Page 5 of Wasn't Supposed To Be Yours
I moved dope in the streets from the time I was seventeen, up until I was twenty- eight. I’m thirty- five years old now, and that life was behind me. At twenty- seven years old, I remember being in the hospital room with my pop- pop, watching him as he fought in his last final days of multiple sclerosis, and he looked me in my eyes, making me promise him that I would get out of the streets before it was too late. I remember him telling me that the only way he would sleep peacefully was knowing that I wasn’t out here risking my freedom. I was a stubborn ass nigga. My mom said that it was a trait that I’d inherited from my dad. Nothing had been able to get me out of the streets in the past, but looking down at my pop- pop, the man that raised me, the manthat damn near taught me everything that I knew, I had to grant him his wish.
Two days after he made me make that promise to him, he passed away, and that was the first heartbreak that I ever had to deal with. That put me in a very low place in my life because my grandparents were everything to me. I didn’t come out of that dark place until almost a year later, and when I eventually shook back, I remember writing a fat ass check for my mom, telling her to go ahead, and open her own restaurant. By this time in her life, the dreams that she had of owning her own restaurant had faded. She was still in that industry though, but she was managing different restaurants. I wanted her to have her own shit. I tried to give her the money in the past to open it, but she would always turn it down, telling me that she didn’t want dirty money to open her business. My selling point to her was telling her that I was going to get out of the streets.
Not only did I get out of the streets, but I branched off, and I joined a very lucrative business that I knew would put a lot of money in my pockets. I invested into smoke shops. I was a marijuana connoisseur, so when I started plotting, coming up with legitimate business ideas, I knew that I wanted to do something in the marijuana industry.
I started out with my first shop in Nevada, since I knew weed was legal out that way. It was easy linking up with different investors, and different connects out there, so that I could get the ball rolling. I wanted my smoke shops to be different from your traditional smoke shops though. I wanted my shops to feel like an experience. Luxury experiences.
It was a long process, but after a few months, my first location of ‘Pure 24k’ opened, and man, it was a good turnout. People loved weed in Nevada, so that spot was always jumping. Seeing the impact that it had, and the money that I was making, I went ahead and opened another location out there. Then, Iwent and opened two more locations out in Cali. I had a whole team now, where we would sit, and network, and that’s when we thought about Colorado, and I went and put two locations out there as well. Right when a nigga was at my fuckin peak, the cancer that my grandma had, it came back, and this time, it was worse than before.
I was still in Miami when I got that call from my mom, but because of all the business ventures that I had going on, I was rarely home. I still allowed my businesses to run, letting my team handle everything, but for almost two years, I was in Alabama, where I spent every single day with my grandma until she took her last breath.
Because of the time that I was gone, that’s why everybody says that I left Miami for a bit, which was true. My pop- pop was my first heartbreak, and then when my grandma passed, that further broke me, taking me right back to that dark place, but I was slowly pushing myself out of that shit. Coming back home to Miami, with all these dreams, and goals in mind, were going to help with the heartbreak, even if the shit was only temporary.
“We going to leave in a few minutes. You still trying to sit in the car?” I asked Renee, looking down at her, as she still had her hand out.
She had a look of pure annoyance on her pretty face. I told this damn girl that I would drop her back off to her crib, so she wouldn’t have to come with me to the party, but she opted on coming, telling me that she didn’t mind. The second we got here, she started complaining. It wasn’t even the typical complaining that I would expect from a woman, though. Like, she wasn’t complaining about the fact that this was an outside event, the mosquitos that were flying around, or the loud ass music. She was complaining about dumb shit, like the fact that there were too many kids out here, the fact that she didn’t know anyone, or the shoes that she was wearing getting dirty. All things that sheknew could possibly happen when I told her that it was a kids party that was taking place outside.
“Yeah. I’m still going to wait in the car,” she responded.
I reached down in my pocket, handed her the keys, and she damn near ran off, trying to get away from the function.
“What’s the status of that?” June came over to ask me, pointing with his finger at Renee, who just walked off. I knew it was only a matter of time before he asked me this shit, so I laughed at his question.
“We chilling,” I responded.
“So, you fuckin her, and lying to her, in other words?” he asked me.
“I’m fuckin her. I’m not lying to her though,” I corrected him.
“Even when you tell them the truth, and you just fuckin them without some kind of commitment, it never works the way you want it to. That shit never ends well. I would know. For a while, all it was that me, and Free were doing was fuckin, and lying to each other,” he shared, and I believed him because I knew the kind of wild ass nigga that June used to be. I got shit on this nigga that I wouldn’t even repeat to his wife because I didn’t know how much they pillow talked, and how much of his past he’d actually shared with her.
June was the kind of nigga that made me look like a saint, and to know me is to know that I’ve fucked plenty of women. I loved pussy. I loved beautiful women. I loved black women, and living in Miami, the women here came in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and color. With no disrespect towards Free because I loved the family dynamic that they had going on, but I never thought that I would see the day where this nigga would settle down. June used to treat settling down as if it was some kind of disease that his ass didn’t want to get. He turned his nose up at marriage, always saying that he couldn’t see himself being with one woman for the rest of his life. Not only that, but becauseJune used to be in the streets, he would always say that he never wanted children. Free made that nigga eat all those words because not only did they have a child together, but he got down on one knee, proposed, and now the two of them were married.
“The only way shit will get tricky with us is if she tries to change the whole dynamic of what it is that we’re doing. Right now, we both have an understanding that our shit is just platonic,” I explained, and he stepped a little closer to me.
“Nigga, ain’t shit platonic about bringing the woman that your fuckin to your nigga’s daughter birthday party. If all you doing is fuckin her, then you should know better than anyone that family, and friends events are off limits because that’s when you make them plant that seed in their head that the shit is deeper than platonic. I’m only telling you this because I did it before. I used to say that me, and Free had an understanding, and that we weren’t together, but in that same breath, I would have her around my mama, and the whole gang. Complicating the fuck out of our shit,” he preached, and he slapped his hand on my chest a little bit, just so that I could feel where he was coming from.
“I hear you, nigga,” was all I said, dropping it.
Before he could even say anything else to me, Free walked over, and she was holding their baby in her arms. It’s almost like his wife, and daughter were a magnet to him because his back was turned to them, but as they were approaching, he turned his head, so that he could look down at them.
“Come on. We’re going to sing happy birthday. She’s getting fussy, so I know that she’s going to fall asleep soon,” Free let him know. At the same time, June was reaching his hands out for his daughter, and Liberty was bouncing in her mom’s arms, trying to get to her dad.
June held onto his little girl, and he showered her with kisses, and even though you could look at her, and tell that shewas fighting her sleep, she was happy, and giggling, as her dad did that.
Seeing Liberty, I swear I got baby fever. I wanted children. Growing up, being an only child, I always knew that I would want to have a gang of children. As many women as I’ve fucked with over the years, I just never met anyone yet where I felt like I wanted to take on that commitment with them. Because that’s the case, I make sure that I always strap up, leaving no room for a woman to text me, telling me that her period was late. I played my part. I wasn’t out here moving reckless when it came to that.
“Ya’ll have a beautiful little girl,” I complimented them both.
“Thank you. You want kids, Tank?” Free asked me, and I smiled at her question.
“I do. It gotta be with the right person though. If I never find the right person, then I’m okay with never having any. I’m not trying to be a baby daddy. That baby daddy, and baby mama drama be too much. Fuck around, and take my child, and run off somewhere, where she can never find us again,” I talked shit, and June laughed, but Free didn’t.
“So, I’m assuming that the woman that you’re here with isn’t the right person?” she asked, squinting her eyes up at me.
It was almost like she was drilling a nigga. Just from the way she had her eyes cut at me, looking at me, as if she was waiting for me to lie, let me know that she didn’t play that shit with June’s ass. I already knew Free was tough. Since I’ve been back in Miami, June and I have been chilling together, having one on one smoke sessions, where we would dig deep with each other, so I knew Free didn’t play with his ass. She was keeping him grounded, and that’s what his ass needed.
“We chilling,” was all I told her, and she rolled her eyes at that.
