“Dick whipped?”
I laughed. “Yeah, if you wanna call it that. But now… It’s like I’ve seen too much to be willing to accept this Nya woman as part of some package deal when it’s not like she’s this great friend to him or something.”
“And you don’t have to!” A new voice chimed, making me sit straight up. “Temp, it’s Loren. Alicia stepped out to take this call but I’m nosy and her phone is up loud.”
I chuckled.
Loren was the friend Cree had a child with -a bubbly, straightforward doctor who Cree knew before he and Alicia were a thing.
Yeah, I was all in their business.
So it didn’t bother me for Loren to be in mine, especially if she was about to give me something useful.
“Listen honey - you’re new to this relationship stuff, right? I know it feels like a drawback, but it’s not -cause you’re not jaded and worn down yet. So many of us have been subjected to men’s manipulations and gaslighting to the point that it feels normal. As if we should expect our feelings not to matter, so we swallow them to seem cool or unbothered, but fuck that. Having a man is not the only good thing in life. It’s barely top fucking five. Or hell, ten. He wants to grin in another bitch’s face, cool. Find one who won’t. Or don’t. Whichever way, you’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Alicia said, after a moment had passed to absorb Loren’s words. “What she said.”
I pushed out another sigh. “I get it. I just… Was really into him. But I guess it would’ve been silly to think my first… thing might be the only one.”
“It’s not silly at all,” Alicia said, her tone soothing. “It’s sweet. And it’s only been a little time since all this happened - don’t jump all the way out the window. Tristan could surprise you.”
“Thinking that is how I got into this trouble in the first place,” I argued. “Thinking he could surprise me, instead of relying on how predictably disappointing most men are.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Loren agreed, making Alicia laugh.
“Don’t you have a whole fiancé?”
“Yeah, but I’m talking about these other niggas, not him.”
The two of them went back and forth a bit, laughing, and trying to offer me more advice, but really...I was over it.
By the time I got them off the phone, I was fully past all the anger and had settled knee deep into sadness.
“Ay braces, why you going so fast! Slow up! Where you going?”
“Let me walk you home lil mama! I can walk you all the way to your room. We can play doctor, whatever!”
“I said leave me alone!”
I’d had every intention of ignoring the loud ass street harassment happening in front of the shop next to mine - not the boutique, but on the other side. There was nothing there, and people often took to using it as a hangout spot no one would complain about.
I wasn’t about to listen to what sounded like a young woman getting hassled though.
I stepped out of the candle shop door as the whole group turned a corner - with Kiara of all people leading the crowd.
Or rather, being stalked.
Her face was pulled into a scowl, earbuds pushed deep in her ears - both defense mechanisms. Anger to mask the fear the young men following her were causing, earbuds to drown them out as they surrounded her, impeding her from getting home.
At the sight of me, more than one let out a wolf-whistle, but I wasn’t with that shit.
“Y’all heard her say to leave her alone, right?” I snapped, stepping between her and the four older boys - one of whom wasn’t a boy at all, but a grown ass man - and a familiar one, at that.
The same motherfucker from my first night out in the Heights.
“This don’t concern you, bitch,” he spat in my direction, pulling a smile to my lips.
“Kiara… go inside,” I told her, gesturing inside the shop.
She didn’t hesitate, just slipped past me into the safety of the shop.
Smart girl.
“Do y’all know how old she is?” I asked, mostly addressing the one who was way too old to be bothering Kiara, even though they all were, really.
“That ass looks full-grown to me,” he sneered.
“You stay the fuck away from her,” I lobbed right back at him, stepping fully into his face, not giving a shit about a size or height difference. “She’s thirteen years old. I will kill you myself.”
“You won’t do sh--AYY, what the fuck!” He shrieked, backing up as I brandished a blade in his face. “Yo, what’s your problem?”
“You, and niggas like you are my problem,” I explained, looking at the others too. “Maybe if you’re worried about getting your dick filleted, you’ll learn how to leave people alone.”
“You ain’t gone do nothing with that,” the ringleader claimed, boldly taking a step back in my direction. I didn’t hesitate - I sliced through the front of his tee shirt, giving just enough pressure to touch his skin.
To prove a point.
The peanut gallery all started shouting, two of them taking off running at the sight of the tiny bit of blood I’d drawn.
Pussies.
“You really fucking cut me!”
I shrugged, frowning at the soiled blade. “I really fucking did. You may wanna find some fucking business before I take another slice.”
To emphasize my point, I fake lunged at him, and just like the bitch I knew he was, he flinched, then he and the other fool took off running too.
Predictable.
I turned back to the store to find Kiara staring out the window, having watched the whole exchange.
“Wow. You’re such a badass,” she gushed as I entered the shop, locking the door behind me. “You really are an assassin, aren’t you?”
“Do those guys always bother you like that?” I asked, avoiding the question.
“Not always. I take a different way home every day, so nobody can figure out my routine.”
Smart girl.
“Do you know them?”
“Not really, besides seeing them around the neighborhood sometimes. They’re always saying stuff to me,” she admitted, in a clearly uncomfortable tone as she gripped the straps of the hot pink backpack that matched her braces.
Which really pissed me off.
There was no way to mistake this little girl for anything other than exactly that - a little girl.
Not that “looking older” than her age would make the behavior okay, but the headband, hot pink everything, and obvious youth in her face made it feel so much more insidious.
“Have you said anything to your parents? To…your father?” I asked, propping a hip against a display as I waited for her answer.
“Daddy would kill him. All of them,” she answered, her tone so matter of fact that it almost felt like “duh bitch are you stupid?”
And maybe I was, for asking that question at all, when the answer was far from surprising.
“Well yeah…he’d try to make sure they didn’t bother you anymore.”
Kiara shook her head, taking it upon herself to remove her backpack and take a seat on an empty counter. “He wouldn’t try. He’d make sure.”