Page 39 of Anything Necessary for Her (Crenshaw Kings #9)

I chuckled at Banks rolling her eyes as Carolyn strutted back and forth in front of her and her peers while they did some weird shit on a wooden bar Banks told me was called a barre.

Carolyn wanted to say some shit to a nigga about me watching the practice, but instead of speaking up, she simply kept cutting her eyes my way.

I wouldn’t have even intruded—though I did like being with my girl all fucking day—but Peep swore she danced better when my eyes were on her.

My phone buzzing in my pocket caused me to retrieve it and scan the screen. Seeing the rehabilitation clinic that my mama had been checked into calling me wiped the smile I’d been wearing right off my fucking face.

Pushing the door to step outside into the bright ass, hot sun, I answered the shit, already not in the fucking mood.

“Hello?”

“Is this Mr. Willow Harris?”

“It is. What’s up?” I quizzed impatiently, keeping my eye out on the streets, even though this was a pretty well-to-do area.

“Yes, . . . um, this is Lily with Terra Bay Rehab. Your mother decided that she wanted to leave and?—”

“So! I hope you didn’t allow that shit to go down.”

“We-well, Mr. Harris, this is a voluntary estab—” she sputtered.

“I don’t give a fuck what it is!” I bellowed before pinching the bridge of my nose to relax myself. “How long ago?”

“About five minutes. We called as soon as the incident took place,” the woman replied, voice still shaking.

I hung up without acknowledging her response and climbed into my whip. After shooting off a text to Banks that I had a quick errand to run, I sped out of the lot en route to the center.

About fifteen minutes later, I was pulling onto the street it was located on and spotted my mama pacing back and forth, looking distressed as she jammed her finger into her phone’s screen. Most likely the shit was dead, and she was trying to make the muthafucka turn on like a fucking idiot.

Swooping over and throwing my shit in park, I hopped out. She jumped at my abrupt movements, but when recognition set in, her brows furrowed.

“Get in the fucking car so I can take yo’ ass back.” I yanked my passenger side door open.

“I ain’t going no fucking where! I told you, you can’t make me do a got damn thing!” she screamed and tried to storm off, but I yanked her tiny frame back toward me by her bicep.

When she landed against my chest, I spoke through gritted teeth. “And what the fuck did I tell you, Whitney?”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d called Mama anything.

I stopped calling her mom when I was a teenager, because she didn’t want me to, and the shit didn’t even feel right.

After that, I would just speak whenever I had something to say but never address her by anything specific.

By saying that, calling her Whitney felt just as foreign as Mama would.

“Help! Help!” she screeched out on the quiet and deserted street.

However, it wasn’t deserted because no one lived over here; it was quiet and shit because this was an affluent ass neighborhood. On one side of the street was where the clinic and a few other doctor’s offices were, and across the wide street were residential spaces.

I threw her ass into the passenger seat, shutting the door quickly as I rushed around to the driver’s side.

I scoured the scene as I did so, though, making sure I didn’t see a nosy muthafucka peeking through their expensive ass curtains with a phone pressed to their ear and the police on the other fucking line.

Flooring it, I sped all the way down before dipping into the parking lot of the clinic, while my mama yelled, cursed, and shoved my shoulder roughly enough to make the car swerve a few times. I’d thrown the car in park so sharply that our bodies and the vehicle jerked forward some.

Climbing out in haste, I grabbed my mama from the passenger side and started to pull her toward the entrance. Before I even made it in good, the staff rushed up to help me.

“We got her,” an older lady said as the younger woman grabbed onto my mother. I was able to surmise that the young bitch was the one I’d spoken to over the phone.

“Let her up out this muthafucka again, and I’m gon’ air it out,” I said, and the ladies nodded as security stepped up.

“Aye, I suggest you stand yo’ ass over there and collect ya fucking check.

Don’t get into some shit you not built for.

” I cut my eyes in his direction, causing him to back away in defeat with a curt nod of understanding.

“I hate you!” My mama broke through my stare off with the security guard as the two ladies of staff took her toward the back, worried looks on their pale faces.

“I’ve hated you since you were three years old!

My biggest regret is you! I should’ve aborted you like your father begged me to!

Everyone else hates you, too, you fucking nobody!

” Her voice echoed as she was dragged further down the hall.

“If you weren’t rich, you’d be lonely as fuck! ” was the last thing I could make out.

When the guard and I locked eyes, I cringed at the sympathetic look in his eyes. I immediately turned away from him and exited the building through the glass sliding doors, before hopping into my car.

As I drove, I did my best to tune out my mother’s words, but it was difficult, especially since she was supposedly sober at the fucking moment.

Before, I’d been able to attribute her behaviors to the alcohol, but what was the fucking excuse now?

And shit, maybe I was wasting my fucking time with this rehab shit if she was still gon’ be the same fucking person.

Moments like right now was when I would start to think destructively, causing me to pull over to the curb.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, doing my fucking best to rid my mind of my detrimental ass thoughts.

I couldn’t entomb my troubles into a numbing cocktail of alcohol, weed, pills, and women like in the past, now that I had Banks.

Not only that, but she made me feel like I was above that shit, and doing any of it, even without the females, would make me feel like I’d betrayed her.

Unable to put my hands on the wheel and foot on the gas without ensuring I wouldn’t pull up to a liquor store or worse, I grabbed my phone from the cupholder of my Maybach and dialed her.

“Are you coming back yet? If so, please stop at Starbucks for me. Keep me on the phone so I can order.” She giggled, making the corner of my mouth lift slightly.

“I got you.”

“You don’t have to go if it’s gonna make you that glum,” she somewhat quipped.

“It ain’t that bad, Peep. Plus, if it’s too difficult, I can always have one of them bitches in line help me.”

“Keep playing, Willow,” she shot back as I chuckled as much as I was able to. “Why do you sound like that then?”

“Long day already. We’ll chop it up later. I just wanted to hear ya voice.” I felt my body relax as soon as she had answered and even more so the longer we conversed.

“Aww, that was sweet. Fine and sweet and got a big dick. I hit the jackpot!” she complimented, making a nigga grin like a bitch.

Hearing how she felt versus my mother was always jarring to a nigga. My mama had known me longer, but Banks had seen me through a clearer, more sober lens.

“If a nigga start complimenting you back, I’ll never make it to Starbucks,” I admitted.

I could talk about Banks St. Thomas all day like I majored in her.

“We can’t have that. Plus, I wanna see you. I’ll be done with class by the time you get back here, and I wanna practice something else.”

“Which is?” I put my car back in drive, yielded, then pulled off, moving the call from coming through my phone to my car speakers.

My dick hardened slightly, well before she whispered, “Maybe my gag reflexes. I thought sucking dick was like a chore you just did to shut your nigga up, but I like it.”

I ran a hand down my face, shaking my head and praying Banks never got the urge to put her mouth on another man, because I would murk him, no questions, no tough talk, no threats beforehand either. Just pure, on sight murder.

“I’ll get you any fucking thing you want from Starbucks, Peep.”

She hollered in laughter before the subject swiftly changed, and by the time I was pulling back up to Prolific Pointe, I somehow had forgotten all about my fucking mother.

I stepped on the blunt I’d been smoking outside the warehouse, just as Free pulled up and Gaia stepped out.

She started talking, but Banks texting my phone had my undivided attention.

She could make the least interesting shit intriguing.

At the moment, she was explaining the difference between a hot comb and a flat iron, and for a nigga who rocked a fade, I was beyond enthralled.

She was so smart, confident, and sure of her fucking self, making it feel like a privilege to call her mine.

The fact that she had the fucking gall to be beautiful, sexy, and have some of the wettest pussy I’d ever been in seemed unfair to the female specie.

A nigga could only downgrade from Banks, in every aspect. No upgrades existed.

“You ready?” Free stepped out of his car, frowning at Gaia. “You see me sitting in the car waiting and shit!”

“Nigga, I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Gaia fussed back.

“We gotta go check the fucking traps, dummy!” Free scoffed.

He didn’t care for Gaia for the same reasons Asif didn’t.

Free felt like she acted too entitled to be newer than most of the crew and for no reason.

Gaia was tough, smart, and knew her shit when it came to the game, but she walked around this muthafucka like she was Pablo Escobar at times, and mainly because I had hit.

“Huh? I usually do that with Low.”

“Not no more. I don’t need to be babysitting and monitoring and shit. Free can do that. I got other shit I have to focus on,” I explained, even though I didn’t have to. It would be the last time though.

“I don’t wanna go with him though!”