Page 35 of This Is Law 2

She just pulled out of the drive- thru line, and five minutes later, we were pulling up to her building.

She parked the car up front, shut it off, and stepped out.

She opened the back door because that’s where her purse was.

Once she had that, she closed the door, and I stepped out, grabbing my bookbag, my food, and my drink.

I allowed her to lead the way, while I walked behind her, being her bodyguard.

Once we reached the door, I jogged to get in front of her, opened the door for her, and she stepped in first, and I walked in behind her.

“Eat that in the breakroom. I don’t want my office smelling like that,” she told me.

“Aight. Who all here?” I asked, wanting her to give me a rundown of her employees that was here, and if she mentioned any of the fine women, I was going to make an excuse to walk past their office, and see them.

It’s as if she knew that that was the reason why I was asking because her ass didn’t even answer my question. She walked away, and I went for the large breakroom that was here. No one was in here because by this point in the day, I’m sure that everyone had already taken their breaks.

I sat my bookbag and my food down on one of the tables, and I went over to the sink that was in here, so that I could wash and dry my hands.

I went back over to my food, where I pulled out the chicken sandwich, fries, and the two biscuits that I would always add.

I placed my straw inside the frozen strawberry lemonade that I had, and like always, I went on TikTok, going to let that entertain me while I ate my food.

I had only been on TikTok for a few moments, laughing at some shit that came up on my timeline when my phone started ringing with a facetime call.

It was my boy Quay, hitting me. Quay was my homeboy that I had since I was a little kid, that I told ya’ll about.

The one that was in the streets, making dumb decisions.

I was surprised to see him calling me because we haven’t seen each other in a while.

The last time I saw him was at the skating rink, and I’d got on him about the lifestyle that he was living and telling him that I wish he would make better choices.

Since then, we’ve texted and shit like that, but it was every blue moon.

When he saw the shit that was trending with me on the blogs, he hit me, just to see how I was holding up, but that was in the beginning, when it first happened.

I haven’t heard from him since then. Quay had social media, but he wasn’t on there a lot.

With the way that he was out here living, he told me before in the past that he was too afraid to post like that on social media, thinking that the feds were watching him.

“Yoo,” I answered the facetime call. From his surroundings, I could tell that he was outside, sitting on the porch.

I knew that porch from a mile away, so I could tell that he was at his mama’s house.

Just like me, he had top and bottom gold teeth in his mouth.

I could see his when he flashed a smile once the call connected.

Both of ours were pull- outs grillz though.

Ever since that shit happened at Vivian’s crib, I haven’t been wearing mine.

I was trying to clean up my image, and shit.

Quay had a short cut, and I could tell from the white chalk look that he had surrounding his line up, that he must have just gotten his hair cut.

“What’s good stranger?” he asked me.

“Shit, that’s you. I texted you a couple of weeks ago and asked you if you wanted to go fishing with me, and my pops. You didn’t respond. You too Hollywood for me,” I told him, propping my phone up on my drink, so that I could use both my hands to eat my food.

“I had some shit to take care of that day. I was supposed to text you back, but I got tied up. Where you at?” he asked, changing the subject.

“At my mama job. I’m sitting in the breakroom. You didn’t have school today?” I asked. I was still in my school uniform, but he wasn’t in his, and even though we went to different schools, I know that we still got out at the same time.

“Shit, I got expelled about a week ago,” he told me, and I shook my head.

Man, if my parents got a phone call home, saying that I was expelled from school, both would have tried to kill me.

I’ve been suspended before in the past for fighting, but anytime that I had to fight, it’s because I was defending myself.

I was lowkey, didn’t go around looking for problems with people, so for me to be in a situation where I had to put my hands on someone, that only meant that I had been pushed to that level.

“Damn man. Expelled for what? When you get expelled from school, don’t you have to go to school in another school district or some shit like that? What school you going to go to now?” I asked him.

“Man, them crackas at that school been wanting me gone since my freshman year. All the fights and shit that I had at that school, so they been wanting me gone. I ain’t been going to school like that.

Shit, last month, I missed damn near three weeks straight.

They called my mama last week Thursday for a meeting with both of us, and they told me that because of the repeated truancy and suspensions, they had to let me go,” he shared with me.

All I could do was shake my head at the shit that he was saying to me.

“What your mama saying about all this?” I asked him.

Quay’s mom was raising him on her own. Her name was Ms. Tay.

She did her best with him, and I remember a couple of years ago, her and my mama were on the phone, and I overheard Ms. Tay venting to my mama about Quay and his behavior, and at the time, she just seemed through with him, and as if she wanted to wash her hands with him, so I could only imagine what her energy towards the situation was right now.

From what I knew about her, she liked to date the same kind of men that her son was, but obviously just older.

She liked her men in the streets, breaking the law, and shit like that.

“She sick of me, man. She told me that if I didn’t want to go back to school, and that if I wanted to be a crash out, and dummy, that she was going to let me.

Ima have to find an alternative school though.

The only reason why I’m even going to do that is because Whip not going to let me move weight for him without being enrolled in school.

I hate that he got that fuckin rule,” he snapped.

Whip was the dude that he was selling drugs for.

It was so much shit that I wanted to say in response to what he just laid on me.

I wanted to tell him that he sounded stupid, and that he was basically throwing his life away, but I knew that it would have us going back and forth with each other, so I kept quiet, choosing not to even respond to the bullshit that he was telling me.

“That’s not why I hit you though. What you have planned this weekend? They having the car show this weekend in Miami. I’m going to be out there with my dawgs. I wanted you to slide. We haven’t spent time with each other in a little bit,” he voiced.

After he said that, I got quiet for a little bit and just lingered on his words.

From the sound of things, it was as if me and him didn’t have anything in common.

Here I am, trying to keep my name clean after the shit that happened between me and Vivian.

These days, the only thing that I was worried about was keeping my grades right, putting in time in the gym, so that I could be better, and stronger than ever when I got back on that field next season, and having all things lead up to being a first-round pick in the MLB draft one day.

I thought about a conversation that I had with my pops awhile back.

I remember him talking to me about people being in our life for seasons.

I remember him telling me that just because I grew up with someone, it didn’t mean that I was supposed to grow old with them.

My pops knew a lot of people. Even though he didn’t grow up in the hood, he was always in the hood because that’s where he would be with Dutch.

With that, my pops knew a lot of niggas in the hood from his childhood, and he’s told me how he wasn’t cool with them anymore because they were just on two different waves in life.

At first, I didn’t understand that shit.

I thought that if I had history with a person, that I was supposed to keep that person next to me, but I swear I was seeing that shit now.

He told me about the expiration dates that came with friendships, and I could tell that that’s what was happening right now with me, and Quay.

“Nah man. I remember the shooting that happened last year at that car show. Plus, I got shit planned with my pops,” I let him know, and he sucked his teeth, while shaking his head at me.

“You a funny acting ass nigga. I bet if I was one of those niggas from your baseball team that stayed in a multi- million-dollar house like you, that you would have popped out with me this weekend. Look nigga, if I don’t fit into your world, and hanging with your thug ass friend that you grew up with looks bad for your image, let me know.

I don’t know what the fuck kind of nigga you take me for, but I’m not going to be kissing your ass, forcing a friendship with you.

Fuck you on man?” he snapped, making my decision easier for me to leave him alone.