Page 15 of Fever: Love In Scrubs

I sat in the parking lot of Amandela’s apartment complex.

I’d made it up in my mind that she and I needed to have a conversation about Jamari. The fact that she had texted our daughter that bullshit wasn’t sitting well in my spirit. I didn’t play about my child and that went for anybody, including her damn mama.

Getting out of my car, I headed up to her floor and knocked on the door.

A few seconds passed before it opened and there stood a nigga in nothing but a pair of boxers.

I frowned when I realized it was the man my daughter described to me.

Anger flooded my core and I was about to beat his unsuspecting ass.

“Where’s Amandela?” I asked, calmly.

“She sleep. Who are you?”

“Go wake her ass up.”

“Nigga, you don’t call no shots around here, homie.”

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ll wake her up.” I brushed past him and went into the apartment. “Dela! Get your ass out here.”

“I know you didn’t just stroll up in my spot.”

I turned to face him. “Your spot? Last time I checked, my ex-wife lived alone.”

“Ex-wife?” He closed the door, squinting at me. “Oh, you that nigga.”

“Yeah, I’m that nigga.”

“I guess you’re here about your dau?—”

Before he could finish his statement, I sent my fist directly into his mouth. He stumbled backward, hitting the door. Before he could regain his balance, I was on his ass, lighting him up with face and body shots.

“The fuck you walking around this muthafucka naked with my kid here?” I yelled, kneeing him in the stomach. “You think that shit is cool? Fucking pervert.”

He was coughing and trying to block my shots, but it was no use. I was on his ass bad.

“You like exposing yourself to little girls?”

“It wasn’t like that?—”

I gave him an uppercut. “I don’t give a fuck what it was like! You don’t do that shit!”

“Jaxson, stop!” Dela yelled from behind us. “What the hell are you doing! Get off him!”

I spun around to see her standing clutching her barely there robe together.

“I told you it was on sight when I saw this ass.” Turning back to the dude, I kicked him in the stomach. “I’m not a father that’s gonna sit back about my child. I don’t give a fuck what you do with Amandela, but about Jamari, it’s always smoke.”

“You need to get out!” Dela yelled, running over to check on her nigga. “Baby, are you okay?”

He snatched away from her. “Don’t fucking touch me,” he seethed. He struggled to his feet as he glared at me.

“You wanna do something?” I asked. “Say something so I can knock you the fuck out.”

“Just go in the room, Kevin,” Amandela pleaded.

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “Get him the fuck outta here.”

“This is my house?—”

“Now!” I yelled.

She jumped. Grabbing a now bruised and bloody Kevin, she ushered him to the back where her bedroom was. I could hear them arguing for a few minutes before he came back out fully dressed. He didn’t look at me as he headed out the front door, slamming it behind him.

Amandela was now dressed in a pair of shorts that might as well have been panties, and a tank top with no bra. I shook my head at her.

“You do way too fucking much, Jaxson,” Dela complained, lighting a cigarette. “How are you gonna put my man outta my house?”

“Like I just did.” I snatched the cigarette from her and put it out in the ashtray. “Why did you text my daughter that bullshit?”

She scoffed. “ Our daughter has been refusing my calls. No doubt you had something to do with that.”

“Jamari decided on her own that she didn’t want to come back over here or talk to you right now and I support that, especially knowing you got this man talking about this is his spot.”

Dela kissed her teeth. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that. He doesn’t know you for you to just be walking up in here.”

“I bet we’re very acquainted now. Don’t text my child with no bullshit. If she saw him? So she’s a liar?”

“I don’t know what she is. She’s at that age where kids will say any damn thing.”

I clenched my fists at my side. “Amandela… you are this close. This fucking close. There is nothing you can say to justify any of this. Nobody should be walking around half or fully naked in front of a kid. This what you wear when she’s here? Your ass is out.”

“Why are you so worried about my ass?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I don’t even know why I bother with you at this point.

You don’t see a problem with anything you do and that is the problem.

I’m done. I can’t fight with you anymore, Amandela.

You’re selfish and since you don’t give a damn about the well-being of our child, I’ll be contacting my lawyer and filing for full custodial rights with supervised visitation for you. ”

“What!” She shoved me. “You can’t do that!”

“It’s already done, love.”

“Fuck you! You know what this is? You still want to punish me for the divorce. You’ll use anything you can find to get back at me.”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a fuck about you.”

She shook her head. “I see what you’re doing, Jaxson. You wanna turn her against me.”

“You’re doing a good job of that all by yourself. I don’t speak on you in front of Jamari. Unlike you, I talk my shit when she’s not around. Yeah, she hears you dogging me out to your ratchet ass friends.”

She shrugged. “I just speak my truth.”

“Your truth doesn’t amount to shit, just like you.” I walked to the door and opened it. “Our daughter deserves better than you’ve been giving her, Amandela. If you don’t want her around, let me know so we can move forward.”

I walked out of the apartment with her yelling obscenities at my back.

Sometimes I hated this woman. She’d never been the perfect mother, but over the years she became slacker and slacker.

It seemed the older Jamari got, the more Amandela became disconnected to motherhood.

This wasn’t even the first time I had to threaten her with taking full custody.

She’d get her shit together for a little while, then she was right back to her old ways.

I was tired.

If she didn’t want the burden of the child she birthed, she could hand it all to me. I wouldn’t fight her on it. I’d much rather my child be where she was wanted than to ever be where she wasn’t.

My sister’s smile dropped as soon as she opened her front door and saw me.

“Aw hell nah. Why do you look like that?”

“Look like what?” I asked, sliding past her.

“Like somebody licked the red off your lollipop.” She closed the door and turned to me, waiting for an answer.

“Where’s Mari?”

“Upstairs, still in bed. Her uncle had her and Kacie up late last night watching movies. I left their asses up and went to bed. They didn’t even wake up for breakfast. Stop deflecting and come tell me what’s wrong.”

She motioned for me to follow her into the kitchen. There she grabbed two mugs and filled each with coffee before sliding one to me.

“Was it the date?” she asked.

“No. The date was great.”

“Good. We can circle back around to that. Tell me who pissed you off.”

“Who pissed who off?” Johnathan asked, coming into the kitchen. He went straight for my sister and pulled her into a kiss. “What’s up, Jaxson?”

“What’s good, man?”

“Same shit, different day. Now, who pissed you off?”

“Who else?”

Asia kissed her teeth. “Fucking Amandela. What did she do now?”

I took a deep breath and told her everything that had been going on. Of course, she was livid and we had to stop her from leaving the house to go to Amandela’s place. As bad as my sister didn’t play about me, she was ten times worse about our kids.

“You are not going over to that woman’s house,” Johnathan said, picking her up and placing her on the counter. He wedged himself between her legs so she couldn’t move.

Asia glared at him. “You can’t hold me back forever, baby.

” She turned to me. “Jax, I’ve let a lot slide, but this time she went too far.

Her ass is mine when I see her, and I mean that shit.

There are too many child predators out here for her to be so blind to what that nigga was doing.

It happened not once but twice. That’s not a coincidence. ”

“Same shit I said.” I shook my head. “I wish I’d seen her true colors before I went and married her, man. I never thought Dela could be this selfish.”

“When people show you who they are, believe them.”

“I know that now.”

I dropped my head into my hands and took a deep breath. There was silence between us for a moment.

“On a positive note,” she said. “How was your date?”

That made me smile. “It was great.”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Tell us about it. We wanna be nosy. Right, babe?”

Johnathan chuckled. “ You wanna be nosy. I’m just here.”

“Please! You would have asked me about it later so don’t even front like that. Go on, Jaxson.”

I gave them a rundown of my date with Wynter. My sister was smiling like a proud mother hearing about her son’s first date. She asked me a million questions, barely giving me time to answer any of them.

“When are you going out again?” she asked, kicking her feet.

“I’m not sure. Just know that I have the green light for as many dates as I want.”

“I’m so happy for you. You have to bring her by so we can officially meet.”

Johnathan shook his head. “Just say you want to vet her, baby.”

“I don’t! She and I actually went to school together. We were never friends and I wanna change that.”

He smiled. “Look at you trying to be nice.”

“Kids were horrible to her in school, Johnathan. While I wasn’t part of that crowd, I never defended her or tried to befriend her, and I regret that.” She turned to me. “You better not fuck this up.”

I chuckled. “I won’t. I really like her.”

She gave me a goofy smile as she poked my arm. “Jaxson’s got a girlfriend!”

“You are so childish, man. Let me get my kid so we can head home.”

“You might as well chill over here for a bit,” Johnathan said. “I checked on them before I came down and they are still knocked out. Come on out back and have a smoke with me.”

I got up and followed him outside. After the morning I had, a smoke was just what I needed.