Toddrick “Miami” King
Shae was supposed to have been home damn near thirty minutes ago. I knew she’d clocked out at the job because she sent me a text message right before she did it. Maybe my new enemies had me thinking all types of crazy shit that could have possibly happened to her, which is why I had been pacing this fuckin’ living room for the past ten minutes. I’d sent her about three text messages, and I had called her phone more than ten times.
I felt like a lame ass nigga, damn near stalking my own shorty, but because of the fucked-up shit that happened months ago between her and Dino, I had to be overprotective like this. On top of that, I had my phone tracking her location, but that really wasn’t any help because I didn’t know if she wasn’t around service or what, but it couldn’t pick up a proper location.
To say I was stressed was a fuckin’ understatement. I had a blunt hanging from my mouth, and I was pacing this floor the same way I was three years ago when I was at the hospital with Tahira, praying to God that the baby she told me we had conceived really wasn’t mine. There wasn’t much in life that could cause me to stress, but when it came to my shorty, I’ll fuck around and catch high blood pressure behind her because I honestly just cared that much.
I was just about to call Jashae’s cell phone again, but all of a sudden, I heard a car door slam outside in the driveway. I glanced out of the window, and it was her getting out of her Lexus truck. First thing that I noticed was that she didn’t turn her car off when she got out. She probably was able to feel the heat of my eyes on her because, eventually, she peered over at me. I don’t know why, but I could just sense that she was about to be on some bullshit. I walked away from the window, just so I could meet her at the door. Stress, weariness, and maybe even a little bit of disappointment was written all over her face.
“Why the car still running? Your phone broke or something? You ain’t see a nigga calling you back to back for damn near the last forty- five minutes? The type of life we living, shorty, you not in no fuckin’ predicament to be ignoring fuckin’ phone calls! I thought something happened to your ass!” I barked.
At the same time, I snatched the phone out of her hands, only to see that she had a battery that was charged more than fifty percent. On top of that, I saw all of the missed calls and text message notifications on the home screen.
“I’m still waiting for you to tell me why—”
“I have Trip’s daughter in the car,” she blurted out. Hearing her say that shut my ass right up. I even put the blunt out because I all of a sudden didn’t even feel like smoking that shit anymore. I stared at her for a good twenty seconds, just to see if she was bullshitting me, but the serious look on her face never changed. She wouldn’t even look at me; she knew that this shit was foul.
I personally knew how timid Shae was, especially with all the shit that had been happening in her life. The biggest one right now was her having to go to court in a few weeks for running up in Taylor’s mama’s shit. I knew that it had her stressing, so I was trying to be considerate of her feelings, but at the same time, I wanted to be selfish and say that I didn’t give a fuck about her feelings. She obviously didn’t give a fuck about mine when she decided to bring Trip’s daughter over here. I didn’t like that shit, and I wasn’t going to pretend that I did.
“For what?” I simply asked, carefully choosing my words.
“Miami, I don’t know. Trip’s mom left her in the garage at my job. I couldn’t just leave her there. Technically, that’s Vonte’s sister, and—”
“Yo, leave Vonte out of this shit. I see what you’re doing, shorty. Since you want to throw blood out there, then that’s Trip’s fuckin’ daughter! You’re not married to that nigga. Therefore, that doesn’t make you her stepmother. Because he got his ass locked up, and he serving a life sentence, we supposed to be the ones in charge of his child? Fuck outta here with that, man! Where her mama at?” I asked, and she shrugged as if she didn’t know.
“Toddrick, I don’t know! I’m calling Trip’s mom, and she won’t answer the phone for me. I even wrote Krystal on Instagram as I was driving over here, and she didn’t write back either. What did you want me to do, Miami, when I saw her outside my job? Nigga, you know me well enough to know that I wasn’t about to leave no fuckin’ five-year-old little girl in a fuckin’ garage!
“Look, I’m not asking for a damn lecture from you, and neither am I asking you to continue yelling at me because of what I decided to do. Are you going to ride around with me so we can find her mama or what? Miami, I’ll go with or without you, and you know I will!” she snapped.
I swear, the only reason I decided to go was that I didn’t want her riding around the whole fuckin’ Miami on her own trying to find Trip’s baby mama.
“Hold on, yo! Let me put on a shirt. Also, let me shoot a text to my baby mama and let her know that we not going to the dinner anymore. Or would you want to bring your stepdaughter with us, and we go and look for her mother later?” I asked, looking down at her.
I knew my choice of words probably pissed her off, but I didn’t care. She released a sigh and then pushed back a few loose strands of hair and put it behind her ear.
“Miami, please! If you want to be technical here, realize that I had two options. I could have chosen to not include you in any of this and went on my own to go and find her damn mama. Instead, I came to you with it, thinking that I was doing the right thing by not sneaking around about it. I don’t want to be in this situation as much as you don’t want to be in it! I have enough shit going on in my life right now as is, so I don’t need you make the shit worse. I’m sleeping at my grandma’s tonight when all of this is over too. You seriously just pissed me off for the rest of the fuckin’ day!” She tried to walk away, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her close to me.
I was so close to her that I could smell her breath, and her mouth wasn’t even open. Our noses were touching and everything.
“I look like I’ma willingly let you sleep in a different space from me? You sleeping in the exact same spot that you’ve been sleeping in for the past few months. Go get back in the car. You done had her in there too long by herself.” I said what I had to say, and then I let her go.
She went back in the car while I jogged upstairs and went inside my drawer and threw on the first shirt that I could find. We were supposed to have been on our way to dinner, yet here we were again, picking up the missing pieces for Trip and his bullshit! Once the alarm and everything was on in the house, and I made sure that I had my gun on my hip, I walked out the door. I went over to the driver’s side of Jashae’s car and pulled it open. She was already sitting down, with her seatbelt on and everything, ready to pull out with or without me.
“Get in the passenger, and I’ll drive,” I let her know.
She sighed, and then she took the seat belt off. I knew she was mad at me. I could tell from her body language alone. Once she was out of the seat, she went over and got into the passenger seat while I was still standing and looking at the little girl in the backseat. Her seatbelt was on, and she was lying with her head on the window. There sat one of her bags on the floor while she had the other one in her lap, and she held onto it as she slept. I didn’t know how to feel about this, and
at the end of the day, I had to keep in mind that she was a little girl who didn’t have a say so in any of this shit. So, it wasn’t her that I was mad at.