Page 43 of All The Smoke

S moke.

The sound of someone damn near beating my door down jarred me from my sleep and had me snatching my gun from under my pillow before stalking to it. Whoever it was didn’t stop the assault on my front door until I snatched the shit open and pushed my gun into their face.

“Really, nigga?!” Bri snapped, bypassing me into my place. “A custody hearing?” She had papers crumpled up in her hands as she went off. “You’re trying to take my fucking son?”

“Naw, I’m not.” I shook my head, pushing my gun into my waist band then shutting the front door.

“Then why the fuck did I just get served with these papers?” She tossed them at me. “I had fucking company at my house. Do you know how fucking embarrassing this was?”

“Shit, just as embarrassing as it was to find out you was showing pussy online for fifty duckets or you be sucking niggas off in the men’s restroom in the club, or shit, I got one better, finding out you were fuckin’ my homeboy in the middle of the club.”

“Oh, get over it, nigga,” she spat. “None of that shit is your fucking business and Scoot was just a casualty of war. Let it the fuck go.”

“I have let it go,” I stated, pushing my hands into the pockets of my ball shorts out of fear that I would choke the life out of her mothafuckin’ ass if not.

“I can’t tell,” she snapped. “You’re that in your feelings that you’ll try and take my mothafuckin’ baby from me and…

” She paused momentarily and looked past me.

I didn’t even have to turn around to know she was looking at Kaori.

I smelled the fruity scent of whatever the fuck she had on before she even got in the room.

“That’s why.” She pointed. “That’s fucking why you’re trying to take my baby.

You want to play family with her mothafuckin’ ass. ”

She lost her fucking mind and began to walk in Kaori’s direction so I grabbed her by her arm and pushed her back.

“Chill the fuck out,” I warned.

“Don’t tell her ass nothing,” Kaori said from the kitchen.

“Bae, go back in the room,” I tossed over my shoulder.

“I wish I would,” she fired back, entering the room and falling down on the couch.

“Baby,” I sighed. “That wasn’t a question.”

Scoffing, she got her spoiled ass up and stomped toward the back of the house and I heard my bedroom slam shortly after. Her little ass was so temperamental and always throwing tantrums when she didn’t get her way, but I would deal with that later.

“She needs to know her place,” Bri spat, folding her arms in front of her.

“She knows her place, yo’ ass the one that don’t know yours, popping up at my crib and letting yourself in and shit.”

“My son is here.”

“ Our son, and that shit don’t matter. This ain’t ya spot. You have no jurisdiction here and you know he good when he with me so, yeah. Furthermore, I can’t get you to push up when it’s time to drop him the fuck off half the time, but you ran ya ass over here today.”

“Damn right I did when you’re being spiteful and?—”

I cut her off. “Brianna, I don’t care enough about you to be spiteful.

As a matter of fact I don’t care about you at all.

I had you served because you lack the fuckin’ competency to coparent.

I’m not about to spend a whole gotdamn day trying to get my son from you because your childish ass is being difficult. ”

She palmed her chest. “I’m the one being difficult? You’re the one that requested we drop off and pick up our son with my parents when you know I don’t fuck with them.”

“And I fuck with mine?” I countered.

“Anyways, you don’t sound like you don’t care. You actually sound like a hurt nigga.”

“Because I am,” I admitted. I wasn’t ashamed to say the entire situation affected me.

“You literally just said you didn’t care about me, but you’re hurt?”

“Yeah because I love Elijah, stupid.” I shook my head.

“Nigga, my fucking brother and you wiggled your conniving ass way into his head and did that dirty shit. Now you expect me to look past the shit like it wasn’t nothing.

Naw, not happening. We going to court to get set days to have Solo and have a middleman do the drop off and pick up. ”

“Fine, we can do set days, but do we really need a middleman, Smoke? Be serious.”

“I’m deadass serious, Bri.” I chuckled. “I know your motive in everything you do is to have some kind of reaction or access to me, so I’m cutting that off. It’s gon’ kill you to not be able to see and speak to me, but you did it to yourself.”

“But I?—”

I cut her off. “Go ahead and bounce. We ain’t got shit else to talk about. Solo with me ’til Monday and you gon’ get him from school.”

I had already ushered her toward the door and opened the shit.

Once she stepped past that threshold, I slammed the shit in her face and locked up, not giving a fuck what she was saying.

I was done talking to and dealing with her ass.

She hit me where it hurt no doubt, so I was going to do the same to her.

Journeying to the kitchen, I grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge before going to the back where I found Kaori in the mirror pinning her hair up.

“Where you going?”

“Shower then home.”

My brows dipped. “Why?”

“Because I want to go home.”

“Kaori.” I sighed.

“I don’t like her ass and I don’t like her popping up over here like that.” She frowned at me in the mirror. “It’s inappropriate. Does she do that when I’m not here?”

“Hell naw.” I frowned.

“Okay.”

“Babe…”

“I believe you. I’m going to my grandma’s.”

“You know…” I reached for her hand and pulled her toward me between my legs.

My hands immediately went to her protruding belly.

Silas was very active her entire pregnancy, but the later she got in that shit, the less and less he moved around because he didn’t have the room.

Still, my boy always greeted Daddy when I touched his mother.

“He never sleeps when he hears your voice.”

“Ready to meet his pops.” I smiled. “I’m ready for him too, though. Shit taking forever.”

“You better enjoy this last month of freedom because in six weeks we won’t even know what sleep is.”

“I be up anyway, so it’s straight, but don’t get off topic. You know what I was about to say, Kaori.”

“Can I take Solo with me this morning? Granny wants to see him.” she asked, deflecting because she knew I was going to bring up us moving in together again.

It had been an ongoing conversation, but she always told me she wasn’t ready.

She claimed her ex started to move differently when they made that decision, so she didn’t want that happening with us.

Shit pissed me off because I was nothing like that nigga, but I let her make it because I knew that was her only relationship before me.

“You know you don’t have to ask.” I sighed. “I gotta go vote today anyways.”

Today was election day for my pops and they had been bugging the fuck out of me because he was going to be at my poll location.

“Okay, and be nice when you go, babe. You don’t have to be around them long.”

Both of my parents had been calling and texting me like a mothafucka since I left their crib that day, trying to settle shit and rectify things, but I wasn’t going for it. My mom had even gone as far as trying to make friends with Kaori, but that shit still didn’t work.

“I’ll be nice if you gon’ move in with me.”

“Your place is not big enough for me, you, and Solo, so we definitely can’t add a baby to the mix.”

“Then we can move into your spot.”

“I don’t want to raise a family in a condo either.”

“Then we need to find a house ASAP.”

“That’s a very long process.”

“Kaori.”

“Babe.” She smiled, taking my face into both of her hands. “I want to live with you, I really do, so I hope that’s not the reason for the rush or concern. Let’s get through at least the baby shower this weekend and Thanksgiving next week, then we can revisit this conversation.”

“We gon’ get even more shit at the baby shower that we not gon’ have the space for, but fine, I’ll chill for now, but right after all that,” I said, giving her ass her way like I always did.

“Right after that we can find a place.” She smiled. “Scout’s honor.”

I had no doubt in my mind she wanted to be with me, I just didn’t want to live apart from her no more. The shit didn’t make sense. Her mama owned her spot but was still making her pay rent, and I paid rent at my spot, but we were always together so it made no sense to pay for two spots.

I allowed her to finish getting dressed while I showered and did the same.

I made a mental note to plan some shit to celebrate her graduation from dentistry school.

Her ceremony was literally two weeks before she had Silas, so we would be pushing it, but we had to do something .

Becoming a dentist was some huge shit. It couldn’t go uncelebrated; we just were going to have to do some shit close to home just in case she went into labor.

When the three of us were ready, I walked her and Solo to her whip then climbed into my own, heading to the nearby library to cast my vote. There were cameras and reporters all over the place when I got out there.

Perfect.

After parking, I stepped out of my car and headed inside, making sure to bypass everyone trying to stop me.

I ain’t sign up to fuckin’ interview and I was on a mission.

Plus, I wanted to save all the questions and shit for later.

I made small talk with some of the people in line that recognized me.

All of them were so thrilled to be voting for my crooked ass pops.

It annoyed the fuck out of me, but I couldn’t blame them.

His ass had the gift of gab if he didn’t have shit else.

Once I cast my vote, I headed out, grabbing the big ass ‘I voted’ sticker and some of the mints in the bowl. Right as I exited the building, my parents were there talking with local reporters. Like I knew they would, they stopped me and started asking hella questions.