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Chapter Three

SEVYN ‘LAW’ CRAWFORD

It was after six in the evening, and I was pulling up to my son’s high school.

They were both sophomores in high school.

Legend, and Creed were twins, but I swear, them lil niggas weren’t shit alike.

Legend was the oldest by one minute, and he was my quite, humble child.

My boy was in the STEM club at his school, and anything that had to deal with science, technology, engineering, and math, he was all into that.

He was into robots too, loving to build anything robotic.

At home, instead of being on the game system all the time like most kids his age, he would lock his ass up in the room for hours, working on shit like that.

He did have his days when he would hop on the game with either me, or his brother, but it wasn’t his favorite thing to do.

Over the years, my boy has competed in different robotic competitions, and he’s won some pretty good awards for it. All I gotta say is that my boy was on Elon Musk’s head, and he was coming for that nigga. We just had to give him a few more years to get there.

Then, there was my other son, Creed. That lil nigga was just like me when I was his age, but I didn’t know if that was a good thing, or a bad thing.

Cocky ass nigga, who knew exactly who the fuck he was.

He knew that he was a product of his parents hard work, and success.

He knew that he didn’t know anything about struggle.

He walked with his head held high, just as I did, and being shy, quite, and modest weren’t words that described him at all.

Creed was different. Growing up, my kids were test dummies for Yaya and I.

We would put them in different sports, just to see what they liked, and if we noticed that it wasn’t something that they fucked with, we would take them out and go on to the next thing.

By the time the boys were four, Yaya and I already knew that Legend wasn’t going to be our athletic child.

We put his ass on the football field, basketball court, baseball field, all that shit, and he would cut the fuck up, wanting to be on his tablet or something, chilling in the AC.

Creed didn’t fuck with football, or basketball, either.

He loved to sit, and watch it with me, but I knew early on that it wasn’t the sport that he wanted to play.

We tried baseball with Creed, putting a bat in his hand, and I kid you not, the second that bat touched his hand, I knew that he was where he was supposed to be.

So, from the tender age of four, up until now, which is 15, he’s been playing baseball, and he was a beast at that shit, too.

He played all throughout elementary school, and middle, and by the time he was in the 8 th grade, he had high school coaches coming, and sitting down at his games, wanting to recruit him to play for their team.

Ultimately, we ended up choosing Miami Westminster Christian School.

It was a private Christian school, with a great baseball team, and they had the STEM club there for Legend.

Yaya and I both knew the boys would be able to benefit from what the school had to offer.

In tuition alone, we were dishing out 30 racks per child a school year, but it was going to be worth it in the end.

I didn’t shortcut when it came to my boys.

I was setting them up, giving them the proper foundation, so that when their adults, the same lifestyle that their mom, and I were able to afford to them as children, they would be able to go on, and afford that same lifestyle on their own.

I walked through the school, and I headed for the back, where the baseball field was.

Practice would be over in the next thirty minutes or so, so that left me with more than enough time to sit and watch.

There were a few other parents that were out here watching, so I just walked through, finding me a spot on the bleachers, and once I sat, my eyes landed on my boy, Creed.

My boy was that nigga to see on the field.

The position that he played was ‘shortstop’.

Because of how athletic he was, cocky, and flashy, I felt like that was the position for him that made the most sense.

That position required you to be quick on your feet, have the ability to make fast decisions while out there, and with every cocky bone in my body, you damn near had to be the best player on the team. My son was that.

From where I was sitting, I watched him as he was waiting for the ball to come flying his way.

Within seconds, the ball came flying, and my boy cracked the bat, and the ball went swinging, going past third base.

That boy was like lightning, as he ran so fast, not even checking the distance of the ball before he took off.

“That’s mine right there! That’s my son!

” I cockily yelled out from the stands. The parents that were here, they just laughed and shook their heads at me because they were used to this kind of cocky boasting from me.

I knew my son fed off the shit that I would talk from the stands.

It made him play a damn good game, so that was one of the reasons why I did it.

Yaya was the same way. We were both shit talkers on the bleachers and would be the loudest out here.

Yaya’s ass would be all up and through the bleachers, standing by the railing, all that shit.

As I was sitting here, watching the rest of practice, I turned to my right, and I saw Legend coming over to the bleachers, and he smiled when he saw me.

I was a thirty-eight-year-old man, and my boys were fifteen, but the two of them were my soft spots.

They tried to act so grown, but I would pull them into me and kiss them on their foreheads any chance that I got.

My boys and I looked like triplets. I had the most handsome boys on this earth.

Legend was tall, just like his twin brother.

Both were already 6’2. Even though Legend wasn’t into sports, he would get in the gym with me, and his brother, so as he walked up the steps, you could see the athletic build that he had, even in his school uniform.

He was rocking a white button-down shirt, with his school’s emblem sketched on the left patch, and he wore khaki pants, that didn’t fit him too tight, or too loosely.

Because his shirt was tucked in, you could see the brown, Louis Vuitton belt that he wore, with the matching Louis Vuitton sneakers.

I was a watch man, and I was training my boys to be the same way, building them up their own mini watch collection, so on his left wrist, he was sporting a plain, Rolex Oyster Perpetual.

It was the minimalist Rolex, and Legend would sport it to school just about every day.

His Louis Vuitton bookbag was slung over his shoulder, and when he reached me, I stood up, slapped hands with my young boy, pulled him into a hug, and like he knew I would do, I kissed him on his forehead.

“You so fuckin handsome, boy. I did that shit!” I boasted, taking a seat down, and looking at him.

Legend was the son that didn’t want to grow his hair out, so he rocked a short cut.

He had the same soft textured hair as me, and his mom.

He kept his hair in waves, and those waves were swimming like a motha fucka.

He had a fresh line up because I took him, and his brother with me over the weekend to get line ups.

After I called him handsome, he started smiling, so his dimples appeared that he’d inherited from me as well.

“Thank you, pops. What’s up? How long you been out here?” he asked, taking his bookbag off, and he sat it down on the side of him.

“Not long. Like ten minutes. How was your robot club?” I asked him, and when I asked that, he laughed.

“Bruh, you always talking about some robot club. It’s engineering and tech design that we’re doing. It was cool though. Where ma? And how did everything go today in court?” he wanted to know, changing the subject.

Our boys knew that their mom and I were in the process of a divorce.

They hated that shit because they looked at it as the family dividing.

Legend was the only one to really speak on it, telling me, and Yaya how he didn’t like it.

Creed, on the other hand, that boy was like me when it came to expressing his feelings.

It almost felt like pulling teeth trying to get that boy to become vulnerable and share his feelings.

Till this day, he doesn’t really speak on it.

“She’s home. Shit, everything went as expected.

Nothing really is going to change. I hope you, and your brother know that.

The biggest thing is that I won’t be living at the house, but it’s been that way for a little minute now.

Ima still show up. Award ceremonies, any competitions that you have, Ima be right there.

Ya’ll gone have ya’ll days with Yaya, and then ya’ll will have days with me.

I came out here because she said that it was cool if I picked ya’ll up and took ya’ll to dinner tonight.

When we done, I’ll drop you and your brother off back at her crib.

Friday, ya’ll can come with me, and we can do something this weekend.

What ya’ll wanna do? Shit, we can hit up Orlando and go to Island of adventure, ” I suggested, just trying to make sure my boys didn’t feel that void.

“That’s cool. I want to see Creed get on some rollercoasters, and scream like a little bitch,” he joked, and that shit made me laugh.

I was cool with my sons, not caring about them cursing with me.

Yaya didn’t play that shit though. If she was right here, and she heard Legend say that, she would have been ready to tackle his ass for it and then would have been ready to put hands on me for not correcting him on it.