Page 7 of Anything Necessary for Her (Crenshaw Kings #9)

I’d never known love, and the closest thing a nigga had to it was the friendship I had with Asif and Free. My main focus was getting to the money and caring for my family. A woman like Banks would want a nigga like her father or some shit, and I couldn’t be further from that.

Lastly, I had too much respect for Banks herself and Asif to mess with her knowing how shit would go.

As far as her other brothers, no disrespect, but I didn’t give a fuck about how they felt or what they wanted.

I respected them out of my respect for Asif, but that was about it.

If I wanted Banks, I wouldn’t give a fuck about how any of them niggas felt about it.

Asif was the only one I would feel like I was betraying over that shit, and that was something I couldn’t and wouldn’t do.

Especially when all I would do was hurt Banks, turning her cold for the nigga who would actually do right by her.

Wasn’t that how shit went? All the scorned women were just former good girls who gave their hearts to the wrong nigga and therefore struggled to accept true love from the right one.

I only knew because I’d been the wrong nigga before, and though it should’ve made a nigga feel fucked up to see a woman bawling over me, I couldn’t make myself care, no matter how hard I fucking tried.

Banks was too precious to become that, especially behind me. So betraying Asif and breaking his sister down just wasn’t the fucking move.

Walking into my crib, I expected the house to be asleep but found my younger brother Wyatt on the couch.

“Where is Ma? Waverley?” I queried, referring to our mother and baby sister.

“Both back there knocked out.” He huffed, leaning forward and pressing his forearms into his knees.

“Why you still up? You got school tomorrow, nigga.” I locked the door.

“Nah, I don’t. Them stupid muthafuckas suspended me.” Wyatt shook his head, acting like he was a grown ass man instead of sixteen years old.

“For what?” I barked. His jaw twitched as he thought about it, like he was deciding on if he wanted to tell me that shit or not. “I said for what, nigga!” I popped the back of his fucking head.

“Aight! Some nigga was talking shit, so I beat his ass and picked his fucking pockets!”

Plopping down on the couch, I shook my head, exasperated.

Lately, Wyatt had become problematic as fuck.

He thought he was grown and wanted to be like what he thought drug dealers were.

All he saw were the knots of cash, big houses, nice cars, and street infamy.

He didn’t understand the dread behind that shit.

The life sentences either to a prison or to a fucking cemetery.

“How long?” I asked, refusing to look his way just yet.

“Two days and you gotta sign some paper. Ma be too out of it and think everything is a scam, so she won’t sign it.” He handed off the paper to which I snatched.

Studying it, I shook my head again before grabbing the pen off the coffee table and scribbling my signature. My mama had been an alcoholic for so fucking long that my siblings’ schools conducted business with me as their guardian.

“Here. I gotta find some shit for you to do while you home.” I stood.

Wyatt ascended as well, frowning all hard, so I knew he was about to say some fly shit.

“Why can’t I come work for you? This school shit ain’t for me like it wasn’t for you!”

“No. I do what I do so you won’t fucking have to. I didn’t get in this shit for fun, nigga.”

“Man, fuck you!” He waved me off and tried to step off, but I grabbed his ass up by his pajama shirt, slamming him into the wall.

“Fuck you say?”

Wyatt stared into my eyes, mouth balled up and nostrils flaring before relenting, saying, “Nothing.”

“Thought so, lil nigga. You think you grown, but you not. Keep running ya fucking mouth, and I’ll give you a grown man ass whupping.” I dropped him.

Fixing his collar, he said nothing as he stomped toward the back where his room was.

Needing a release, I went to my own bedroom, the master, and showered in the en suite. After, I rolled up and sparked the shit to inhale as “Double Up” by Nipsey Hussle flowed gently through my room so that I wouldn’t wake the house.

I oscillated between sipping the Don Julio from Asif, to taking tokes on the blunt until my system relaxed. I would never know true tranquility.

As much money as I had, I couldn’t even live alone because my fucking mama was incompetent and had been since a nigga was around ten years old. Therefore, I had to assume the parental role for my brother and sister.

I had rare and spotty memories of the days when my mama was sober, but for the most part, she’d always been unavailable, unpredictable, and lacking any maternal instincts since I was a boy.

I’d been in the streets since I was in elementary, finding ways to make bread and feed myself.

Some of those times while she was out with a new nigga, getting knocked up, hence the two additional children.

Though if you asked her, Wyatt and I shared a father, which I didn’t fucking believe.

I’d caught my first body when I was twelve, so by the time I met Asif, I thought I was that nigga. My life had me thinking I knew every fucking thing until he showed me I didn’t know shit. All I knew was the quickest way to end up dead or in somebody’s prison.

My phone rang, and when I looked to see it was Gaia, I sent her ass to voicemail and put my shit on silent.

As I lay back, listening to Dom Kennedy run his verse, I prayed a nigga would be able to sleep tonight because it was the only time I got some semblance of peace.

When Banks’s face appeared behind my shut lids, I allowed it. Though alarmed by this, I still welcomed the calm just her perfect ass face brought a nigga for some reason.