Page 26 of The Mob: Shio Cuppacio
“Yeah, mayne. I wish I had an accent.”
“You do have an accent, my baby. Take that ‘Y’ up outtamanetoo. You make a nigga sound like he from the backwoods of Mississippi or some shit.”
“Yeah, but it’s not as cool as yours. I want to sound like a down South rapper!” she whined. “And I thought Memphis was considered Mississippi. They run into each other, don’t they?”
“Nah. Dat shit totally different. We ain’t on no horses or in corn fields and shit. We the trenches, my baby. Sayin’ Memphis and Mississippi is the same place is the same thing as sayin’ Jagoda Bay and Sparkling City are the same place. They close to each other, but the culture ain’t the same. If you wanna accent like mine, spend a year or two in the M. You’ll catch on.”
“All that killing they do out there? I’m not trying to get robbed or worse. I’ll just study the TikToks.” She chuckled and swept her neatly done braids over her shoulders to rest on her chest. “You got a big family, Tunan. I know that was crowded growing up, but that’s still cool. I never wanted a lot of siblings, so I can’t even imagine. Tell me something else.”
Crowded was an understatement, but I nodded instead of going into details. We had a two-bedroom home growing up, and were spread out everywhere so that we wouldn’t be on top of one another. One of my brothers even slept in the kitchen. We thought the nigga was going to grow up and be a chef.
“I just got out,” I said, breaking the brief silence.
I wasn’t ashamed of my record. Just like I wasn’t ashamed of my whip. If she was going to fuck with me, she may as well have all the facts at her feet. There was no cap in my rap. My life was just that, and I was a man before anything, so lying to women was not my speed.
“How long did you do?” she asked, unfazed.
“A year. Been out a lil’ over forty days.”
“Was it justified? What you did… the crime… Was it justified?”
Thinking back to how I’d nursed Stella back to life and she fucked a nigga in my bed, I nodded. “Yeah, it was. I just wish I handled shit a lil’ differently lookin’ back.”
“How does it feel to be a free man?”
“Shit feels too good, Glow.”
She smiled, and my heart did that thing it shouldn’t be doing. I was only a stand-in for Shio tonight, and I didn’t have anything to offer a woman. Even though I was forgiving and didn’t consider the opposite sex to be hell, I also wasn’t in the right mindset to do anything with a woman other than what I was doing now. Hell, I was so put off by what Stella had done that I hadn’t even thought about getting my dick wet until I carried my ass into the restaurant and sat across from a certain pretty food vlogger.
“I know it does. Was I your first date?” Glow asked with low eyes, even though she wasn’t drunk. I, on the other hand, had a couple shots of overpriced Cognac, so I was feeling the fuck out of my liquor.
Blinking, I came to a red light that I was inclined to run, but since I was intoxicated and riding with a pistol, I didn’t want the laws to get behind a nigga. I’d have to put them on a high-speed chase and scare the fuck out of little miss saditty if I acted on my impulses.
“You was,” I replied while stealing a glance at her as I waited for the light to change back to green.
“I popped your cherry then.”
She caught me off guard with that shit. My stomach muscles clenched as laughter erupted from my belly. I laughed so hard, I nearly took my foot off the brake. A motherfucker ain’t neverpopped my cherry. Even when I had sex for the first time, I didn’t get fucked. I did the fucking.
“You wild as hell, my baby.”
“Even though I got stood up, I’m glad it was you, Tunan.” Her sleek eyes were bright with innocence and amusement, almost making her look like an animated character.
Licking my lips, I jutted my chin. “Yeah, Glow. I’m glad it was me too.”
She still hadn’t given me an address, and I didn’t know her well enough to take her back to my sister’s spot. I had a good time with Glow, but my sister's husband was a retired street nigga, and her best friend was married to a cartel leader. I didn’t like everybody knowing where I stayed when I had my own spot, so I wouldn’t dare disrespect their space like that. I’d seen how pretty faces came around and brought down whole empires by running their mouths. If Shio had been pursuing her, I knew she was vetted because dude was on that type of shit. Still, I wasn’t bringing her to Tuscany’s house.
Looking over at her, she was pulling her braids down the side of her neck again and running her fingers through them. Her gold jewelry glistened, even though little light could reach the car from the moon and street lamps due to the five percent tint on my windows.Glow was mesmerizing, and even though I knew her pretty ass was still hungry, she’d been a good first date. She'd been the best date I had been on in all my dating years, but I wasn’t going to tell her ass that. Bad enough she thought a nigga was the store runner.
Jagoda Bay was lit up at night, and the streets were half as full as they were during the day. Traffic out here could be hell, but I’d seen nothing worse than traffic in the A.I pulled into a parking lot area that overlooked the water that I’d seen riding with Shio a few days ago. It wasn’t far from the restaurant, so it confirmed to my tipsy ass that we hadn’t been riding around forthat long. Shio told me this was the Bayside Shoppes area, and even though I had visited Jagoda Bay before my sentencing, I hadn't explored many parts of it before my stint. The more I rode through the city, the more I approved of my plans to settle here.
Parking in the empty lot, I adjusted my rearview mirror to see the traffic behind us before looking out at the water. Glow had pulled out her phone, and while she was momentarily distracted, I removed my gun from my waistband and tucked it under the seat.I could see she was still scrolling from the corner of my eye, so I reached for the bag of weed and backwoods I had in the middle console.
“I’ma roll up, but I ain’t gone smoke if it bothers you.”
Unrolling the Backwoods, I made sure it was flat before I started sprinkling Kush on top. Like its women, Jagoda Bay’s weed was premium. I started to go without weed like I was doing pussy, but the first day out, my brothers had smoked me the fuck out, and I was back like I hadn’t ever left. Wasn’t shit wrong with smoking a little weed, anyhow. It was better to smoke than walk around ready to shoot motherfuckers that pissed you off.
Locking her screen, she slid her phone in her purse and turned her body to face me. She had her legs folded in a way that I couldn’t see her panties, which I appreciated. I was already repeatedly telling my dick that this wasn’t that type of party.
