonchalantly as I possibly fucking could as I put the code into the locked room.
“Oh, okay. I know she said some shit about teaching a junior ballet class,” he replied, trailing me into the room. “She just got in the class or some shit?”
“Nah . . . nah, she been in it for a minute.”
“So why you mentioning it now? Something happen?” Asif prodded, and weirdly enough, I got nervous.
I wanted to mention to the nigga that Banks and I had stricken up a friendship, though that felt like an understatement. However, I couldn’t go against Banks’s wishes, nor would it be smart to say some shit like that when we’d ceased all fucking contact at this point.
I’d attempted to shoot a text on some friendly, just checking in shit, but she left a nigga on read.
I didn’t know why I was surprised by the shit though. I guess a nigga assumed I was special and would be able to access shit other niggas hadn’t been able to. I quickly realized, though, that no muthafucka got special treatment when it came to Banks, and she was too pretty and too sought after to entertain whatever the fuck I was trying to do. I couldn’t even say what it was to keep shit a buck.
“Nah, I just forgot until right now since I just remembered I gotta scoop Waverley up.” I moved to the wall to put in the code on the old school combination lock.
Silence permeated the air, making me glance over my shoulder at Asif regarding me in a slightly incredulous manner.
As if tugging himself out of his deep thoughts, he finally quizzed, “How ya other people?”
“The same, unfortunately. My mama still on that fucking bottle day in and day out. Wyatt still causing fucking trouble, being unpredictable and stupid as fuck.” I shook my head while Asif sniggered subtly.
“I been telling you?—”
“Hey, babe, I was going to grab some food, did you want anything? I’m thinking a sub sandwich from somewhere. I want something fresh.” Gaia had slipped into the room through the cracked door, waving flirtatiously at Asif as she adjusted thelength of her too small ass dress. “I can bring you something back too, Sif, if you’re gonna be here a while.”
He stared at her for a moment then responded, “You noticed we were in the middle of a conversation?”
Gaia’s giggly demeanor and expression vanished like fucking clockwork.
“My bad.” She looked to me with puppy dog eyes as if I were supposed to take up for her ass, but Asif and I shared the same sentiments.
“I’m good on the food,” I finally said and nodded for her to leave, to which she did in haste.
As soon as I shut the door, Asif said, “Told you, nigga. She walking ’round this bitch like she Mrs. Harris all ’cause she getting fucked.”
“I been meaning to sit her ass down. Shit just been moving too fast with this money shit and then my family.” I huffed, and Asif bobbed his head to say he understood. “Speaking of . . .” I fully opened the door. “I gotta find a way to clean this shit. The little investments I been doing around the city ain’t enough. No wonder you so fucking rich. I ain’t know the money was coming like this,” I half joked, making Asif’s face split into a grin.
“It does. That’s why all y’all niggas was caked up. You gon’ have to start some shit from scratch, eat up a lot of that money, and then push it through there. Investments ain’t gon’ work as well, because it’s an already moving machine which means less costs on yo’ end, aka less money that can be cleaned.”
I nodded, studying the wall of cash I’d had stowed away because it was unclean and therefore unusable.
“I gotta think of some shit. We in LA. Muthafuckas got everything.”
We chuckled subtly before finishing the conversation. By the time I was leaving out with Asif, my burner had begun buzzing in the pocket of my jeans.
I saw the numbers 676 and flipped the top of the phone down in frustration before hopping into my whip.
“Wait! What’s wrong?” Gaia damn near tumbled out of her car and rushed over now that Asif was gone.
“Nothing. Eat yo’ fucking food and get back to work, aight?”
“I’d rather help you, babe?—”
“I’m not yo’ babe, and you not my bitch, Gaia. Get yo’ ass inside and eat yo’ fucking food so you can get back to work, and stop trying to be ride or muthafuckin’ die! It’s never gon’ happen!” I snapped, making her jump back. “Now, ’fore I cancel you and that lunch break!”
