“Is it true that you and your child’s mother are getting back together, Quan?”
“What about your girlfriend that you’re always with, going shopping and taking her on tour with you?”
“When are you going to drop your next album, Quan?”
I swear that shit was so annoying and this is why I hated going out in public with Jaquan and plus, it always scared my baby. Jaquan stayed with China wrapped up in his arms with her head buried against his neck, while he made me walk in front of him with his hand resting on my lower back. I could not understand how Jaquan went through this shit on a daily basis. I couldn’t even stand to bear it for a second.
“Oh my God, it’s Quan! It’s Quan!” the waiter at the front desk shouted as soon as we stepped inside and everybody in the restaurant turned and looked our way. People started pulling out their phones snapping pictures, while others just simply stared in awe. A few of them even ran up to him, asking for his autograph but he told them that he was with his family and that he would do that another time. That was another thing that I loved about him, no matter what, he always put his family first. Niggas nowadays weren’t doing shit like that, especially not a rapper.
After the waitress finally got her hyper ass under control, she directed us to our table. After she sat us down, I heard two teenage girls sitting down talking about us. They were sitting behind us but I could hear their conversation loud and clear. They wasn’t even trying to be discreet about the shit. They looked to be no older than 17 or 18.
“Girl, who is that with my man?” one of the girl asked, referring to Jaquan. I smirked and waited to hear what the other female was going to say.
“Girl, are you crazy? That’s his fine ass baby mama, Charlie. From what I heard, they not together but word on the street is he don’t play about her ass. That song that he got called ‘My Thugged Out Bitch,’ he wrote that for her because remember when he was like, ‘She my thugged out bitch! I swear to God that red hair to something to a nigga and if a nigga even look at my bitch, he taking these slugs from my trigga,’” the other girl announced, rapping along to Jaquan’s song. I smiled because that was actually one of my favorite songs from him because I knew he wrote it for me.
I tuned them out and paid attention to the waitress as she made her way back over. “Hello, I’ll be your waitress. My name is Melissa. Can I start you all off with something to drink or are you ready to order?” she asked, the whole time her eyes were on my baby daddy. I swear, these little hoes were brave as fuck.
“Naw, we ready to order. She’s going to have,” Jaquan said, focusing his attention on me, “the shrimp n’ grits. She doesn’t want any of the roasted tomatoes and make sure you put extra cheese on her grits. For her drink, she would like an orange juice with no pulp, oh yeah, and no ice. My princess is going to have the dulce de leche strawberry waffle with an apple juice. I’m going to have the shrimp n’ grits as well, double shrimp with a Sprite,” Jaquan said, knowing what everybody wanted already. I smirked at him because his ass swore he knew every fuckin thing.
Jaquan and China made small talk while they waited for the food to arrive and I played the backfield and just watched the two of them interact. After our food came, we ate and like Jaquan promised, he signed a few autographs and took pictures with some of his fans. I was holding my baby in my arms as we watched him and he finished up at th
e same time the valet came, pulling his car back in front of the restaurant. After breakfast, we headed to Galleria Mall where Jaquan took us shopping. I didn’t need anything but I somehow managed to leave with two hands full of bags when we were leaving. Of course, he was bombarded with fans and shit while we were at the mall, too.
“Jaquan, why don’t you just get a bodyguard? I mean, wouldn’t that be more convenient, especially when you have China with you? You know she hates that shit,” I fussed as we made our way back to the car.
“This my fuckin city. Fuck I need a bodyguard for? That shit is for pussies. You don’t need no bodyguard when you got this!” Jaquan said, lifting up his shirt and showing me his gun. I was carrying my baby and she was knocked out. I didn’t even respond to his ass, I just shook my head and let him put the bags in the car.
After getting in the car, we took our baby to Dave and Buster’s, to the movies and at eight p.m., we were pulling back up to my house. What I respected about Jaquan was the fact that he didn’t let this money change him. Even though he was famous, he still had the same tendencies that he used to do when he was broke. He went out and had a good time like normal people. He didn’t have to rent out the whole Dave and Buster’s just for the three of us or the movie theater, even though he could. What I didn’t respect about most famous people now was the fact that once they got rich and famous, they forgot where the fuck they came from. Not Jaquan, though. I swear his ass is quick to let a nigga know that he was indeed born and raised in Liberty City.
Pulling up to the house, Jaquan parked his car in my driveway and shut the car off. He went around to the back and got our sleeping daughter from out of her seat while I walked in front of him to open up the front door to my house. After opening the door and turning off the alarm, I stood in the foyer of the house and waited for Jaquan to come back down from putting our daughter to bed. Ten minutes later, he was coming down the steps and I walked with him outside so that we could bring the shopping bags in the house. Once we were done, I stood on the porch with him with my hand out.
“You going to give me my phone back now?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Why you such in a rush to get that phone back? You ready to go call that broke ass nigga?” he asked and I could see the jealousy written all over his face.
Laughing and looking into his eyes, I said, “I’m not in a rush to call nobody. You’re about to leave so I need my phone back.”
Jaquan stared back at me. It was like he was trying to think whether or not he should give me my shit back. A few seconds later, he reached inside of his pockets and placed my phone in my hands.
“Thank you,” I said, turning around, about to go in the house.
“Charlie?” he called out, looking at me with a very serious look on his handsome face.
“What?” I asked, looking back at him.
“I love you, man,” he said. I didn’t miss the sadness mixed with the anger that came along with those three words. It was like he was trying to tell me something but was just too scared to do so.
“I love you, too, Jaquan. Drive safe to wherever it is your about to go to and call and check up on us tomorrow,” I told him and he nodded his head.
After I watched him get into his car and pull away, I headed into the house and set the alarm. I left all of the shopping bags in the foyer of the house, promising to hang the clothes and stuff up tomorrow. After wrapping my hair, I took myself a steaming hot shower, dried off, brushed my teeth and threw on some long pajama pants from Pink with a tank top. I went into my daughter’s room to check up on her and after showering her sleeping face with kisses, I went back into my room. When I reached my bed, I looked over at my dresser and I noticed two stacks of money lying on the night stand. I walked over to it and the first stack was sitting there with a sticky note that read, “Charlie” and the second stack’s sticky note read, “China.” I smiled because Jaquan must have left that there when he went to go put China in her bed. Even though I didn’t need the money, it still made a smile form to my lips because Jaquan was always doing stuff like this for me and our daughter. I picked the money up and went into my walk-in closet, picked up my dirty clothes hamper and lifted the carpet that led to my safe. I typed in my code and placed the money in there along with the rest of the money that I had stored away. I thought very smart. Yes, I brought expensive shit, but I also saved.
After getting into my bed, I checked my phone, noticing that I had missed calls from Monae and Toya but I was too tired, so I would call them back in the morning. I’d really enjoyed my time out today with my daughter and Jaquan, minus the aggravating ass groupie bitches. I honestly like when the three of us were together and I never wanted it to come to an end, but I just knew that it had to. I knew that eventually I was going to find my happiness with a man. I just had to keep praying about it and waiting on it. I was starting to get real inpatient though because eventually my ass was going to run out of batteries, fucking with these dildos. Shit, a bitch wanted to feel the real thing sooner or later.
Chapter 3: Jaquan
After dropping my baby mama and my daughter off at home, I headed over to my mama’s house to check up on her right quick. It was almost nine clock at night but I knew her ass was up though. I wanted to swing over there before I hit the studio because once I got in that booth, I didn’t need any interruptions because it would fuck up my whole thought process. When I went to go lay down some dope ass tracks, I didn’t need any distractions from anybody.
Being with Charlie and my daughter today made a nigga secretly yearn for that whole family thing. Cruising through these Miami streets with my daughter in the backseat and the woman that birthed her in the passenger seat made my ass start thinking some things. I was really fooling myself when I thought that I didn’t want to be with Charlie like that anymore. Hearing her on the phone with Toya and listening to how another nigga wanted to fuck with my baby mama made my ass get hot. I ain’t no dumb ass nigga, though. I knew plenty of niggas wanted to fuck my baby mama. Hell, I wanted to fuck my baby mama but Charlie’s ass was mean as fuck, I swear to God she was. These nigga thought that they wanted to fuck her, but I knew for a fact that they couldn’t handle a woman like that. It’s fucked up because I fucked different bitches every fuckin night but I didn’t want another nigga to even look Charlie’s way. I legit have niggas with me in the studio begging me to let them just get some type of conversation with Charlie. I don’t even get offended, though. I actually find the shit to be quite comical. Those lil niggas wouldn’t know what to do with a pussy as dangerous as her shit. The last time I even sampled Charlie’s shit was about eight months ago and the only reason she even let me hit was because her and China ended up spending the night at my crib in Star Island on Miami Beach because it started pouring down raining and I wasn’t about to have her drive in that weather. I swear that was the last time I even got a whiff of that pussy and a nigga missed that and her so much.