Down With the King of the South Read online

  “Miami told me to tell you to pay the bills with this, and we split the rest,” he said, and I pushed the money in his direction.

  In the past, Miami was always trying to give me money, but we didn’t need it. God had blessed me with a good, high paying job, and all of my bills for the month were already paid.

  “I don’t need it. Keep it,” I let Giovonte know.

  “Ma, if I had to choose any man in the world that I would want you to be with, aside from my pops, it would easily be Miami. When I’m not around to be your protection, I know he’ll be that for me. Since I was a little boy, I’ve watched him show you nothing but love and respect. I can’t say the same thing about Trip, though. My loyalty is with Trip because that’s my ole boy, so I’ll never let it verbally come out of my mouth that I would want you to get with Miami, but just know if I had to choose, it would be him. He’s always been a solid guy,” he said right before he kissed me on my cheek and walked out of the kitchen.

  I heard him jog up the stairs, and then I heard his room door close. Call me crazy, but I found myself wondering where Miami went when he left here. I found myself wishing that we were still on the couch talking. I hadn’t had just pure conversation with a man if it didn’t consist of me going down to the prison and talking to Trip. I missed that. I guess Miami was right when he told me that I was missing out on a gang of shit!

  Toddrick “Miami” King

  I found myself leaving Jashae’s crib with a lot of shit on my mind. Truth be told, I should have never even taken my ass down there, to begin with. Swear that woman gets finer with time. I’ve known Jashae for years. In fact, I was introduced to her by Trip a few months before she found out she was pregnant.

  I was from Opa-Locka, right here in Miami, and I lived there from the time I was fifteen years old. I was raised by my mama and my ole boy. Neither of them had any education like that. In fact, my mama was the only one of the two to graduate from high school. Until the time I was like seventeen, my mama worked at a call center where she pretty much got paid pennies, and my ole boy did janitorial work at a middle school.

  The only reason we ended up moving is that the run down apartments that we were staying in at the time were getting ready to close down, so we ended up moving to Lincoln Field in Miami, which honestly wasn’t any better. That was Trip and Jashae’s hood. That’s where the two of them were from. I was a teenager at the time and being on a video game or on my cell phone wasn’t some shit that was afforded to me, so it was natural for me to go outside.

  Trip and a bunch of other niggas were outside playing football, riding bicycles, shooting dice, or trying to mess with the girls who were outside playing too. It didn’t take long for me to befriend Trip along with the other niggas that he was surrounded by. About five minutes after meeting him, we started up a football game right in the middle of the road. It was about thirty of us outside, and football wasn’t even my sport because I liked to box. Boxing was my thing.

  I remember when she walked up in the middle of the game. Back then, I had long braids that my ole girl used to style for me, and I’ve always been handsome, so I was used to getting that female attention. I knew I wasn’t ugly or no shit like that, but when I saw Jashae for the first time, it’s like I just knew that I couldn’t have her. Mind you, that was before I even knew that she was Trip’s girlfriend.

  She walked over in the middle of the football game yelling at Trip, telling him to come here, and he did. I mean, right in the middle of the fuckin’ game, stopped what he was doing to go and see what she wanted. I had to admit that if a woman that damn fine came over yelling at me to come here, I would have gone running too.

  I remember what Jashae had on that day. It was a hot ass summer, so she was wearing some little ass jean shorts with a red and blue Guess shirt, and she had red sandals on her feet. Jashae had some long, pretty hair that everybody thought was weave. I don’t know if somebody might have done her hair that morning, but I just remember her long hair hanging down her back, and once I got a little closer to her, I was weak for those light brown eyes of hers. Even though I had a nice pair of eyes on me, her shits stood out even more because she had that chocolate skin with those light brown eyes.

  When I saw her, I immediately thought of chocolate, which is why I’d given her the nickname Choc.

  I wasn’t a messy person, so once I knew that Jashae belonged to Trip, I didn’t pursue her. That didn’t mean that I wasn’t secretly crushing on her, though. Luckily, boxing kept me busy, so she didn’t have to rent too much space in my mind. I was a sophomore at the time, and boxing was my life. I ate, slept, and drank that shit.

  My boxing coach, Coach Rick, had given me the nickname Miami. He was from NY with a thick ass NY accent. Upon meeting me, he could hear my Miami slang, so he instantly started calling me Miami. That name just stuck. I took it with me outside of the ring, and before I knew it, everyone started calling me Miami. People rarely called me Toddrick. When my ole girl was alive, she was like the only one to call me Toddrick. I miss the fuck out of that lady.

  Cancer had done my ole girl dirty and took her out of my life. That was a death that I still wasn’t over with till this day. Talk about a mother’s love. When I started boxing, she was always there. I cannot remember a time when my ole girl wasn’t at a match. My boxing matches to her were like national holidays. She would put her request in at work weeks in advance just so she could watch me.

  When I moved away for college, wherever I was fighting, she and my ole boy were loading up the truck and driving to watch me box. The moment I became a professional boxer and received my first check, I did something for them that I had been telling them I would do the moment I told myself that boxing is what I wanted to make as a career. I made them both quit their jobs, and I bought them a beautiful house right in Miami. To be able to do some shit like that and take care of my parents was some shit that I couldn’t even put in words.

  As a child, you’ll really never be able to pay your parents back for giving you life, so you basically just do whatever you can to try and pay them back. I boxed professionally for eleven years. At thirty-three, I held my ole girl’s hand while she was in the hospital bed, and I sat there and watched her take her last breath. I knew right then that it was over for me. I wouldn’t be able to box the same.

  I started doing this shit when I was twelve years old, and each time I looked up, I would always see her face right there in the stands. Literally, a month after I buried my ole girl, I get a text from Tahira, which was a little shorty that I was fuckin’ in LA, telling me that she was going into labor with my baby. For nine fuckin’ months, shorty hid a whole pregnancy from me. People like Choc thought that I didn’t post shit about my baby mama while she was pregnant because I was hiding it, but truthfully, I didn’t know.

  Tahira was a cool chick, had a good ass job at a law firm, owned her own property, but we just didn’t match. It was too much fuckin’ arguing when it came to shorty. I remember the drive down to the hospital. I knew that it was a possibility that the baby could have been mine because I didn’t always strap up with her, but I’ll admit that the main reason I’d gone down to the hospital that day was to prove that the baby wasn’t mine. I was still fresh off of losing my ole girl, so I wasn’t in the position to be a daddy.

  Shitttt, those hazel eyes on my baby girl and the fact that she had my whole face knocked out any accusations that I could make about her not belonging to me. Since then, Tahira and I have just been on our co-parenting shit. I wasn’t boxing anymore, but I wanted to do something that would keep me busy, so that’s when I made the trip back to Miami and started opening the rec centers.

  I had my hands in a lot of shit. The biggest thing that I was working on now is opening up a high school in Miami, that focuses on sports. I had all this fuckin’ money and success, and I wasn’t sharing the shit with nobody. I took care of my ole boy, letting him know that he never in his fuckin’ life had to pick up a mop and clean for nobody else a d
ay in his life, my daughter was straight, her kids, kids, kids would be straight, and my baby mama worked because she wanted to not because she had to.

  Felt like every other night, I was meeting a new bitch at either a club, bar, or restaurant, and I was getting a hotel, just for us to fuck in. Now that I was back in Miami, around people that I knew and grew up with, I felt like I was getting nonstop pussy. They knew that I was Miami the boxer and they knew that I had money so the bitch’s pussy would get a different type of wet when it came to me. I would bring some beautiful looking women who looked like they belonged on the cover of a magazine home with me, but after I got that nut out of my system, they couldn’t seem to hold my attention. This fast life of getting to dive in new pussy every night was good and all, but at the end of the night, when I left that hotel and went back home, the shit had me feeling lonely as hell. That’s why I was able to preach that shit on Choc tonight and let her know that she was missing out because I damn sure knew that I was missing out.

  Choc was that one, man. Beautiful, hardworking, a bomb ass mother. When she loved, she loved hard. I could tell by the way she was giving her love to a nigga who wasn’t even deserving of it. She was that woman who my ole girl would say that I needed to settle down with a good woman so I could give her some grandchildren.

  It was a little bit after 11:00 P.M., and instead of going back home, I decided to head to the club. My cousin Jabari had texted me when I’d left Jashae’s place that he was at The Office, which was a strip club here in Miami and let me know that it was some fine bitches in attendance tonight. I didn’t even care for the bitches tonight. I could just use some good music, a good drank, and just kick it with my fam for a few before I turned it in for the rest of the night.

  It took me about twenty minutes to get to the club, and once I was there, I parked my car up front like I owned this bitch. I was cool with the owner and the security that was working the door. Plus, I was in this bitch about a good three days out of the week, so I felt like I could park it there.

  “Miami! Miami! Miami!”

  The women, even the niggas, were yelling my name as I got out of my car and jogged up the steps, skipping the long line of people that were waiting to get inside.

  “Ohhh, shit! The money man is in the building tonight. You about to pay for a couple of 613 wigs, rent, car notes, all that shit that these bitches need,” the head security guard, Freddy, joked when he saw me.

  I laughed with him, dapped him up, and in a few seconds, I was inside. Right when I walked in, I smell the thick scent of weed in the building. I saw the fine bitches on stage dancing with nothing on, and I felt right at home. I went up front and changed a lot of my big bills for smaller bills so I could have money to throw on the strippers. I supported the naked hustle. Hell, half of these women were doing this shit to feed their kids anyway, so if I could help out with that, I did.

  Once I had about fifteen stacks of ones, fives, tens, and twenties, I headed to the back where Jabari was. I spotted him in his own little section with two fine, thick ass snow bunnies in his lap. I was wild when it came to these bitches, but Jabari was a different type of wild ass nigga. I would usually only take one woman home with me, where he would leave with two, sometimes maybe even three. I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind lying in bed and watching a bitch eat another bitch’s pussy, but threesomes didn’t get me off as much as one on one sex did. It wasn’t because I didn’t have stamina because I could fuck all night, but I was good with just busting down one shorty.

  “There go my boy! You want one of these?” he asked, slapping both of the girls on their asses.

  “Hell nah! I’m a chocolate man. You know I like my chocolate shorties,” I called out over the loud music.

  I could tell that the women who were dancing on Jabari didn’t like my comment because they nastily rolled their eyes at me. I laughed, not giving a fuck if I made them feel some type of way. I loved dark bitches; point, blank, period.

  “Where you coming from?” he asked once I took a seat next to him.

  “I went and saw Jashae and Vonte,” I let him know, and he laughed while shaking his head.

  “That’s why you screaming out you a chocolate man. Everybody knows that Jashae ass is like the fuckin’ president of the pretty chocolate bitches. I haven’t seen shorty in years, with her fine ass. How she looking?” Jabari asked.

  This nigga was carrying on a full fuckin’ conversation with me while bitches were grinding all on his dick like this shit was normal.

  “Mannnn, like temptation. That’s what she looks like, like pure fuckin’ temptation. I got so much respect for Choc that I couldn’t even make that move on her. You know that I always go after anyone that I want, but we going to hurt a lot of people if we fuck around. Trip, her son, the hood, a lot of people because everyone knows her as Trip’s girl,” I voiced.

  “Fuck him! What loyalty do you got to that nigga? You ain’t been friends with him since y’all was teenagers. Get her and show her how a real nigga supposed to treat his girl. She off the market, so you better get her before another nigga do,” Jabari said.

  He slapped the two women on the ass, letting them know to come back in about ten minutes, and they ended up leaving.

  “That’s the thing, another nigga can’t just walk up on her and take her. She loves Trip. Shorty is really ready to do that whole fuckin’ bid with him, and I had to tell her that if he really loved her like he says he does, then he wouldn’t even ask her to do some shit like that in the first place. I’ll never get that girl, and it’s cool because I don’t want to fuck up the friendship. I got a good friendship with her and Vonte, and I don’t want feelings to get in the middle of that. I’m sure her life is peaceful as hell right now, so I don’t need to intervene and fuck shit up for her,” I voiced.

  At the same time, I saw a familiar face walk by. Mahogany had walked by with a drink in her hand.

  “Mahogany,” I called her name out.

  She looked up in our section, squinted, and when she saw that it was me, she smiled and made her way up.

  “Miami! What the hell are you doing here?” she called out right after I stood up from my chair to hug her.

  I could feel my cousin’s eyes on Mahogany. Jabari wasn’t from down here. He was from Atlanta and he actually just moved down here about a year ago, so it wasn’t like he knew Mahogany. Hell, I didn’t know her that well. I just knew her through Choc, and since I hadn’t been around Choc like that lately, you know I hadn’t been around Mahogany.

  Jabari had every reason to be staring at Mahogany right now. I was a man with two eyes that worked real fuckin’ well, so I’ll admit that Mahogany was attractive. I just looked at her as Choc’s friend, though, nothing else. She had light skin like I did, and long, sandy brown, reddish hair, that was just as long as Choc’s but hers was curly. I’m not sure what her occupation was these days, but she could easily be a model because she was tall and had a slim frame. Mahogany was beautiful, and her name fit her well.

  “I’m back here now. I just left from your girl’s spot,” I told her, and she raised her eyebrows in confusion for a second.

  “Who? Jashae? I know she didn’t let you in the house because Vonte wasn’t there,” she boasted, thinking she knew her best friend too well.

  “She did let a nigga in. We sat and talked for about a good hour until Vonte came home,” I let her know.

  “You need to take my friend away from that nigga. I don’t like how he controls her. You know that I could never really stand Trip. When they got older, he was always cheating on her while she would be at home with the baby. Now that he’s in jail, it’s like he’s making her do that fuckin’ time with his ass. Trip don’t like Jashae to go no fuckin’ where. He’s going to drive my girl crazy, but you can’t say shit to her, though, because she loves him too much to let him go,” she went on to say.

  “You a lawyer or some shit?” Jabari jumping in and asked.

  Jabari didn’t care how he spoke to w
omen. Knowing him, this was his way of flirting with Mahogany. I wouldn’t even give him the warning to tread lightly with Mahogany and let him know that shorty had a mouth on her and could curse him out just as badly as he could curse her out.

  “Ummm, do I fuckin’ know you? Not that it’s any of your damn business, but I’m actually a creative director for a fashion company. What the fuck do you do?” she nastily shot back to him.

  “Slap bitches in they fuckin’ mouth for talking to me crazy!” Jabari barked at her.

  This nigga never let a woman get under his skin because he’ll just say something rude in a joking kind of way, and that’ll be the end of that. But there wasn’t a smirk in sight, so I knew Mahogany had pissed him off.

  “Nigga, I wish you would slap me in my fuckin’ mouth!” Mahogany yelled, moving from in front of me and getting in Jabari’s face.

  I knew he liked that crazy ass shit because he started smirking.

  “I probably won’t slap you in it, but I’ll damn sure put my dick in it. Get the fuck out of my face, shorty, before I knock your skinny ass out,” he yelled.

  Both of these motha fuckas were crazy because instead of Mahogany getting mad, she laughed.

  “Pull your dick out right now and let me see if it’s worth putting it in my mouth. Let me see it,” Mahogany challenged.

  “Yo, you trippin’. Gone on with that shit, Mahogany,” I said, jumping in.

  “Bitch, you obviously don’t know who the fuck I am! Turn your head, Miami,” Jabari called out.

  “And you going to be dumb and do it? Y’all fuckin’ stupid,” I said then stood up and went over to the glass table that we had in our section and poured myself a drink.

  “You going to put it in your mouth now or later?” I heard Jabari say to Mahogany when I came back.

  Silly ass nigga was buckling his pants, so he had to have shown his shit to her. I never thought I would say this because I’ve never met a woman who was strong enough to handle Jabari, but Mahogany just may be his match.