Page 21 of Anything Necessary for Her (Crenshaw Kings #9)

COUPLE DAYS LATER . . .

Checking my watch, I hurried through the front door of my spot yelling, “Waverley, come?—”

The rest of my sentence faltered as my eyes landed on my mama seeming to struggle to get Waverley’s father, Jonas, to relinquish her wrists from his hold.

His mouth was balled as he towered over her in the kitchen, saying something through gritted teeth that I didn’t need to hear in order to be ready to knock him the fuck out.

“Jonas, stop,” she spoke sternly but not sternly enough to intimidate the nigga.

Jonas was an addict, just like my fucking mama, but his vice was crack.

He’d been one of my mother’s boyfriends she dated here and there before she found herself pregnant.

Like Wyatt’s and my father before him, Jonas left my moms to deal with having a new baby, which in turn left me to take on the father role in my baby sister’s life.

Over the past nine years, he’d attempted to dip in and out my mama’s life, and I explained to her ass that the nigga couldn’t step foot in my muthafuckin’ house. She’d respected and abided by that rule I’d set in place until now.

Darting into the kitchen, I popped his ass in the nose, making him fly back and therefore have no choice but to release my mother.

“Bitch ass nigga,” I grumbled.

“Willow!” She bellowed in agony as Jonas rushed me.

Like I already knew, he was no match for a nigga, so I proceeded to whup his ass, ignoring the few ounces of blood spewing all over the kitchen every time I hit his ass.

I was irate that not only had he been manhandling my mama but was doing it in my muthafuckin’ house like he was the man in this shit.

“Argh!” He hit the ground with a thud, and just before I got ready to stomp his ass out, I was hit across the face with a dense ass object, making me stumble from the impact.

Cupping the right side of my face, I peered out of my uninjured eye to see my mama holding Waverley’s spelling bee trophy as her chest heaved rapidly.

She charged me with it to ram it into my forehead, making me knock the shit from her hand and wrap my own around her frail, easily snap-able fucking neck.

“Low!” Waverley’s shrill and tiny voice blared over the kitchen as her father continued to whimper and groan while my mama clawed at my hands to give her some reprieve.

It took me a moment to snap out of the infuriating ass trance I was in before I dropped my mama, making her fly on top of Jonas’s body while taking in several lungfuls of air.

“Let’s go, Waverley.” I waved her on, knowing I needed to get the fuck out of there before I took that shit off my hip and ended both of her parents’ lives.

“Low—”

“Let’s go!” I roared, trying to tune out my mama cooing and consoling Jonas like he wasn’t just about to beat her ass or worse before I intervened.

I’d vowed right then that today would be Jonas’s last muthafuckin’ day on this earth. He did my mama no good, and when she dated him, I constantly had moments of disquietude that she’d fall into his habit as well. She had an addictive personality, so it wasn’t far-fetched.

As for Waverley, she had no attachment to him, which was obvious by her lack of reaction to the nigga groaning and moaning on the ground with a bloodied mug.

Waverley didn’t argue as she grabbed her pink duffel bag she always took to dance class and trailed me out.

For the first few minutes of the drive, no words were spoken between us, but I could feel her glancing at me every now and again.

“Are you okay?” Her small voice sliced through the silence.

“Yeah.” I gave a curt nod before finally looking her way at the red light. “It’s just some shit you too young to understand right now, but I apologize for putting my hands on Ma. Aight?”

“Okay.” She gave a closemouthed smile that still had a bit of fear and uncertainty lingering in the back of it, and it made my fucking stomach hurt.

Pulling into the lot of the smaller venue connected to Prolific Pointe Ballet School, I shut the engine down and went to help Waverley out of the car.

As soon as she stepped out, I hugged her close to me, apologizing again and adding, “Keep what you saw between us, aight?”

“I will.” She nodded, her face brushing up against my stomach as she did it. “You’re gonna stay, right?”

I looked around, not in the mood but knowing I promised her. “Yeah, I am. I may have to step out here and there, but I’m gon’ be around. You won’t even have to wait for me when class is over.”

“Okay!” She lit up genuinely this time before turning around and hurrying off.

She wasn’t inside for two minutes before pretty ass Banks emerged. I smiled at her, wanting to keep up the veneer that I was straight, but when her face fell, I knew she could tell somehow.

“Who teaching if you out here?” I questioned, hoping to steer the conversation away from my inner turmoil.

“It’s Synthia’s day. What happened?” She moved right on to what she really wanted to know.

When her soft fingers brushed the cut under my eye and pulled away slightly damp with my blood, I scoffed.

“Forgot to fix my shit up.” I shook my head.

“What happened, Willow?” Her brows bunched as she folded her arms across the tight dance top she wore that accentuated her perky breasts.

Licking my lips, I said, “Nothing.”

Our eye contact lingered for a beat before she said, “Take me to my house so I can fix you up.”

She didn’t allow me a moment to debate her ass at all.

“I told baby girl I would stay so?—”

“We’re coming right back, and I don’t live far. Let’s go.” She stood beside the passenger seat of my whip with her bossy ass.

“Aight, lil Sif,” I jested, but she didn’t crack a smile as she examined my face with her eyes.

We hopped in, and I drove straight to her house. Though it was quiet, it wasn’t awkward.

Pulling up into her driveway, I parked then helped her from the car before she led me into her crib and to the bottom big ass guest bathroom.

Directing me to sit on the toilet, she gathered her first aid kit, then came to stand between my legs. Her sweet scent danced up my nose, hypnotizing a nigga a little bit as I fought the urge to put my hands on her hips or, shit, touch her anywhere on her body.

“You know you can talk to me about stuff. I know all there is to know about what you do,” she started the conversation.

“I’m sure of that, Peep, but it ain’t what you think.”

“Then what is it?” She paused, piercing my eyes with her beautiful ass ones.

Her long hair was in a low ponytail that swept the area just above her nice ass, and I realized that was why she had a nigga feeling like he was under a spell right now. Typically, Banks wore her hair down, framing her face, but this hairstyle had her beauty on full display, and it was striking.

She was too beautiful, like she belonged in a painting or some shit. She looked a lot like her mama with hints of her pops, especially the eyes and nose, but it was making sense to me right in this moment why that nigga Prime didn’t give a fuck that Lisara had six kids.

“I don’t wanna talk about that. I can’t. Not right now,” I responded honestly, hoping she didn’t push me, because it would only piss me off and wouldn’t get her the results she was hoping for.

“Well . . .” She got down onto her knees to look up into my eyes. “Whenever you change your mind, let me know.” She peeled off the tiny Band-Aid and placed it over the sizzling cut she’d already dabbed with alcohol. “I know you have friends, but they don’t know everything.”

Smirking, I asked, “How you know?”

“I have seven brothers. You guys all act tough around one another, but that is how it goes. You’re supposed to be vulnerable with your woman. There are things my sisters-in-law know about my brothers that my brothers will never know about each other.”

“You my woman?”

“No. I’m not, but I’m a woman, and I know you’d feel more comfortable talking about your feelings with me than Free. Am I right?”

“Eh,” I joked, making her suck her teeth before I continued. “Nah, you right.”

“Thought so.” She grinned and placed her hands on my knees as she peered up at me.

“Thank you, Peep.” I leaned down only slightly to graze her soft cheek with my lips, but as I pulled away, she kissed me on the mouth. As her hand landed on my cheek, I gripped her wrist gently and rose up from the closed toilet top.

“What’s wrong?” She frowned, still on her knees.

“I can’t with the . . . the . . . this.” I gestured between us, making her frown deepen. “I got enough shit going on and can’t add fucking around with you behind Asif’s back to it, Banks.”

Shooting to her feet angrily, she spat, “I am a grown ass woman, and it shouldn’t matter what the fuck Asif or any of my brothers want! This is between us!”

Pacing slightly, I stressed. “It ain’t about doing what the fuck ya brothers want. It’s about loyalty, baby.”

“So are you planning to be more loyal to me or them?” She cocked her head, making her long, thick ponytail swing.

“You know damn fucking well what I mean!” I snapped.

“I told you I ain’t never had anybody give a fuck about me and damn near save my fucking life and didn’t want shit in return but loyalty until I met Sif!

The only thing he ever asked me for was to keep shit real with him and to make something of my fucking self and my people!

So nah, I’m not about to be sneaking behind his back fucking with you or on you!

I gotta be up front and tell him what it is with us, or I gotta keep the shit platonic!

” I calmed down, exhaling heavily when I noticed she had replaced her livid expression with a remorseful one.

“Peep, I can’t betray the one muthafucka that gave a fuck about me.

Put me on. Taught me shit. Got on my ass when I was veering out of the right lane. ”