Page 4 of The Perfect Verse
“I am. You know that court shit in exchange for no time.”
“Does that paper prevent you from partaking in a little of this?” He lifted his blunt. He’d caught her eyeing it when she first entered the studio. It was his one-time peace offering because outside of that, she couldn’t have shit from him, and definitely not his woman.
“Appreciate it.”
She took a pull, a hum following as a stream of smoke escaped through her lips. Donovan chuckled. He knew his shit was top grade. If nothing else, Scooter always kept the best shit on hand.
“For what it’s worth, the better person won, right?” she admitted. Chaney really did deserve better. Even she knew that. She was nothing but an empty well short of anger that swirled around inside of her like a toxic cesspool. She was sober, but the clean part was still questionable.
“Not really,” Scooter chimed in, reaching for the blunt. “All that tells me is that she wasn’t your person. Maybe yours iswaiting for your ass to open up your eyes, see what’s in plain sight.”
Donovan scoffed. He had no clue what the fuck was up with Scooter. He rarely smoked around them, let alone with a woman, and Kaleela wasn’t just any woman. She was the bitch he knew would off him the first chance she got if she could get away with it.
“What’s in plain sight is staying sober and keeping my bitch right here tucked.” She tapped her ankle and smiled. “But I’m all for new beginnings. Can’t stay fucked up all my life, right?”
“Shit, I’ll smoke to that. New beginnings.”
Donovan cocked his brow, chewing on the inside of his jaw. He’d never admit it, but that invisible dick she carried had his woman at one point… and her heart. For that reason alone, he’d never sleep on her. He hoped his cousin wouldn’t either, his cockiness blinding him as they both sat and smoked his shit as if he wasn’t even there.
Chapter 3
Verse Three
“Hi, my name is Kaleela, and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Kaleela,” everyone greeted in response. Shawn, her sponsor, reached over and lightly gripped her shoulder. It was a gentle reminder that he was present, physically and emotionally, as he cast a soft smile when their eyes connected.
“So today, I was asked to lead this meeting. Funny thing is that I am scared as hell,” she admitted, a soft laugh following. “Imagine me, Kaleela Bradshaw, scared. All of my life, I’ve fought, stole, did whatever I had to do to get mine, and trust me, I got mine.”
She heard a few chuckles, but she was in no way proud of herself.
“It’s sad, actually. I started not to care because the people I felt were supposed to care about me didn’t. Not even my own mother. See, addiction was her way of life too, to the point my own father has no face or name. I’m a product of it, swallowed up by it until I chose to accept the things I knew I could change.” Shawn smiled, patting his chest. She’d come a long way.
“Today, let’s talk about making amends. I’d recently done that. It was hard, but it was needed.”
She chuckled, remembering how Donovan eyed her like he would off her. He didn’t, though. In fact, before they left, they even played a few games of dice. She cleaned their pockets before Scooter sent her ass on her way with the promise of coming back. She wouldn’t. She was pretty sure he knew it, too, because she was still Chaney’s ex and the woman she was once head over heels for.
“Y’all ready?”
An hour later, the meeting was over, and all of the residents went back to their rooms to complete chores, focus on assignments, or participate in individual counseling sessions. She remembered those days when she was in rehab, more times than she cared to admit.
Many would have never guessed it, but she wasn’t down on hard times, not financially anyway. In fact, she was a millionaire who took her money, cleaned it up. She’d founded, then funded the community resource center when she first exited the game. It was equipped with state-of-the-art furniture, programs, and skilled staff. She even had a residential group home for foster children. It was her way of giving back on the surface, but to her core, she was still the fucked up person that craved the taste of warm, brown liquor and pussy on her tongue.
Outside of approving budgets and virtual meetings, she had nothing to offer, but she couldn’t say no to Shawn. He knew that as she smiled before her peers while crying on the inside, before he beckoned her to his office.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
The life Shawn lived was hard, if not harder than Kaleela’s. He started selling dope at the age of eight and caught his first body at ten. It was a way of life for him, his mother only twelve years his senior. She was a Blood, and so was his father. He wasborn into the life that chose him before he even took his first breath.
They and a few Bloods broke and entered into a home that belonged to a politician who owed them money. When he didn’t pay up, they tortured and murdered him, his wife, and two children, unknowingly, leaving one daughter behind who hid in the closet.
She was five, old enough to know to remain quiet until she called 911 while they argued outside in the front yard. That day, Shawn’s father lost his life, and his mother’s final days were slated to live inside a small prison cell. Years later, he, too, had a run-in with the law, trying to rob and kidnap someone to feed the same demon that had a hold on Kaleela.
Hearing his case on the news after sitting for almost three years, X took his case on and won. He’d gotten off on a technicality, but Shawn knew that it was all God. His faith kept him as he entered a life where he didn’t drink, smoke, or socialize much unless it had to do with work and maintaining his sobriety. Kaleela was a female version of him, and he wanted her to win, probably more than she did for herself.
“Hello?” She waved one hand, leaning in to see where his head was as he sat behind his desk. After twelve hours with no sleep, he was in dire need of some rest. For Kaleela, though, he’d push through.
“Get in here and close my door, Lee,” he commanded, tossing his pen at her. The first time he called her that, she growled like a little dog, a feisty one because, if nothing else, she was feisty.
