Page 28 of Anything Necessary for Her (Crenshaw Kings #9)

“And I don’t. There is literally nothing to talk about.”

“I didn’t even fuck them bitches,” I admitted, knowing the old Low would have his lip curled at how bitch-made I sounded and over a woman.

“Sucks for you. You blew up what we had and didn’t even benefit from it. How dumb.”

I chuckled mirthlessly, trying to extinguish the irritation building from all her smart ass comebacks and insults.

“Banks, come open this fucking door ’fore I knock ya shit off the hinges.” I kept my voice cool and collected, but I was dead fucking serious.

“I wish you would!” she barked back.

Saying nothing else, I kicked the shit out of her door roughly and consecutively, ignoring her hollering, threatening, and chiding me to get me to stop. Teeth sinking into my bottom lip, I kicked that shit harder and harder, breaking its resolve with every hit.

When it sounded like the door was close to snapping, it flew open.

“Keep playing with me.” I barged in just before hearing heavy, quick patterned footsteps, making me whip around to see her burly detail rushing up. “She good, nigga. Don’t get clipped.” I slammed the door in his face.

“Get out!” Banks snapped.

“No. We ’bout to talk, and I suggest you tell old boy outside to relax, or it’s ’bout to be a shootout, and yo’ people gon’ know what’s up.” I descended onto her couch after grabbing a water bottle from her counter.

She watched me in bewilderment for a beat, then started typing away on her phone. She stared at it, and when it buzzed, signaling a reply, she stormed over to me and slammed her phone down on the coffee table.

She was in one of those short ass nighties, only this one was a darker pink than one she’d worn before. Her hair was still down, and she smelled so fucking good.

“What do you want, Low?” she queried, sounding exhausted.

“You.”

Shaking her head, she looked away briefly then focused back on me, eyes softer than they were when I approached her at Waverley’s dance class.

“I’m not that girl.” Her head shook definitively, green and honey eyes still locked on mine.

“I don’t let men play games with me and fuck me over, then think because they’re apologetic, all is forgiven.

I don’t want to train you or teach you. It’s one thing to be ignorant to relationships and willing to learn, but it’s a whole nother to intentionally hurt me.

“I may be only twenty-two, but I’m still grown as hell.

Not to mention I come from a family of men who have shown me how a real man conducts himself and acts for a woman he wants seriously.

Even the formerly shittiest niggas like my brother Cemone or Khari.

Because of that, no man can convince me that I need to struggle and go through fire with him to get my happily ever after.

Being a faithful, good man is not some impossible fairy tale you niggas try to make women believe it is so that you can force them to accept your less than stellar behavior or lack of finances.

So if that’s what you’re looking for, a woman who will ride for you through your bad behaviors and mistreatment, leave me alone. ”

“It’s not.” I shook my head. “I had a bad night, Peep.”

She scoffed and glanced off before looking over at me again. “You say all this cryptic shit, Willow, but unless I know exactly what you’re dealing with, it all sounds like nonsense and excuses to me.

“Look, I don’t want to pressure you to do anything you don’t feel compelled to do on your own, Low.

And I won’t accept these antics from you simply because you’re going through shit.

You either get your shit together and talk to me, or we need to go our separate ways.

Also, getting your shit together doesn’t mean continue to fuck up while I sit by and smile.

It means clean the shit up before you come to me. ”

I nodded obediently, turned on, impressed, and in awe at the same fucking time. I was also nervous as fuck.

“I don’t really talk about home shit with anybody, so this is new for me, Peep.” I stared down at my hands, fidgeting for a beat. “Most people know I take care of my family and am somewhat a parental figure for my siblings, but nothing really extra.”

“Right.” She scooted closer to me, and when her soft lips graced the scar on my cheek from the night I hit my mother, my lids shut unintentionally.

Like clockwork, my skin spiked all over from her touch.

“Tell me.” She took my hand in her small ones when I reopened eyes, turning away some out of shame since they were misted over.

“Ever since I was like nine and a half, ten, my mama has been an alcoholic—a bad one. From the time she brought Wyatt home and then some years later Waverley, I’ve been more of a parent to them than her.

When I was younger, she was abusive, verbally and physically, but I got used to the shit.

She slowed up when I got older, and even more so when I started paying all the bills so she could stop pretending to want a job and drink all day like she preferred.

” I exhaled. “She started getting back comfortable, though, so here and there, she will hit me. Back then, she used her fists and sometimes a belt. Now it’s heavy ass objects which is, I guess, due to my size. ”

“Is that what happened to your face last time and this time?” She gently brushed her finger along the scar that I now knew was permanent as I nodded.

Swallowing the lump in my throat as I got ready to tell her the main thing that had been plaguing a nigga since the night it happened, I said, “The night of the club shit, we got into it again because I told her she had to go to rehab. She started bumping her fucking gums about Waverley’s deadbeat ass father coming to check me, and I told her he wouldn’t be checking shit ever again.

” I locked eyes with Banks so she’d catch my drift.

“That set her off, causing her to swing on me. I threatened her, and then she tried to hit me with a lamp. It shattered, and then, this shit happened.” I pointed to the cut.

Licking my lips that felt dry as hell from my anxiety, I said, “I reacted and I . . . backhanded her.”

When I looked at Banks, her expression was indecipherable.

“Oh my gosh,” she stated softly.

“I was fucked up about the shit on top of everything else, and I just . . . stopped giving a fuck for the night. So I went out to bury my demons in liquor, weed, and some groupie bitches for the night.”

“The groupies didn’t pan out, huh?” She simpered, caressing my waves.

“Nah.” I shook my head, rubbing the hand that was still clutched in mine. “I couldn’t do it. I regretted dissing you immediately, and my shit wouldn’t react.”

Banks giggled before kissing my face.

“I like him already.” She steered my face toward her, via my chin, and pecked me slowly but deeply as fuck, making my dick harden instantaneously.

I smiled against her mouth, shaking my fucking head internally at how I thought I was gon’ live the rest of my damn life without this and be okay.

“When I say you too good for me, Peep, this is an example of what I mean. I’m the type of nigga to slap my own fucking mother. Even worse, I couldn’t even bring myself to apologize to her ass.”

After thrusting her lips against mine once more, she climbed into my lap, hugging me against her sweet-smelling chest.

“She was wrong, Willow, and has been wrong for a very long time. What you did was wrong, yes, but it was a reaction from long-term abuse.” Palming both sides of my face and making me tilt my head back so our eyes could latch onto one another’s, she said, “You’re the type of man to still take care of your mother, even after the way she’s treated you.

And if you were a terrible person, you wouldn’t feel this guilty about it. ”

“You really think the shit you be saying?” I asked, my voice coming out more like a croak than anything.

“I do.” She bobbed her head once and pressed her forehead to mine, making my eyes close again as I basked in the feeling of her like always.

“I’m not used to talking this heavy shit with a woman, just the homies, and even then, I keep the shit surface level.”

“That’s how it should be, Low-Low. That’s the beauty of being in a relationship, and you’re missing out on the biggest perk.” She beamed with her perfect, beautiful ass. “You can shed that toughness with me, then armor back up before you leave.”

She was truly wise beyond her years.

“I like that,” I professed. “I’m sorry, Peep, for real. That shit was stupid as fuck.”

“It was, but make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“It won’t.” I kissed her, locking my arms around her waist to hold her as tightly as I could without crushing her. “And low-key, I think my dick got bougie on a nigga from being ’round you. That’s why he wouldn’t make no noise for them bitches.”

We chortled in unison before she hugged my neck, fusing her mouth to mine.

After sitting there kissing hungrily, nastily, and slowly enough to have my dick striving to sever through her panties, we got up and headed toward her bedroom upstairs.

While she lit some candles and turned on some music, I took a piss, washed my hands, and brushed my teeth with one of her throwaway toothbrushes, then rinsed with mouthwash.

By the time I stepped out of the bathroom, she was laid across her bed, wearing a closemouthed smile.

Removing my joggers so that I was only in a wife beater, boxers, and socks, I lay down beside her as some bitch crooned softly over the bedroom.

“You know, you’re the only man I’ve ever contemplated having sex with.” She broke the somewhat silence. “But after that night when you left with those girls, I’ve been scared to.”

That admission made my stomach sink, but I barreled on like it was nothing. It wasn’t even that she didn’t wanna fuck me, it was more so her underlying statement which was that she didn’t trust my ass.

“I get it. I’m sorry, baby.”

“I know.” She cuddled up to my side as I rocked my head to the right to look down into her eyes.