THIRTY-SEVEN

ELLA

Armand was literally vibrating as he paced my hospital room, his anger thick and palpable. If I didn’t know it wasn’t directed toward me, I might’ve been afraid.

Instead of helping me, someone had recorded the incident at the gas station and posted the video on social media. The upside was an arrest had been made. The downside? Armand had watched the video repeatedly and an arrest wasn’t good enough for him.

“I need to kill him,” he growled. “They gon’ let him out after little to no time so he can do this shit again. If I kill him, the world will be rid of him.”

“And I won’t have you. Neither will the baby,” I advised.

He stopped in his tracks, the hum of his anger dissipating as he approached me.

“Sit down, Boogie. Talk to me.”

He took his seat, the one he’d been sleeping in for two days while they ran tests on me, casted my arm and wrist, and removed my IUD. Evidently, it had shifted into my cervix, which was how I got pregnant.

“You really want to keep the baby?” he asked softly.

ARMAND

“The odds of a woman getting pregnant with an IUD in place are less than one percent, so this baby is meant to be. Besides, it’s yours. Of course I do,” she assured me. “Do…you want to keep it?”

Fixing my eyes on her, I said, “It’s yours. Of course I do…sir.”

She smiled.

She was seven weeks, and so far, the gynecologist believed the baby would be fine and so would Ella with time to heal.

I lightly rested a hand on her stomach. “I love you, sir.”

“I love you, too,” she replied. “I’m down both arms. It’ll be a while before we can play.”

“I don’t care. I’ma take care of you until you heal. We got the rest of our lives to play.” I stood, leaning in to kiss her. I was just backing away from her when her phone rang. Grabbing it from the over-bed table, I checked the screen. “It says Unc,” I informed her with wrinkled brows.

She nodded, and once I accepted the call, she said, “Hello?”

A man I’d later learn was her great Uncle Lee Chester’s voice boomed from the phone’s speakers as it lay on the table. “Niece! I heard you got in a wreck!”

“Yes, sir. I’m okay now, though,” she replied with a smile.

“They tell me you fractured your arm and shit. Glad you ain’t break nothing! Look, I really called because I heard you done got knocked up by my Kimmy’s son. Uh…that boy they call Armor All.”

“Armand?” she squeaked.

I mumbled, “The fuck?”

“Naw, they call him something else, don’t they? Booger! That’s it. You done got knocked up by a nigga named Booger?”

The fuck, squared?

“Uh…” Ella said. I could see why she was lost for words.

“Looka here, ain’t none of this my business, but I just wanna say, if he come from my Kimmy, he all right with me. Just don’t name that baby Booger Junior, okay?” her uncle advised.

I could tell she was fighting hard not to laugh and so was I, although I was also battling to maintain my frown.

“Okay, Unc,” she managed to say.

“All right, niece…Lou wanted some ribs, but it’s raining down here, so I brought the grill inside. ‘Bout to fire it up!”

The fuck cubed?

“Oh, is that safe, Unc?” Ella asked.

“Naw, no steaks. Just ribs. I’ma check on you later, niece,” he said and ended the call.

Ella and I stared at each other and then fell out laughing.

After five days, they were finally letting Ella go home. I was so happy I didn’t know what to do! I was tired of sleeping in that chair, or trying to sleep in that chair, but I would’ve slept there every night for a year if I needed to. It would’ve taken the jaws of life to pry me from her bedside. Thankfully, my mom brought me some clothes and stuff, so I wasn’t sitting around being funky and shit, but I was glad we were getting to leave.

I was bent over her bed, a hand on each rail as I leaned in to kiss her and kiss her and kiss her. Her face looked better, still scuffed up, but better. She had casts on both arms and bandages on her nose, little Band-Aids on her cheeks and forehead, but I swear she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.

One last kiss and I smiled into her eyes. “This, us, it’s crazy. I had the biggest crush on you for the longest. I’d look at your pics on IG and think damn, she’s fine. I just knew you had some good pussy.”

Grinning up at me, she asked, “And?”

I smirked. “I let you collar me. Me, Armand DeShawn ‘I kicks ass for breakfast’ Daniels. That oughta tell you your pussy is un-fucking-rivaled, incomparable, unmatched.”

She laughed. “You’re stupid. Hurry back.”

“I will. I’m just gonna pull my truck around. Scotty was clutch for driving it here for me yesterday.”

“Yeah.”

I reluctantly left her room, nodding at the muscle Big South was paying to stand outside her door. I’d made it into the elevator and was watching the doors slide closed when a big hand stopped them. They slid open to reveal Big South, one of his enormous-ass bodyguards, and Leland.

Shit.

I dropped my head and sighed as they filed into the box. They’d left me alone after Ella set her dad straight, not exactly being friendly, but not harassing me, either. I guess that shit was over.

When I lifted my head, I found all angry eyes on me. “Three on one, huh? All y’all bigger than me. You must really think I can box to be bringing backup.”

“I’m not planning to fight you. We need to talk,” Big South said. Dude was fucking gargantuan, not only in stature but his presence. Full disclosure, I was a fan of his, but if he thought he was going to talk me out of Ella’s life? Well, fuck that.

“Y’all brought a bodyguard just to talk to me?” I questioned.

“We brought a bodyguard because he’s Big South and a motherfucker shot at me one time. Not to mention your recent past reputation. We ain’t stupid,” Leland said.

I nodded as the elevator stopped on a lower floor. The doors slid open, and a white lady looked inside. Her eyes ballooned before she let them close. I guess we were a menacing sight.

“I’m going to get my truck so I can take Ella home. Y’all welcome to walk and talk,” I offered.

They followed me to my truck, but no one spoke until I hit the button on the key fob to unlock the doors.

“Let’s talk in there,” Big South said, nodding at my vehicle.

I shrugged. “Get in, then.”

My ass had barely touched the driver’s seat when Big South, who’d slid in on the passenger side, gripped me by the neck and got all up in my face. “Listen, little nigga, I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but that girl up there in that room? She is my fucking heart, my Princess. There ain’t a thing in this world I won’t do for her. Do you understand?”

I just stared at his ass because how was I supposed to talk while he was legit choking me out?

“Ev,” Leland said, “you choking him. He can’t talk.”

“Good,” Big South growled, “because I was just about to tell him if he ever even dreams about putting his hands on my Ella, he will fucking evaporate and I know someone who can make it happen.”

“He ain’t lying,” Leland added.

Big South let me go and I shook my head. I wanted to rub my neck, but I wasn’t going out like that. Still, I couldn’t help but be a little out of breath as I said, “You tryna protect her from me when I would beat my own ass before I hit her, but you let On One treat her like shit. He used to hit her, you know that? He used to talk crazy to her. She’s been keeping it a secret because all y’all, the whole world, love his ass so much, but she was miserable with dude. I love her. Shit, on the real, I damn near worship her, and Ella is the one running things with us. She says jump, and I don’t even ask how high. My ass just jumps and hope it’s high enough. You can’t see that?”

Big South just stared at me, but I could tell I was getting through to him.

“So you’re talking shit about a dead man now?” Leland interjected.

“Nah, I’m telling the truth. If y’all know Ella like you think you do, you saw it. You might not have realized it at the time, but you saw it, and look, Leland, I know I acted a fool over you and my mom, but I thought I was protecting her from another asshole. I was wrong. I apologized to her, and now, I’m apologizing to you. I’m sorry for everything I said and did. I can see what y’all got is real, and just like I was wrong about y’all, y’all are wrong about us. I love Ella. No cap. I love her so much that even I don’t understand it. I would never, ever hurt her. It’s killing me that they locked that dude up before I could get to him. I need to fuck him up.”

“I was gonna torture his ass, like cut him up or something,” Big South said.

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Leland agreed. “Cut him, burn him alive, something…”

“I was gon’ cut his dick off and shove it down his got-damn throat after I cut his balls off and stuffed them in his ears,” I told them. The truck fell silent as they stared at me. Then we all started laughing. Well, everyone except the bodyguard. I almost forgot his big ass was even there.

“Does he talk?” I asked.

“Who? Bear? Not unless I tell him to,” Big South replied. “I brought him to be Ella’s armor. Her hardheaded ass is going to have security every time she steps out the house from now on. I don’t give a fuck if she steps out the door to look at the sun, he gon’ be with her.”

“Yeah, I told her that. She gonna mess around and make me do something to somebody that’ll put me in jail. How I’ma take care of her if that happens?” I said.

Big South fell against the back of the seat and shook his head. “She’s my baby, man…I can see that you love her, but shit! Just…be good to her, man. She’s special. She’s my princess.”

“I can’t be nothing but good to her. She’s everything to me. She got my heart.”