My Thug Got A Rider (8 page)

Ashanti

“Is that all? Are you sure you wouldn’t like the socks to match?” I tried talking my third customer of the day into spending some more money while trying to keep my mind off of what Shauna had told me last night. I avoided any conversation about Kenyon too. Speak of the devil, as I looked up, he was swaggering into the store looking too damn good. I smelled his Polo cologne from the other side of the room. Carter came out as soon as he walked in, so I was relieved from having to speak to his ass.

“Abby, would you mind grabbing this sale for me. I need to talk with Ashanti.” Carter motioned for me to follow them to the office. Dammit! I should have known I wasn’t that lucky.

“Why did you give her my sale? I have been doing triple their work all day and now she gets to ring up my customer.” He knew we got paid on commission as well as salary and I had been busting my ass all day.

“You’ll get the next one, chill. I need to talk to you about something serious.”

My heart pounded in my chest. “Yeah, what’s up?” I asked and wondered if they could see how nervous I was but I tried to play it cool.

“I’m sick of y’all niggas being all scary and shit. Man, you too damn old to be fighting random niggas in the club over some chick you don’t know. That tells me one thing. You have been a sucka over her ass for a long time.”

I had to interrupt him for dogging Kenyon like that and for calling me ‘some chick’.  “Like how Shauna had you buying her shit in the first week?”

Kenyon busted out laughing. “Damn, nigga and you were riding passenger in your own shit. Wow.” We had a good laugh at his expense. Carter looked at us with a mug.

“Look at you coming to your boy’s rescue. How cute. Y’all forgot one thing, that’s my girl. I am in a relationship. Oh, that’s right, you don’t know what that is do you?” That made me and Kenyon look at each other and laugh even harder. Carter sat back in his seat and put his feet up on the desk. “Y’all can chuckle y’all asses right on out my office, don’t forget to exchange numbers this time, kids.” I got up to leave first, still laughing.

“Lemme talk to you for a minute.” Kenyon said as he grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. “What did I do to you?” His deep voice was deep and demanding. The way he grabbed me up was just rough enough to arouse me. His cologne smelled so good and aside from the bags under his eyes, he looked damn good too. “Nothing, we’re good.” I pulled away and started to walk to the front of the building when he pulled me back, wrapping his strong muscular arms around me. “Okay. You pulled away and you can say you resisted. Now stop playing. You were feeling me at Suite 38 and now you aren’t?” He asking standing there with his hands on my lower back but the different feelings floating inside of me were too much.

“You have a girlfriend. Stay with her. She evidently loves you if she’s going around fightingover you.”

He let out the biggest sigh ever. “Look that bitch is crazy. I tried telling her we were through, but she wasn’t hearing me. Like bro said, if you weren’t feeling me, why did you fight her?” I rolled my eyes before replying.

“I didn’t fight her over you. I fought her because she came at me reckless and I don’t do disrespect.” The look on his face was priceless.

“You fight like that all the time then?” He asked.

“Yep. Bitches stay trying me.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. I think you should let me apologize for her.” He grabbed my hand.

“Nah. We’re good. She isn’t going anywhere. I know how niggas like you do it.” Kenyon looked at me like I lost my mind. “I don’t know what kind of niggas you have been fucking with but if I’m done, I’m done.”

I snorted and turned my head to the side. “Different?”

“Yeah, let me show you.” Niggas were so corny, but I figured I could give him a shot and if all else failed, he had money. He pulled me closer and wrapped his arms around my waist. I could have stayed there all night, but I had work to do.

“Then do it. Show me.” I grabbed his hand and wrote my number in permanent marker, like we were in middle school, on it. I saw him give me a once over before he left and I was floating on two clouds past nine that whole night.

“You’re just now getting his number? Bitch, what is up with y’all?” Shauna asked as she sat across from me at Noodles and Company for lunch the following day.

“You know how niggas are. I can’t stand a lying ass nigga. No matter how small the lie is, it’s still a lie.”

She shook her head at me. “I don’t give a fuck what he lied about. He tried to come at you correct too many times after that to clear shit up, but you were being stubborn. He actually didn’t even lie, just like you didn’t ask, he didn’t feel inclined to tell. Just like the fact that you know about ‘ol girl, but didn’t mention it. They have been plotting on her ass for weeks. She was dirty and she needed to be put down. All dogs go to heaven anyway. You don’t have anything to worry about.” I sat there with my mouth wide open. I thought I was doing her a favor by telling her. Instead she surprised me by knowing all about it and being so cruel.

“Do you think they did it?” I looked around the empty restaurant.

“I know Carter didn’t, I kept his ass busy all night long. I milked his ass dry, and if he had any energy after that, he really is Superman.”

I was so lost, “Superman?” Shauna cracked up. “Yeah we were on some other shit. He bought me a cake and it was red, blue and yellow. So I used the icing to make an S on his chest and I licked it off.” 

I held my hand up in protest of more information. “Thank you, food porn.”

She sucked her teeth. “Bitch, bye. While we on the subject when is Kenyon going to knock the cobwebs off your pussy?” I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that I had been thinking the same thing. Kenyon and I had been texting all night and he didn’t mention sex one time. I was impressed and a little disappointed. 

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you might have to be the one to make the first move. Throw it at him and see if he can catch it.” All our lives Shauna had been the bold and adventurous one. She also always came up with the craziest sayings and catch phrases but this one, was golden. I finished my salad and we talked some more about all the guys getting off the bus to come to buy tickets to get some Jordan’s that cost as much as a car payment. Shit didn’t make any sense to me. “Girl, they are some fly ass bums.” Shauna had me cracking up the whole night.

***

Kenyon

I finally saw the news after avoiding TV for the simple fact that Sports Center had been playing with my emotions. I was just checking the score on my phone when I looked up and saw TaNeeka’s face on the screen. I almost fell off my seat from leaning in so close. I turned the volume all the way up when I saw the police lifting weed, guns and a few grams out of the back of her car; calling her a possible drug dealer. There wasn’t a hood bone in her body so I knew Tae had to have been right. I just wasn’t feeling his I-told-you-so attitude. That shit was starting to get on my nerves. I had to admit though. He could smell a rat from a mile away.

***

Ashanti

When I got home, Bri was sitting on the couch looking nervous, shaking her leg and checking her phone every two seconds. I walked past her into the kitchen to pour myself some juice and on my way back to the bedroom, I saw her jittering again. Her skin looked kind of gray and she looked sick. Lexi walked in the door, looking worse than her best friend in some baggy sweat pants and an oversized T-shirt. Lexi put something in Bri’s hand before she ran to the bathroom. Bri walked quickly out the front door and into a silver car, leaving the door wide open. I saw how skinny she was getting and how weird she was acting. I wondered if I was the only one who noticed. When Lexi came back out, I walked in the bathroom and saw a pink box sticking out of the trashcan with mounds of toilet paper on top. I grabbed it and confirmed what I and everybody else already knew. It was a pregnancy test. As bad as I wanted her ass to get busted, I couldn’t do it.

“Here. You know the rules. If Greene would’ve found that she’d be on your ass and I don’t mean that to be funny.” I tossed her the box. She shook her head and started crying.

“Greene already told them.” The rules stated that if you were sixteen or older and found out that you are pregnant, you’d have to move to the center that has a daycare. I heard they were super strict over there and I knew she wouldn’t like it one bit, but I also knew she had fallen out with the one person here that did anything she asked, so she was on shaky ground. I felt bad for her honestly but then again, I didn’t. She was grown now and knew exactly what she was getting herself into.

“What are you going to do?” I didn’t want to know for gossip, but I was curious.

“I don’t know. I don’t feel so good, so goodnight Ashanti,” she dismissed me and turned her back to me.

***

Kenyon

Having lunch with Ashanti was the only thing on my mind, after a long ass week of dealing with Geno’s bruised manhood because his girlfriend broke up with him and Tae’s paranoia issues. I was still in shock about TaNeeka when the thought hit me that maybe Ashanti didn’t trust me because she thought that I killed her. It all made sense. The public meeting places, the no rides rule, how jumpy she was. But then again, she brought up TaNeeka to me, calling her my girlfriend, so maybe she didn’t know. Needing a fresh start, I dismantled my entire crew and paid them all off. Now, I depended on my main two niggas to help me get shit done. I was even busier and didn’t have as much time as I wanted to chill with my girl. Well, she wasn’t my girl yet, but I was working on it. I still didn’t even know where she lived and every time I offered to come pick her up, she told me no. I guess it was some independent, feminist attitude she had but I respected it. When I got done with the rest of the pack, I was going to hand the business over to Tae for a week and spend some much needed quality time with Shorty. I knew Carter would beat me to it though and go on vacation before I did.

***

Ashanti

The first week of April, I was appointed Employee of the Month. The only good thing about that was the free parking spot and having lunch with Kenyon every day. Other than that I was opening and closing, while Carter was out of town on vacation. I turned down the volume in the car to answer the phone for Kenyon. “What are you doing tomorrow? I already talked to Carter and he said you’re not on the schedule, so you can’t play me with the same excuse about working.” He never just said hello, how are you, like normal people. He was so straight forward. “Oh, and before you text her, Shauna already told me herself that y’all didn’t have plans.” I silently cussed her out in my head.

“What are you trying to do?” I asked Kenyon, but I was sure he didn’t hear me. We had been talking for two weeks now and I still could never have his full attention unless it was over lunch and the food still got more attention than me. He was talking to a man in the background, and I assumed he was handling business. “You sound busy. You should call me back when you have time to talk.” With that, I hung up and pulled my car into the driveway. I was not in the mood for anything or anybody, but my bed. After my day at work, all I wanted was one of Ms. B.’s andouille sausage Po’boy’s and a nap. Unfortunately for me, I noticed someone in my parking spot and when I got out to walk up to the door, I saw the badge before I saw the officer himself. Damn!

“Ashanti Woods?” I nodded. “Can I ask you to come down to the station to answer some questions?”

Did I really have a choice? “Can you tell me what I’m being questioned for?” The black officer closed his eyes tight like I was giving him a headache already. My heart was pounding in my chest and I prayed I wasn’t being questioned about anything to do with Kenyon. Yeah, I knew he was heavy into dealing drugs, it’s how he made money, but I hadn’t even been around him long enough to be questioned about shit. The only places we had been together were to the movies and out to eat and I drove myself. I wasn’t into him driving me everywhere just in case I had to or wanted to leave on my own time. “Why am I being questioned? What does this pertain to?” The Hispanic officer rolled his eyes at me, finally tired of not answering my repetitive questions, and pulled a photo from his envelope. I felt my knees going weak as I almost fell down the stairs. I had to go in the house to see for myself but as soon as I opened the door, I saw Brionna on the floor crying and Ms. Greene just standing there looking like she was going to be sick. I felt the same way. Ms. B. came out of her room, with red rimmed eyes and hugged me.

“I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know why she was apologizing to me, but then it hit me. She thought I did it. I had a reason to go now. I had a point to prove. On the way down to the precinct, I was quiet. I wondered if I was being held, and if I was, what the hell they were holding me for.

The room that they had me in was small and made completely of concrete. There was one window and a long mirror on one side. I looked at myself and wondered if somebody was looking back at me other than my beat up reflection. My uniform was stained with shoe cleaner that busted all over the stockroom floor and my hair was all over my head. I looked like one of those drug addicts that detectives, Benson and Stabler stayed bringing in the interrogation room on
Law and Order:  SVU
. I sat down in the hard chair that felt like it was leaning to one side. The table felt unsteady too.