Down With the King of the South 3 Read online

  I hadn’t seen Jeremy in months, and the last time I did, he had a low cut. Now, he’d grown out his hair and was starting dreads, which in my opinion had his grown ass looking kind of childish. I wanted to say that Jeremey worked as an accountant and was probably on break with his job as well, which would explain the suit that he was in. Then again, I thought he was a mortgage broker. Shit, I didn’t know. Back then, the plan was all about getting fucked, not necessarily getting to know each other.

  I turned and looked at him. He was standing at my side, and I noticed the way his eyes lingered on my stomach. I was in a black work dress that clung to my body just a little bit, so my baby bump was on full display today. Pretty much everyone at the job was congratulating me today. Since I was so secretive, and I didn’t really make co-workers my friends, none of them knew that I was expecting.

  “Ummm, hey, Jeremy,” I said, being very dull with him and hoping that he would take the lack of energy or happiness in my voice as a hint and leave.

  “You got a baby on the way?” he asked, but I didn’t answer. He awkwardly smiled and then turned his attention to Jabari.

  “You’re a lucky man, my brotha. A reallll lucky man. I’d sell my soul to be in your shoes and—”

  “Yo, if you still want your soul, you better get the fuck away from this table. You lucky I didn’t beat your ass the second you walked over here and said something to my girl. You ain’t gotta remind me how lucky I am, nigga! I wake up to her every morning and go to sleep with her every night. I’m aware of my luck!” Jabari barked.

  I wanted to just sink into this damn chair and disappear because this was too fuckin’ awkward. A man whose face I used to ride for hours and someone whose dick used to beat at my walls repeatedly was having a conversation with my man. I’ll give Jeremy his credit and admit that back then, I used to think that his sex was everything. It wasn’t until I got with Jabari, who could get me to cum just from one stroke, that I realized that any man I’d ever had sex with before him was mediocre. I watched as Jeremy threw his hands up in surrender, basically letting him know that he didn’t want any smoke with him.

  “My bad, man. I didn’t mean no disrespect. I just know what you working wit—”

  Jabari stood up and punched the shit out of Jeremy.

  “Fuck you mean you didn’t mean no disrespect? Pussy, that’s like the third time you done disrespected me! The moment you saw that bump in her fuckin’ stomach and you saw me sitting with her, you should have just kept it pushing, nigga!” Jabari was leaning down and barking this to Jeremy while he lay there holding onto his nose, which was bleeding.

  Onlookers were staring in our direction; a few phones were pulled out and a couple of waitresses had come over to attend to Jeremy. All the while, I sat there, embarrassed as hell. Jabari had the fuckin’ nerve to look annoyed, yet he was the one who had just punched somebody in the middle of a fuckin’ restaurant. I watched as he pulled out a single hundred-dollar bill, and then he threw it on the table.

  “Let’s go, or would you rather stay and nurse the nigga?” Jabari asked me.

  I guess I took too long to answer his question because he ended up walking away toward the door. If anything, I was just in a state of shock. The waitresses were trying to get me to tell them what happened while also asking me if I was okay, but I ignored them and walked out of the restaurant. Jabari and I hadn’t ridden together, but his car was parked right next to mine. I could hear the loud engine from his car, which let me know that he had started it and was probably going to leave without saying shit to me.

  Instead of getting in my car, I jumped in the passenger seat with him. Before I could even get my seatbelt all the way on, he shot out of the parking space, just in case someone called the police on his dumb ass.

  “You lucky I didn’t kill that nigga,” he spat.

  “Why am I lucky? It makes no difference to me whether he lives or not! I haven’t seen Jeremy in months. You just sat there and called me insecure but look how you’re acting! Wow, you are really a piece of work” I announced then turned around in my seat, so I could put my purse on the back seat.

  “I ain’t insecure, shorty. I’m a fuckin’ man, and I wasn’t going to stand there and let another man disrespect me right in my fuckin’ face. That nigga was telling me how lucky I am and saying that he knew what I was working with, which is the equivalent of him telling me that your pussy is good! Fuck out of here with that bullshit, man! If you can’t sit there and agree that the nigga was disrespecting the fuck out of me, then you obviously not grown enough to even have this conversation with me,” he spat.

  “Turn back around and take me to my car. This is not going to work,” I told him, but he kept driving, paying my request no attention whatsoever.

  “I ain’t taking your ass nowhere but back to work. Leave your key with me. I’ll have somebody pick it up and bring it back to the crib,” he said.

  I didn’t even respond. This lunch date was going completely left. The car was silent for about ten minutes before Jabari finally started talking again.

  “How many times you fucked that nigga?” he stupidly asked me.

  “Why are you asking me that? Even so, I don’t fuckin’ remember!” I yelled. He was pissing me the fuck off, bringing up shit in the past.

  “You fucked that nigga so many times that you can’t remember, Mahogany? Throw out any number, man. What? Two or three? Five or six? I want to know,” he kept fuckin’ with me.

  “Probably twenty! You happy now? I don’t ask you how many times you fucked them hoes who walk up to you and start conversations when the two of us are out. Anything or anyone that I did before you is in the fuckin’ past, Bari! Why are you doing this? You questioning me about a nigga who don’t even know if my pussy is hairy or bald at the moment because he hasn’t seen it in that fuckin’ long! You know that I wasn’t a saint before I got with you. I told you on many occasions that I love to have sex. You are not the only nigga that’s explored my pussy, Jabari. Just like I’m not the only woman that’s rode your dick. What’s the difference from when I told you this shit months ago to now?” I questioned, trying to get him to make this shit make sense, but it just wasn’t.

  He didn’t even respond to me. Jabari was such a fuckin’ hypocrite. I felt like I was constantly shown bitches that he fucked with before me, and because I was a woman who didn’t want to live with the stereotype of nagging, I would just take that shit! He saw one nigga that I had dealings with before him, and it was World War III. The whole way to my job, Jabari drove like he was ready to get my ass out of his car, but I swear I didn’t care because I didn’t too much want to be around him either.

  After about five minutes, he whipped his car into the parking lot of my office building. He didn’t say shit; he just popped the locks.

  “How am I supposed to leave without my car, Jabari?” I asked with my hand on the door, ready to get out.

  “I’ll be back! How the fuck else? Or did you think Jeremy was going to come and get your ass?” he spat.

  I laughed. I really laughed to keep myself from slapping the shit out of his ass.

  “Only if you didn’t come back, then yeah, I would have probably expected that,” I shot.

  Since he wanted to say hurtful shit, I was going to do the same thing.

  “Yo, you better get the fuck out. Mahogany, I’m not even playing around with your ass right now. I swear to God I’m not!” he barked, giving me the nastiest look that he could muster up.

  Jabari didn’t scare me at all. I only got out because we were outside of my job, and I wasn’t about to argue with him. I got out and I slammed that door so hard, trying to fuckin’ break it. Jabari shot out of the parking space, driving like he was running from the law. That was a man for you. Mad at me about a nigga whose dick I couldn’t even remember what the fuck it looked like anymore.

  He had the nerve to sit up in that restaurant and say that I was insecure, when he’d just shown me signs of insecurity. I got the
whole respect thing, but why did it matter how many times I fucked Jeremy? That shit was so fuckin’ irrelevant.

  The next day

  “I gotta check on my store. You want to go and get something to eat first, or would you rather go straight there?” Jabari asked me.

  The way he asked me the question was like he was annoyed with me. What happened yesterday was still fresh. Hell, we hadn’t even brought it up again because when picked me up yesterday from work, the whole ride back to the house, we didn’t say anything to each other. I wasn’t kissing Jabari’s ass because I didn’t do shit wrong. I didn’t tell Jeremy to come over and speak to me. He did all that shit on his own. Why would I apologize for my dealings with Jeremy when that shit was in the past? It would be foolish of me to do that.

  When we got home yesterday, Jabari let me know that he was going to meet Miami at the gym. He came back home, showered, and he had the nerve to sleep in a different room. If you ask me, he was doing too much, but I’d already given him too much energy on this yesterday, so I wasn’t going to do the same thing today. Plus, I was nauseous as hell, and I had a headache out of this damn world.

  It took us just a little over two hours to make it to Atlanta this morning. We sat in first class together, and the older lady who sat in front of us had on some loud ass perfume. Now, my head was killing me. I didn’t know if it was due to the flying and the turbulence that we experienced on the flight, but it had me feeling similar to the way that I used to feel in the very beginning of this pregnancy.

  “I don’t want to do either. I want to go and lay down. I don’t feel good,” I let him know.

  “Aight. Let me get the whip, and I’ll drop you off to my ole girl. I’ma let her know that we on the way,” he said.

  We were walking out of baggage claim after he’d retrieved my luggage. Only I packed a suitcase because Jabari was able to put all his stuff in a duffle bag. I mean, we would just be there for a couple of days, but I was a woman who was going to always overpack. It took us about another twenty minutes for Jabari to pick up the Suburban that he’d rented.

  Once inside the truck, I put my hoodie over my head and rested it on the window, closing my eyes, as the pounding continued, slowing killing me. That, mixed with the nausea that I was experiencing, was excruciating. This pregnancy was definitely kicking my ass, and it sucked because this was just the beginning.

  “You want me to stop and get you something?” Jabari offered, but I shook my head.

  Jabari’s mom stayed out in Buckhead, and it took us about an hour to get there from the airport. I sat up to fully see her home as we pulled in. It was beautiful and looked identical to a damn mansion. There was a circular driveway, which housed two cars. Seeing this beautiful home had me thinking for a second that I wouldn’t have minded moving to Georgia, but then again, you couldn’t pay me any amount of money to leave Miami. That was my city. It was all that I knew.

  Jabari parked the car, and the two of us stepped out together. I lingered near him as he took our bags out of the backseat. It was almost eight in the morning, and all I wanted to do was curl up in a bed in one of these bedrooms and go to sleep. I had barely slept last night. All I could think about was the shit that went down at the restaurant mixed with Jabari not sleeping in the same bed as me, so it left me up with my thoughts, allowing me to toss and turn all damn night.

  Truthfully, I didn’t like the way that this pregnancy was going. Hell, in the beginning, neither one of us even wanted the baby. Then, I changed my mind literally moments before I was going to have the abortion. Although I did see progress in Jabari, I still couldn’t help but feel like we were going at it far too often. I was pregnant; I was supposed to be happy and stress free. The happiest I’ve been throughout this entire pregnancy is when I found out that I was pregnant with a girl. On top of that, I was dealing with deeper shit, like not being in contact with my mom while I was carrying her first grandchild.

  Shae’s grandmother was the lady in my life who was staying on top of me and making sure that I was taking care of myself and the baby instead of my own damn mom. Weeks ago, when Jabari and I found out that I was pregnant with our daughter, and he was hounding me in the car about contacting my mom to let her know that I was pregnant, I texted her over a picture of the ultrasound to let her know that she was going to be a grandma. No one knew that I’d done that. Not Jabari, not Jashae, no one. I guess the reason was that it was kind of embarrassing, especially since she didn’t respond.

  Lowkey, I didn’t even know why I expected her to because, like I said, she and I weren’t as close anymore. That all started when I went off to college on a scholarship. Not sure if the distance in our relationship came down to jealousy, me having ill feelings about her lying to me about where my father was after all these years, or what. All I knew was that we both were good at pretending like the other was dead.

  After Jabari got the bags from the back, we walked up the driveway, and in a few seconds, we were standing at the front door. He had a key to the house, so he used it to let us in. Inside the home was beautiful, looking like everything in there was bought from Z-Gallerie, which happened to be one of my favorite stores. I immediately picked up on the good taste that Jabari’s mother had. I fell in love with her living room, where the décor was royal blue and white. Entering the house, there were baby pictures and a photo of Jabari as a little boy that I’d never seen before.

  “Awww. Baby look at this one,” I cooed and picked up one of the pictures.

  It was a school picture of Jabari, and in the corner, it said fifth grade. He was so handsome that if I was carrying his son, I would hope that he would look exactly like this picture. Jabari had long braids on the picture, and he was smiling big, showing off both sets of teeth. He was wearing an old school Phat Farm outfit, and I lowkey wanted to steal the picture and put it in my purse because I was just that much in love with it.

  “I was that nigga back then,” he boasted.

  I playfully rolled my eyes as I set the picture back down.

  “There goes my son! I thought you weren’t coming until later,” his mom said, coming around the corner from what I believed was the kitchen.

  She looked more like Jabari’s sister as opposed to his mother. She was very pretty, and the pictures that Jabari had of her around the house did her no justice. She was tall, just like her son, and she was thick as hell. I’m talking, collard greens and cornbread type of thick. She wore a black set of silk pajamas with a cotton robe that was open. She had a Louis Vuitton scarf wrapped around her head, and just like her son, she had perfect, clear skin. She was an older, female version of Jabari because she looked just like him.

  “I was, but Mahogany isn’t feeling good, so I’m dropping her off. I’ll be back later on, though,” he said.

  She kissed her teeth while rolling her eyes, right before she looked down at my stomach and then at me.

  “Girl, please! You must be one of those! You not even in the third trimester yet. What you mean you don’t feel good? Pregnancy don’t start kicking your ass until those last five weeks anyway. Honey, please don’t be like these new generation of pregnant women who complain their whole damn pregnancy. I worked my entire pregnancy with Jabari, and I did it on my own because his daddy wasn’t around. Consider yourself lucky because women like me didn’t have the luxury of having a good man support us through a time like this,” she said to me.

  “Ma, chill out! Everybody’s pregnancy is not the same. She’s been nauseous and getting headaches since she found out. If my shorty says she not feeling well, then that’s that. I ain’t about to get on her for not feeling herself, and I’m damn sure not about to let you stand here and do it. Chill out. You already know that shit between me and you not even all that good. You trippin’.” Jabari checked his mother so I wouldn’t have to.

  I could already feel it in my gut that she and I were going to exchange a few words, and baby, they weren’t going to be nice words either.

  “Okay, well
it’s nice to see that you love her. I didn’t mean anything by it, though. I was just saying. Go handle your business, I got her,” she told Jabari.

  He stood there for a few seconds before he grabbed my arm and pulled me away. She’d rounded the corner and left the foyer because when I turned back, she was no longer standing there.

  “I could see it all in your face that you don’t wanna be here, shorty. Just do this shit for me, bae. I’ll be gone three hours at the most. That gives you enough time to get some food in your system and get some rest. When I get back, we can do whatever the fuck you wanna do, aight?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to pretend that yesterday didn’t happen, Jabari. We still need to discuss that,” I let him know.

  He pulled on his chin hair and then released a sigh.

  “We will. When I get back, okay?” he said, and I nodded my head in understanding. He kissed my lips a few times, and like that, he was gone, leaving me in this big ass house with his mama and her big ass mouth.

  I counted to ten before I headed in the kitchen area where she was. I also prayed that I didn’t have to curse her silly ass out. Finally, I made it to the kitchen, and this room was just as beautiful as the living room.

  “Your home is very beautiful,” I said, trying my best to play nice.

  She was standing over the stove making something. I wasn’t even sure what it was, but it smelled good.

  “Thank you. My baby, Jabari, brought me this house a couple of years ago. Besides God blessing me with him, this home was the second greatest gift that I ever received from my son,” she proudly said.