Page 2 of Ony If It’s You

Chapter Two

K ehlani James

“Are you sure you want them to stay the night, Granny? Si has a project that’s due tomorrow that we were going to work on tonight.”

Jean, my grandmother, spoiled my kids to no end.

I wasn’t surprised though because she spoiled me too, even at my big age.

My grandmother had been taking care of me since I was four.

My mother wasn’t ready to be a mother, so she gave me to my grandma and my father was doing a life sentence for a murder charge.

He called his mother, my granny, every day though so we had as much of a relationship as we could.

“Kehlani just bring the stuff he needs over here. I wouldn’t be telling you they were staying if I wasn’t sure,” she fussed.

“Okay, okay, I’m just asking. You’ll have them while I’m away for Brooke’s wedding, so I don’t want to overdo it.”

“Bye,” she snapped and disconnected the call.

Laughing, I tossed the phone on the bed and got back to folding clothes. I was set to leave for Vegas in two days, so I wanted to make sure that everything was clean and in order before leaving. My OCD wouldn’t let me go anywhere without everything in my house being cleaned.

“Ms. Jean cooking?” my best friend Celeste asked from the doorway with a bag of chips in her hand. She damn near lived with me because she was here every day.

Celeste and I had met in middle school when her family moved to Crescent Pointe.

Her father got a job with the local real estate company that paid more than his previous job in Colorado, so they’d moved here and we had been thick as thieves ever since.

I’d met our other friend Brooke the same year, in the summertime, but for whatever reason she and Celeste stayed at each other’s necks.

Celeste swore Brooke was a hater and was using us.

Brooke swore that Celeste just didn’t want me to have other friends.

I stayed out of their beef and remained neutral.

I could tell that Brooke hadn’t wanted to invite Celeste to her wedding, but she had to appease me.

“She cooks every day, so I doubt that she wouldn’t cook today, plus she wants the twins to stay the night, so she is for sure going to make their favorites.”

“Hell yes!” She fist pumped. “Jocey loves chicken, so I know those lemon pepper wings is on the menu.”

Jocey also known as Jocelyn was my six-year-old daughter and her twin brother was Messiah who we all called Si.

I’d had them when I was twenty and they were my world.

Their father Pharaoh and I had met in high school.

He was a few years older than me, so by the time I’d made it there he was already a junior, but that hadn’t stopped him from snatching me off the market as soon as he saw me.

He claimed to know that I was wifey material from just seeing me.

Because Pharaoh was so suave with his words and because I was so na?ve, he was easily able to sweep me off my feet and have me ridiculously in love with him.

He was the guy that all the girls wanted in school and I was ecstatic to be the lucky one to have him.

If I knew then what I knew now, I would have left his trifling ass right where he stood.

Pharaoh manipulated my young mind into thinking that he loved me and only me, no matter how many other females popped out of the woodwork.

He beat it in my head that none of them mattered; only me.

Stupidly, I’d listened to him and allowed him to do what he wanted believing that “as long as he came home to me” I was good.

It wasn’t until I had my twins that I told myself I had to walk away from him.

I wanted to give my kids a two-parent household so badly, something that I hadn’t had, but quickly ditched that idea when he got worse with the disrespect.

Having kids with Pharaoh hadn’t done anything but made him think that I really belonged to him.

“Hello! Earth to Lani!” Celeste was waving her hand in front of my face trying to get my attention.

“Ugh, move.” I knocked her hand down. “What were you saying?”

“I was asking if I needed to put anything else in their suitcases.”

“No, Granny has stuff there too. I just sent some stuff in case they go out somewhere.”

It wasn’t really necessary for me to send anything to my grandmother’s for them because she shopped for them just as much as I did, but I didn’t want to send them with nothing.

“Okay, well, I have all of their stuff together then. You need help with any of your stuff?”

I shook my head. “I got everything packed up too. Can you put these in Jocey’s room?” I handed her a stack of clothes just as I saw my phone was ringing. I rolled my eyes at the sight of my baby daddy’s name on the screen. I waited until Celeste was out of the room before I answered.

“Yes, Pharaoh?”

“What color panties you got on?”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. I should have gone with my first mind and not answered the phone.

“What do you want, nigga?”

“I just asked you a question.”

“Bye, Pharaoh.”

“Aight, my bad.” He laughed and tried to stop me from hanging up. “I was just checking in. Y’all good?”

“Messiah and Jocelyn are fine. I ordered all of their summer stuff yesterday when you sent me the money, you should have gotten the pictures of everything that I got them. They’ll be with my grandmother this weekend, you’re more than welcome to get them if you would like.

I’ll let her know for you if you decide to. ”

Any time Pharaoh called me I gave him a complete run down of our kids.

That was all he needed to ask me about and all of the explanation that I needed to give him.

He liked to use the fact that I was his baby mother along with the fact that he paid my bills as a reason to keep up with me, but I quickly nipped that in the bud.

This wasn’t that and I had no problem letting him know that.

“Yeah, I saw everything. Thank you for taking care of our kids. I really owe you for that shit. You keep them just as fresh as us.”

“You don’t have to thank me for taking care of our kids, Pharaoh. You know I would never have them out looking any kind of way.”

“I know, but you always go above and beyond for them. You even get Farrah’s shit because we know her fucking mother isn’t going to do it.”

Farrah was his seven-year-old daughter and ultimately the reason that I’d left Pharaoh for good.

He’d hidden a whole daughter for an entire year before I found out about her.

I was crushed when Khia, his other baby mama, walked into my baby shower with their one-year-old child propped on her hip claiming that she deserved to be a part of the festivities.

I ended up going into labor early, resulting in my twins having to spend the first month of their life in the NICU.

I promised Pharaoh that I wouldn’t forgive him if our kids didn’t make it.

Luckily for him, they had, but I still left.

I wasn’t staying with him knowing that he had a whole child that he’d essentially kept a secret for over a year.

Once I was over Pharaoh and all of the stuff that he had done to me, I started to meet with Khia so that the kids could spend time together, but that was cut short when I damn near had to kill her ass for snatching Si up by his arm.

I knew that she wasn’t genuine in wanting our kids to know each other, but I did it for the sake of them.

Now, Farrah could come over my house, but my kids were never going to be around Khia again, supervised or not.

Also, I did shop for Farrah when he asked me to, with his money of course because Khia would for sure spend the money on herself.

“That’s your karma for being an ain’t shit nigga.”

“I’m knowing. You need bread for Vegas?

“No, Pharaoh. I’m good.” I rolled my eyes because I hated when he tried to do stuff for me.

I’d allowed him to get me a place to stay because I had his children and that was the least that he could do, but I didn’t allow him to spend money on me. His crazy ass was possessive enough.

“Why won’t you let me take care of you, Kehlani? A nigga knows he fucked up, but I learned my lesson. I love y’all and I want my family back.”

“You learned your lesson, huh?” I angled my head to the side waiting for him to respond.

“I swear I have, baby.”

“Interesting.” I snickered. “If you learned your lesson, you wouldn’t have a baby on the way by Jade.”

“Kehlani—”

“Text me if you want the twins.” I cut him off and disconnected the call.

“Ugh I didn’t think you’d ever hang up on his goofy ass,” Celeste said as she entered my room and flopped down on my bed.

Celeste and my grandmother hated Pharaoh.

They always had. There was never a time that they missed telling either of us that they didn’t care for him.

The both of them tolerated him because of the kids, but that was as far as it went.

He didn’t care for them either though, but him and Brooke were cool.

It had been that way since school. He often told me that she was my only real friend since she supported our relationship, but I knew better.

She and Celeste were both my real friends.

“I know, friend.” I laughed.

“I can’t wait for you to get a new man on his ass,” she fussed. “He’s going to be sick seeing another nigga treating you how you should be treated.”

Laughing at her rant, I walked over and started to put my clothes away.

I had been single and celibate since I’d left my kids’ father.

I didn’t have time for men at all . The twins were involved in so many extracurricular activities and I was always busy with Rejuvenated, the beauty bar that I had recently opened.

I didn’t have any time to spare. I really didn’t have the time to take off for Vegas, but I couldn’t miss my friend’s wedding.

“Well, that won’t be anytime soon,” I said. “You know I have tunnel vision right now. If it wasn’t for Brooke getting married, I wouldn’t be going to Vegas.”

“I know and as much as I hate to say it, I’m glad the bitch is getting married so we can get your ass to do something other than work and be a mom.”

“Am I not supposed to be responsible, Celeste?”

“Yeah, but you’re supposed to get dicked down in between too.”

Sharing a laugh, I waved her off and went into my closet to grab my Yeezy slides and purse. It was time for me to get my little humans and go to my grandmother’s.

“Come on hoe, I have to get the kids.” I pulled her off of my bed and the two of us headed out, turning all of the lights out on the way.

Her shoes and purse were by the door, so she grabbed them and the kids’ suitcases before we exited and I locked up.

“I’m going to start charging you rent to stay here. ”

“Uhm, yep, I’ll start to pay rent when you do.”

“Oop, touché, bitch.” Lightly shoving her, I laughed before getting into the car after putting the kids’ things in the back.

I was in my feelings a little thinking about the amount of time that I was going to be away from my babies.

The only time we weren’t together was when they were at school, at my grandmother’s, or with their father and his people.

It was super important to me to raise my own kids.

It had a lot to do with my mother abandoning me because she felt that she wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t ready either, but as soon as I saw those two lines on that pregnancy test, I got ready.

They didn’t ask to be here, so I was going to forever go hard for them and make sure they felt all of the love I had for them.