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Chapter Six

SEVYN ‘LAW’ CRAWFORD

I was riding with the music turned down low, and on my way to a juvenile detention center, so that I could visit one of my clients.

I personally didn’t like taking on juvenile cases because I had teenage boys, and every time I’m forced to defend a teenaged boy, that shit reminds me of my boys that I have back at home.

That’s why I was always riding my sons the way that I was because I never wanted to see either one of them in an orange jumpsuit, standing before a judge, and having to plea for their freedom.

The juvenile that I was defending right now, the case was so fuckin heavy. Shit kept me up at night. I was coming up with my best argument, gathering all the evidence that I could because that shit would break me if he had to sit down, and serve some time.

His name was Justin. He was only sixteen years old.

Black kid, and he was just one year older than my boys.

He was a decent kid. I wasn’t going to call him good because I’ve seen his record, and he’s been in trouble with the law before for running away, and just other petty stuff like theft, and fighting.

He didn’t have the best record in school, either.

Justin wasn’t a killer though. He wasn’t the monster that they were trying to paint him out to be.

He was defending his mom, April. April was in an abusive, toxic relationship with her boyfriend of five years.

Her boyfriend was known for getting drunk and putting his hands on her.

One night, April and her boyfriend were in her bedroom, going at it, and Justin came in to intervene.

Justin and April’s boyfriend started fighting, and there was a gun that was sitting on the dresser, that Justin used to blow April’s boyfriends brains out.

The DA were debating on charging him as an adult for manslaughter, or second-degree murder.

I didn’t want either of those scenarios.

I was going to argue self-defense on himself, and self-defense of another, which was his mother, and I wanted the charges dropped.

I had to do what I knew best in the courtroom, so that I could get this lil nigga home, and didn’t have him in a situation where he had to give years of his life to prison.

I was about ten minutes away from the detention center when my phone rang.

Yaya’s name lit up on the screen across my dashboard.

It rang through the car speakers via Apple CarPlay.

I wouldn’t say that I was shocked that she was calling me.

We had kids and still had to deal with each other.

We both wanted the best for our boys, and had game plans of tackling that together, so we were always in communication.

Shit could be a little awkward, especially since I just went over there, and fucked her brains out last week, and now we had to pretend that the shit never happened.

“What’s up?” I answered for her.

“Hey. I hate to have to ask, but can you get the boys from school today? I can’t do it.

It’s so much shit happening here with my clients.

It’s like when one disaster happens with one of my clients, then something else happens with another one.

I’ve been cleaning up messes all week. Can you get them for me?

” she asked me, and I could hear the stress all in her voice.

Yaya’s job was stressful. I was married to her at one point, so I knew what came with that shit.

She used to be in bed, crying to me about it.

She basically had to babysit grown ass fuckin adults and then clean up their fuck ups.

She loved her career though, but it could be overwhelming, which is why when we were married, I didn’t play that shit when it came to date nights, and taking vacations.

The second Yaya would start crying to me about her job, and telling me how stressed out she was, I would immediately plan a trip for us, so that we could get away, and at least try and temporarily fix the problem.

“Why you saying that you hate that you have to ask? I’m they daddy.

Who the fuck else were you supposed to ask?

” I wanted to know. My tone wasn’t aggressive as I asked her this.

I made sure that I didn’t use an aggressive tone with her, even with me cursing.

Yaya was one of those people where she would match energy, so if I came at her crazy, she was going to come back at me crazy, and now me and her had to be cursing each other out, and beefing. That’s not what I was trying to do.

“I only said that because we have a schedule, and I didn’t know if you already had plans after they get out of school, since today isn’t your day,” she defended herself.

“Even if I had plans, those plans would be canceled when it comes to my boys. I understand that we have a schedule in place Yaya, but we not going to always follow that shit. Shit going to come up, and sometimes, the schedule going to have to get tweaked a little bit. I just asked you last week if I could get the boys on a day that belonged to you, and you didn’t give me any flack about it, so why would I do that to you?

” I asked her. She didn’t respond. I just heard her sigh.

From the sound of things, her clients were stressing her the fuck out, and she didn’t even have the energy to respond back to me.

“Why you be letting that job stress you out like that? You be stressing out about that shit, like you aren’t qualified to handle everything that’s thrown at you.

I watched you build that business from the ground up.

Just off your name alone. If anybody can handle the kind of mess that gets thrown, I know it’s you.

Chill out,” there was this messy part of me that didn’t want to say this encouraging shit to her, but it just wasn’t in my nature to be heartless like that towards Yaya.

Before the relationship, the marriage, and the kids, she was my dawg.

Literally my best friend, and my love for her was still strong, and I didn’t want to hear her sounding all stressed out.

“Thank you. I needed that. One more week of this shit, and then I’ll be somewhere laid out on an island.

You know it’s Milan’s birthday next week, and we leave Thursday to go to St. Maarten, so you just make sure that you get the boys, and have them call me as few as possible,” she reminded me.

I already knew about the trip. Before the divorce was even finalized, Yaya told me about the trip, telling me that she was going to need me to keep the boys for the five nights that she was gone.

A bitter ex-husband would have gone out of their way to stop her motion, and stop her from having a good time, but I didn’t do that shit.

She deserved a moment to go out with her best friend, her sister, and whoever else was going on the trip, and turn up.

She was always in work, and mommy mode, so she needed that moment to take those hats off and just enjoy life.

“Yeah, me, and my boys already made plans. We were going to go to Orlando last weekend when I had them, but work was busy for me last week, so we going to go next weekend, while you out of town. You not going to be the only one turning up, and having a good time,” I said to her, and I heard her laugh.

No lie, hearing Yaya laugh, that shit made me smile.

I can’t tell you the last time that I got her to laugh.

These days, with the way we’re always heavily beefing with each other, I felt like I only made her roll her eyes at me, suck her teeth, and cry.

“Okay. Yeah, they were telling me about that the other day. Both are excited to go,” she shared with me. Her tone sounded a little bit chirpier, so you could tell that the encouraging words that I had given her helped do the job.

After that, we pretty much wrapped the conversation up.

I assured her that I would pick the boys up from school, and I even told her that if she needed to stay late at the office and wanted them to stay the night at my house, that I didn’t mind that, either.

We agreed on that, and once we did, she let me know that she would be the one to get them from school tomorrow.

From there, we hung up the phone, and I continued my drive to the detention center.

Little shit like this, where we would hang the phone up with one another, and not let each other know that we loved each other was another reminder that the two of us weren’t together anymore.

Back when we were married, Yaya knew that I was big on expressing our love for one another once we hung up.

If she forgot to say it, I would call her ass back quickly and make her say it.

When you were with someone for so long, I swear that shit was going to take a little time to accept these new norms.

Here I was, pulling up to the juvenile detention center.

Before I stepped out, I reached over in the passenger seat, so that I could grab my briefcase that I had sitting there.

I got out with it in my hands, locked the doors to my truck that I was pushing this morning, and I headed for the entry.

I’ve been to this detention center plenty of times, so I knew the ropes once I arrived.

The check-in process was a smooth, quick one.

All I had to do was show my ID, where they did a quick scan of it, and everything else that came with the security shuffle.

Once that was clear, one of the guards escorted me down a long hallway, and into one of the small, interview rooms, where I was going to sit, and have my time with Justin.

He wasn’t in here yet, so while I waited, I took a seat, sat the briefcase down on the table, and I opened it, so that I could pull out some of the documents inside that I would spread out on the table for Justin to see.