Page 2 of Adonis Gates

“Don’t even matter how my clothes look for real. The fee’s still on my body.”

“That may be true, lil’ nigga,” I grabbed the pants and pushed them into his chest. “But you should want to look good for ya self.”

“Aight.” He accepted the pants and headed out of the room toward the bathroom.

“And put on lotion, bro. Them hands dry as hell.”

He closed the door, but I knew he was in there talking shit under his breath. AP was a typical teenaged boy that really thought he knew it all and had shit figured out. I stayed on his ass because I wanted the best for him and always wanted him to live up to his full potential. I learned early in life that mothafucka’s weren’t taking you seriously if you didn’t take your damn self seriously, so I stayed on him about his appearance and shit because that was the first thing that mothafucka’s peeped. Plus, if you looked good, you’d feel good.

After he was done getting ready for school we headed out leaving Zig there with the mothafucka’s that were moving our shit out. I wasn’t taking any of the furniture and shit but we had an ass of clothes and other miscellaneous shit. I was just gon’ leave the rest of the stuff there until I decided what I was gon’ do with the place later.

AP wanted to stop and get food, so we hit a drive-thru, then the spoiled ass nigga asked to go to the gas station for snacks, so we slid through there. I let him go in while I stayed outside and pumped the gas.

Baby bro: You want something?

Me: Gatorade.

Baby bro: Aii

Baby bro: Your girl in here.

I glanced up at the store as if I could see through the shit and see who he was talking about before I texted back.

Me: Who?

Baby bro: Jru’s fine ass.

Just as I read the message, she exited the store with Brock’s bitch ass right on her trail, and a few other niggas behind them. He ain’t ever let her out of his sight for too long, and if she wasn’t working, she was with him.

Jruelle O’Neil was easily the most beautiful woman that I’d ever laid my eyes on. She was about five foot five, golden brown skin, long ass, jet black hair that cascaded down to the center of her back. Her petite frame was stacked in all the right places, but my favorite parts of her were those pretty ass lips and her light brown eyes that had been calling out for me since the day I met her in high school. I still remembered how soft they were the first time we kissed.

I met Jru in homeroom our senior year in high school. She was the new girl that didn’t know anyone, but had everyone’s attention, including mine. Since I was the first person she met and started talking to, we became extremely close. I was sure that I’d loved her ass since the very first day because I could never get the image of her out of my head or the sound of her laughter out of my ears.

I would just sit and listen to her ass talk. I learned a lot of shit about her by doing that. She was adopted, moved to the city for a fresh start, and she planned to attend ACU when she graduated because her parents wanted to be close to her and her sister, Geri, who was already there at the time.

Even though I felt a way about her, and thought she might’ve felt the same, I never acted on the shit. I was too afraid that shemight reject me and it would ruin the friendship that we’d built. The day that I finally got the courage to kiss her, she pulled back and let me know that she was in a relationship, and when she told me who it was, the shit shook me to my core.

She told me that her and Brock decided to see where things go, and that shit broke my heart. Not only because my apprehension got in the way and allowed me to miss out on what could have been something great with her, but my closest nigga, the one that knew without a doubt how I felt about her, moved in and beat me to the punch.

I didn’t even have time to be pissed with the nigga because I lost my mom right after that, and got custody of AP, so I locked in and focused on that. Our friendship changed after that though. I couldn’t really trust Brock like that moving forward, so after two years of trying to keep the business shit up, I fell all the way back. He always blamed it on me being jealous about him bagging Jru, but that wasn’t it. For me it was the principle. If he didn’t get that, I didn’t give a fuck.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the infamous Don G.” Brock grinned, tossing his arm around Jru’s shoulder. “We saw baby bro in the store, so we knew mama stork wasn’t too far behind.”

That was Brock’s MO. He always wanted to get a rise out of me, and he knew mentioning AP was the quickest way to get that. I never paid him any attention because beating Brock’s ass would be no fun. He couldn’t fight to save his life which was why he always kept a group of niggas with him. I wasn’t afraid of him or any of his niggas because theyallknew how I went about shit, but he also knew I was laxed when I had AP with me.

Ignoring him, I focused my attention on Jru who was watching me intensely. She was dressed in a white button up shirt and some black slacks that hugged her curves perfectly.

“What’s up, Jru?”

“Nigga, don’t speak to my bitch.” Brock snapped, roughly pushing Jru behind him causing her to stumble.

I took the few steps required to close the distance between us, getting in his face.

“Only bitch I see out here is you, and if you push her again, I’m gon’ show her and all these niggas you be totin’ around with you just how fuckin’ much of one you are.”

He held my glare before tucking his tail like the hoe ass nigga that he was and retreating. I kept my eyes on Jru the entire time, and she held contact for a while before reluctantly tearing her eyes from me.

“He ain’t gon’ be satisfied until you wreck his ass, bro.” AP said when he exited the store.