When Real awoke from a power nap, which he only intended to last a couple hours, he heard his iPhone ringing on the nightstand. Stretching his eyes while simultaneously grabbing the phone, he then glided his thumb across the flat screen and answered the call. “Hello,” he said, slumberous.
“Why is it so hard to catch up wit’ you? I’m saying, you give me yo’ number, and you don’t even pick up,” a sexy female voice with an accent fired back seductively.
Real sat straight up in bed, deeply perplexed as to whom the voice belonged. When he checked the number, he saw that it was the missed unknown call to whom he had forgotten to call back.
“Who this?” Real asked.
“This is the bitch you put $9,500 on a necklace who you didn’t know from Adam and Eve!”
“Bellda!” Real threw out her name.
“Nah, Bellda,” she sassily retorted.
“Now you want to call a nigga. It shows me how much you really appreciate a nigga. What’s up?” Real retorted, intending to get under her skin and make her feel bad.
When he heard her suck her teeth, he knew he had Bellda right where he wanted her.
“Sorry, even though I don’t know why I’m sayin’ it, but I did appreciate it. Matter of fact, I have it on now. And I think I found a nice dress to wear with it,” Bellda added.
“Oh yeah? Where are, you going in the dress?” Real asked.
“Wherever you plan on taking a real woman. I hope you have good taste,” Bellda playfully insulted Real.
“You have a mouth like Ali’s daughter. I wonder if you can back it up like her,” Real added.
“Nigga! I almost told you something,” Bellda said as she again sucked her teeth.
“And what is that?” Real inquired.
“How ’bout you come to Salerno to 2032 Innez Street around 8:00 p.m. and see,” she said.
“2032?” Real repeated.
“Yeah, I’ll text it to you when I hang up,” Bellda promised.
“Do that!” Real retorted the moment Lala entered the room with Destiny in her arms.
What the fuck! How did she get in here? Real wanted to know.
“Get yourself together. I’ll be waiting, handsome,” Bellda said before she hung up.
When she was gone, Real looked at Lala sourly.
“How did you get in, Lala?” Real asked, bridling his temper.
“What do you mean, Real? Am I not supposed to be around you since Joc’s—” she paused short of what she wanted to say, on the verge of tears.
Real clearly saw her pain. She was a mess.
“Since Joc died, you’ve been avoiding me, Real. What’s wrong?” Lala asked, throwing her daughter on her left hip.
“Lala, listen. I don’t want you gettin’ shit twisted. We are not and never will get back on the level of a relationship, and you know why. We cool friends, but right now—”
“No!” Lala whispered as she began to slowly break down, shaking her head from side to side.
“And we are not going to be kicking it sexually anymore.”
“Oh, so you done found somebody? Now it’s ‘fuck Lala,’ huh?” she screamed with tears cascading down her face.
Little Destiny began to cry, sensing her mother’s discomfort.
“Stop it, Destiny!” Lala exploded, violently shaking her daughter in the air. “Shut up!”
Real quickly leaped from the bed and grabbed Destiny out of Lala’s hands.
Smack!
He then vigorously slapped Lala’s ass to the ground.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, huh?” Real exploded, holding on to Destiny while looking at Lala hysterically crying on the ground.
He didn’t care whose child it was. Child abuse did not sit well with him, and he did not regret putting his hands on Lala.
“Real, I’m so sorry, baby! Sorry!” Lala cried out as Destiny instantly calmed down in Real’s arms, lying her head on his shoulder.
“Lala, get out of my shit and leave the key! Don’t ever let me see you treat yo’ daughter like that because of your frustration—of a man. Take that shit out on me. Do you hear me?” Real spoke sternly.
Lala nodded her head up and down in assent.
“Yes, Real. I hear you.”
Real sat Destiny on the bed and then stormed back into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
“Get out, Lala, and leave my key on the table!” he shouted over the running shower water.
Lala couldn’t believe that Real was ending it with her. But she wouldn’t allow herself to continue to cry over spilled milk. She would wait until she saw who the bitch was for whom he was booting her out of his life. Until then, she had a baby daddy to bury in two days.
Real, I’ll show you how to cut a bitch off. I made a mistake by leaving you, I know. But I will not make the mistake of losing you. First love will also be home! she pondered as she left Real’s apartment with Destiny in her arms, leaving her spare key on the table like he had demanded.
* * *
When Chantele saw her husband sitting in the waiting lobby at Palm Beach Airport engrossed in his iPhone, she instantly realized how much she had missed him. As she tried creeping up on him from behind, he surprised her by turning around and shooting an air gun at her with his hand.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
“I been seeing you, baby girl. Busted!” Shamoney exclaimed as he stood up to hug his baby, who was killing every bitch in the vicinity.
A few folks had recognized her as a swimsuit model and asked for her autograph. Generously, she gave a few of them her autograph and then gleefully walked away with her husband.
“Damn, celebrity!” Shamoney said when they were in the Maybach that Pat had given him as a going-away gift.
“Whatever, bae. You act like you not likin’ the package of havin’ a celebrity as a wife. If you’ve been listening, I’m the swimsuit cover girl, baby.”
“Get the fuck out of here!” Shamoney exclaimed to his wife.
Truth be told, his mind was so engrossed on the streets, that he hadn’t been paying attention to anything in the media, other than the news that he and his brother were creating.
“So, when are the funerals?” Chantele asked.
It was her only reason of coming home on an emergency call to support her husband at his homeboys’ funerals.
“Two days. Until then, we’re going to be locked away in our room. Just the two of us!” Shamoney said as he reached over to kiss his wife on the lips.
“Oh, is that right?” Chantele asked seductively.
“Yo name is Mrs. Wilkins, right?” he asked his wife while licking his lips and looking over at his sexy, caramel wife who stood five two.
He was unaware of the increase in the size of her nose and weight.
He has no clue! Chantele thought as she replied to his question.
“Yes, it is, and I wear it proudly, daddy.”
“I know, baby,” Shamoney said as he pecked her on the lips again and then burned rubber as he exited the airport.
“Boy, slow down before we get a damn ticket!” Chantele exclaimed in laughter.
“Fuck the police and their tickets. They got to catch us first, baby!” he shouted as he turned up the volume to Boosie’s hit “Wipe Me Down.”
* * *
When Bellda stepped out the door in a lustrous skin-tight, black spaghetti-strap dress and some leopard Dolce Vita heels, wearing the XO necklace around her neck, Real almost lost his manners, gawking at her undulations with lust-filled eyes. He was a gentleman who opened the passenger door for her to his new BMW SUV. On the seat, Bellda found a dozen red roses and smiled brightly.
“For me?”
“For you!” Real retorted to a blushing Bellda, who grabbed the roses, smelled them, and then hopped inside.
“Thanks, Jermaine,” she expressed her gratification.
“You look gorgeous, baby gal,” Real complimented while licking his lips and hanging into the passenger door.
Bellda began blushing to the extreme as she absentmindedly grabbed hold of Real’s tie and pulled him into her. She then gave him a soft peck on his lips.
“Be good. I’m overdue, so please don’t spoil it. Because there’s more where that kiss just came from,” Bellda warned him, with a sexy Haitian accent.
“Never that, beautiful,” Real said as he closed her door.
As he walked around to the driver’s seat, she could still smell his Polo cologne.
Damn! This nigga got it going’ on fo’ real! she thought, admiring Real in his fresh-ass ocean blue Armani tailor-made suit.
When Real got inside, he turned the blasting AC down low and put on some Tyrese Gibson. Bellda was already giving him a ten, because unbeknownst to him, she was fucked up about Tyrese.
“I love his music,” Bellda informed Real.
“Is that a good sign?” Real said while pulling his goatee. “Or do I need to beat up Tyrese’s ass, huh?”
His comment got a laugh out of her.
“Is that a way of sayin’ you throwing the cuffs on me?” Bellda frankly asked.
Real looked Bellda in her adorable eyes and smiled, showing his gleaming gold teeth.
“It’s in my considerations,” Real retorted.
A long forty-five minutes later, Real pulled up to Capital Grill, which Bellda knew was expensive.
What nigga spends $200 a plate? Bellda thought.
“You know of this place?” Real asked as he pulled up to the entrance.
“Yeah, this is a very nice and expensive-ass place,” she said as the six foot two, skinny white valet opened her door and assisted her out with a gentle hand.
“Take care of the car. One scratch, and it’s me and you,” Real warned the other tall valet, to whom Real gave his keys when he walked around to meet up with Bellda.
She’s never been catered to like this, Real concluded after espying the nervous look in her eyes.
“It’s okay, baby! We cool, right?” Real asked as he offered his arm for Bellda to intertwine.
“Yes, Jermaine. We are cool,” she replied with her sexy-ass Haitian accent that made his head spin every time she talked.
When the duo stepped inside, she was surprised to see that reservations had already been made. On the other hand, Real was surprised to see that they weren’t the only black couple in the pricey restaurant. Bellda’s ass jiggled lustrously with every step she took in her skin-tight dress that accentuated her voluptuous body. Real knew without a doubt that he had stepped into the building with a bad-ass bitch, just by looking at all the men who, despite sitting with their dates, still cut their eyes at Bellda’s undulations.
* * *
Despite the block being hot with roaming unmarked police cars, V-Money was still making a killing serving the fiends and setting up shop with the help of a couple young niggas.
Jake’s store was back as usual, with the guys playing craps and poker on the side of the building. Every hustler was chasing down the fiends with competitive-sized crack cocaine rocks. But it wasn’t the same to everyone not to hear Joc’s loud, obnoxious mouth when he was gambling. It was understood more than unspoken. Meat Head was a quiet man, and he was being missed as well.
When Pimp pulled up to Jake’s store in her watermelon box Chevy Caprice on twenty-eight-inch rims, bumping to Old Master P’s “I Miss My Homies,” a lot of niggas got in their feelings and turned Jake’s store into yet another vigil for Joc and Meat Head. They bought out Jake’s cheap candles and lit them while sipping on liquor and orange juice.
Damn! I miss my niggas! V-Money thought, catching the tears that fell from his eyes.
“It’s okay, V-Money. He was all our homie,” Pimp said to him as she hugged him and cried with him in his arms.
Together, they consoled each other endearingly, letting their grief transparently accentuate their affection for each other.
* * *
After leaving Capital Grill, Real took Bellda on a romantic stroll along the beautiful beach in Palm Beach, until he found a nice spot to lay down the comfy blanket that he had brought along with him. For hours, they had been staring at the water under a full moon and sky full of stars light-years away.
Bellda’s feet sat in Real’s lap while he massaged them affectionately. She was extremely moved by his delicate touch and wanted him to explore her entire body with the same hands. The wine in her system from dinner had her attentive to every touch as he caressed her delicate feet. They knew a lot about each other in just one night and felt like they had known each other their whole lives.
Real was honest with her about his prison bid, and he trusted her to know about his street life and what he did for a living. She knew everything except him being the ringleader of the headline murders of her Haitian kin. And she had informed him on everything about her love life in the past and of the many times she had been hurt. But she did leave out the part about the man who she was definitely leaving for Real.
Pat is definitely out of the picture. Money is not always the winner, Bellda thought as she was engrossed in the contentedness that Real was fulfilling that night.
“What’s roaming through yo’ head that got you all quiet?” Real asked, snapping Bellda from her daydreaming state.
She looked at him and seriously contemplated what she was about to commit herself to. She didn’t want to come off with the wrong impression on the first night.
But damn, this nigga is dead handsome! she thought.
“Can I be honest with you?” Bellda asked, pulling her feet back and then sitting Indian style.
“Sure you can. It’s the best—”
Before Real could finish his sententious saying, Bellda was all over him. She roughly and deeply kissed him while popping the buttons on his Polo dress shirt. As she climbed into his lap, she began to unfasten his Polo belt with ease. She lay back with Real while straddling him and still kissing him.
Real wasted no time sliding his hands up her dress, feeling her succulent and pantiless ass. When he swiped his fingers across her wet mouth and fondled her sensitive throbbing clitoris, Bellda let out a loud moan. Real took charge as he flipped her onto her back while he simultaneously pulled down his slacks and briefs. He slid Bellda’s dress over her hips and teased her by placing the head of his throbbing dick on her throbbing clitoris.
“This what you want, ma?” Real asked for further consent.
No words needed to be uttered for Bellda, as she extended her legs and artistically wrapped her stallion thighs around Real’s waist, bringing him down into her as he plunged deeply inside her wet, phat, tight pussy.
“Uhhh shit!” she exhaled, gaping until she found his neck, onto which she gently bit down.
Damn! This pussy already got me fucked up, Real thought as he penetrated Bellda long, hard, and passionately.
When they came, the duo came together, and like Bellda had warned Real, she was overdue and backed up as she came convulsively to an electrifying orgasm.