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“That’s the kind of shit that I’m trying to be on.

Man, I can’t wait until I can walk across that stage and get my high school diploma.

If Whip didn’t have rules in this game, telling all the young niggas that we had to get our high school diploma first to work for him full time, man, I would have been stopped going to school, bruh.

For a young nigga like me, I just don’t see the purpose of me finishing up school.

It’s not like I’m trying to go to college after school.

Besides, even if I did go to college, ain’t no job out here that I’m going to work that’s going to pay me what I could be making when I’m working for Whip full time,” he expressed, and I shook my head at him because this nigga sounded stupid.

Whip was a nigga that he was moving weight for.

Quay, and all these niggas that were standing amongst us at the skating rink, were all corner boys for Whip.

Instead of being in the crib, tucked in bed, these goofy ass niggas would be out on the side of the road, selling dime bags.

I hated that this was the life that Quay had chosen, but I wasn’t shocked though.

It was the shit that was exposed to him his entire life.

His daddy was a hustler, and he lost his life behind that shit when Quay was only two.

Then, growing up, he watched his mama date niggas that hustled as well.

Because of the area they were from, he saw a lot of dope boys, and he looked up to them niggas.

This was my childhood best friend. He was still my best friend, and I wanted him to have the same mindset as I did, where he wanted to go to college, play sports, fuck the baddest bitches, but that’s not what he wanted, and I hated that for him.

“I’m not trying to preach to you or no shit like that nigga, but ya’ll minds be fucked up, thinking that the only way to get rich is by moving weight.

Nigga, my mama, and my daddy went to college, and both are self-made millionaires.

I was just around my mama last night, and I walked up behind her, while she had her banking app opened, and in just one of her fuckin accounts, I saw that it was a few million, just lying around in her savings.

My pops got money out the ass too. If anybody could have been a hustler, you know that it could have very well been my pops.

His daddy hustled. You know where that nigga at.

Six feet under, just like yours. Dutch, which is the nigga that raised my pops, this man in his fifties, and he still out here running a drug business.

My pops didn’t want that life, and that makes me, and my brother respect him that much more because he beat the odds, man.

If he had grown up, and chose to sell dope, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise because everybody would have expected that from him.

He did something different. My pops so fuckin gangsta to me man because he took his ass to college, worked his ass off, and now he got the biggest firm out here in south Florida.

He showed me that selling dope ain’t the only way to get rich.

I wish your stupid ass would think like that too!

” I snapped on him, but I only did that because I loved him, and I wanted more for him.

I knew that when niggas went down that road, where they started moving weight, that it usually doesn’t end well for them. They either end up in prison, doing football numbers, or they get their asses killed, and I didn’t want either of those options for my boy.

“This one of those things where we’ll never agree on, Creed.

You came from money, nigga. You don’t know what the fuck struggle even feel like.

Them niggas my mama was fuckin around with when I was a kid, they didn’t have us living some luxurious life.

They would send her a few dollars every now and then.

Nigga, we were real life struggling in this bitch.

Those times, when you would call me, and ask me to come over, and spend the night, there were times when I would have to lie to you, come up with an excuse as to why you couldn’t come because I didn’t want you to see that our lights were off, or the water wasn’t on.

You don’t understand my struggles. Yeah, your pops got it going on.

Your mama got it going on too, and I respect their hustles, but nigga for them to get to where their at, they had to go through years of schooling, and I’m not trying to do that.

I need quick money. I need that money in my hands fast. Sit this topic out, nigga.

You don’t understand what me, and the guys gotta go through,” he finished, patting me on my chest.

There was so much more that I wanted to say in response to that, but I just let it go. I wasn’t trying to be arguing with this nigga about that bullshit, so I dropped it.

Not long after that, he had to leave out anyways with his boys because they had to go and get on the block.

He slapped it up with me, pulled me in for a brotherly hug, and told me congratulations one last time before he walked off.

I slapped it up with the rest of the guys that he was with, and once they were gone, I found my teammates.

I chilled with them during the rest of our time here.

We got in the rink, and skated, ate some good ass pizza, and wings, and by the time the night was over, I had at least fifteen new phone numbers.

It was nearing eleven o’clock, and my mama had sent a message to me, and Legend in the group chat that the three of us were in, letting us know that she was five minutes away.

It was a Friday, and usually, after school, we would go with our dad, but he left yesterday for Washington.

He had some kind of business to handle out there, and he wouldn’t be back until Sunday.

That nigga almost shed tears when he learned that he wouldn’t be able to make my game tonight.

He didn’t miss a game, but I would never hang that over his head because I was fully aware that he had business to tend to.

My mama came though, with her loud ass. I was always telling her that one day, security was going to kick her ass out of the park with all of that yelling and heckling that her ass likes to do.

She came with my auntie Shai, Milan, and our grandma.

When the game was over, we went back home, and me, and Legend showered, got dressed, and we pulled up at the skating rink with the rest of the school.

My brother had his own friends, so the whole night, we hadn’t been hanging with each other.

As we were walking out of the skating rink now, he was by my side, and this was our first time being with each other since we got dropped off.

“How many numbers you got?” I asked him, always wanting to make shit with us a competition.

“Shit, like seven. It wasn’t much in here tonight that was my type,” Legend responded. Because my brother was the quite twin, and he was into robots and shit, people swore that he was innocent, but he wasn’t. He had a bunch of bitches, just like I did.

“I got like fifteen,” I told him.

“I saw Vivian come over talking to you. What she wanted?” he asked me.

“You saw that shit? She came over, telling me congrats on my win. We exchanged numbers,” I said, and when I said it, his eyes popped out like he was shocked at my words. Everyone knew that I didn’t like white girls, which is why my statement had caught him off guard.

“Man, you better leave that white bitch alone. That shit not sketchy to you? All the times that she had to speak to you, and she just now choosing to say something because you won the state championship. She knows how promising your future is, so she trying to squeeze her way into your life right now. Don’t nothing ever come good out of situations when a black man start messing with white bitches.

You might as well delete her number out of your phone, and just go ahead and block her,” he said, and I could see it in his eyes that he was dead ass serious.

At the same time, I could see my mama’s white G wagon pulling up into the parking lot.

Her petty ass hasn’t pushed that truck in months.

My pops had gotten that for her a few years ago.

My mama was the pettiest person that I’ve ever met in my life, man.

If a person does her wrong, and they bought her something before in the past, she wouldn’t wear it, or as you can see in this case, she wouldn’t even push her favorite car, all because my pops bought it for her, and she was always beefing with that nigga.

I used to have hope that the two of them would work their shit out, but it’s been a few months since the divorce, and they still wasn’t fuckin with each other on that level, so I didn’t know if that would happen or not.

“Don’t tell ma about me, and Vivian. She going to make shit bigger than what it gotta be,” I said, and he slapped it up with me, telling me that he wouldn’t say anything about it, and I believed him. He did warn me again about Vivian, and to block her, and I just lied, telling him that I would.

We walked over to her truck, and Legend went for the back, while I sat up front.

My mama was sitting there, with her right leg pulled up, folded down on the seat, and her left foot was down because that’s the foot that she would drive with.

The lights inside of the truck came on when I opened the door, so I could see the pink oversized hoodie that she was wearing, with the matching tights.

Her beautiful brown eyes danced on me, and my brother, and she looked at us, as if she was examining us.

She loved her boys to death. She was soft, but she had her days when she could be hard, and that shit would drive us crazy.