Page 73 of The Mob: Shio Cuppacio

“You know what it is. You can barely get through the braid without tangling it,” Tunan chided.

Sucking his teeth, Tulen came to the right of me and gently grabbed the braid that I had been working on. I was still in disbelief that Tunan was taking my hair down, so I didn’t even have the words for his little brother joining in.

“Yeah, Tulen… I need to see if your skills done got up to par. You used to slaw me all the way out.”

“Mane! Y’all so fuckin’ cap. Ain’t it, sis-in-law?”

“Yeah, brother… they lying on you,” Kassie answered with amusement in her tone.

“Who lyin’ on who?” Tuden had joined the party, tossing his twist out of his face. He was proof that Tunan would still be handsome if he decided to grow his hair out.

“This nigga actin’ like I ain’t the best at this braid take down shit,” Tulen stated with his chest puffed out.

Sucking his teeth just as his brother had just done, Tuden took a spot beside Tulen and grabbed a braid. “Ain’t no fuckin’ actin’. He tellin’ the truth. You be gettin’ hair tangled up and shit.”

I now had five people in my head, four of them being Payne siblings. They were all clowning each other as if taking my hair down was a normal family activity.

“See, Den… you fuckin’ up and talkin’ ’bout me,” Tulen pointed out when Tuden struggled to unravel the weave from my real hair.

“Mane, get the fuck outta my section. I’m doin’ this new technique I came up with. Watch I finish more than you niggas.”

“Aye! Don’t be fussin’ and shit over my wife’s head.”

Cutting my eyes at Tunan, his teeth were on display while the braid in his hands became undone.

“Wife? Ion see no ring on her finger,” Tulen asserted.

Tunan and I held each other’s gazes, with me shooting daggers at his ass, and him grinning like he was funny.

“Not yet.” He winked at me, not breaking the stare off we were having. “But not never. Then again… you unpredictable as a muthafucka, so let me not even put shit past you.”

“Y’all gone pull her fuckin’ hair out!” Tulscan yelled as he and Baguette shared a blunt a good distance away from the babies while keeping their eyes on them.

I didn’t know what else to do with my hands since I had a headful, so unlocked my screen to check my social media accounts. The ladies had texted me back, but I wasn’t opening my texts with all these people being able to see my phone over my shoulders.

“Boy, please! Come help or shut dat shit up,” Tulen yelled back.

“Y’all got it.” Tulscan blew out a wad of smoke.

“Glow.” Tunan’s voice always went past my ears and straight to my panties. I couldn’t squeeze my thighs together, so I aggressively liked a video that I wasn’t sure if I liked since I hadn’t watched it yet. Getting closer to my face, he asked, “Is it hurtin’?”

Those three words shouldn’t have made my kitty thump, especially since he wasn’t meaning them in the context that my brain processed them. Trying to shake the arousal from my voice, I answered. “N…no.”

He leaned back up, dropped more weave in the bag that had begun to get full, and pulled softly at the hair he’d just freed. When his fingers grazed my scalp, I tensed as he removed the dirt from my hair.

“Aite,” was all he replied, but it was still the sexiest thing ever said.

The boys went back and forth for the next half hour while the ladies cut in with snide comments, and I’d laughed so much that my stomach was hurting. I couldn’t imagine growing up with as many siblings as they had, but if their banter went anything like this back then, I knew it was a chaotic household. I see why Mama Payne went crazy.

“Glow.”

I tensed. Tunan had given my girl below a break by not addressing me during his family’s roasting session. Now, he was staring at me again; I could feel his eyes without turning to face him.

“You okay? You comfortable? Been sittin’ on this step for a hot minute.” The concern laced in his voice wasn’t missed by his family or me. Tuden and Tulen started mocking him under their breath, but he ignored them, never taking his eyes off me.

“Uh… yeah. I’m good. I?—”

“Food done!” Mama Payne shouted as she burst through the door with a plate piled with food that had steam still coming from it.