“I’m cool with that.”
“You want to come? It’ll just be her and Breezy.”
“Nah. I’m good.”
Tyler grinned. “You know Kiandra isn’t going to trip. She trusts you more than I’ve ever seen a female trust a nigga. Shit, she trusts you more than mom trusts dad.”
I frowned. “That’s because I don’t give her a reason not to trust me. I’ve never cheated on Kiandra.”
“Exactly. So, if you tell her it’s just a friendly outing, she’ll believe that.”
“I’m good, Tyler. I have moves to make.”
Just because I was good at resisting temptation didn’t mean I was a fan of having it dangled in my face.
The next evening, I walked behind Kiandra with my hand placed on the small of her back subtly guiding her. When she reached the door of the restaurant, I pushed it open from behind her, and she stepped through.
“Anything you need or want before we take it in?” I asked as we trekked toward the valet stand.
“Nope,” she smiled. “I’m so stuffed, I don’t need anything else until tomorrow afternoon.”
I chuckled at her comment before giving the valet attendant my name while tossing an icy glare at the small group of women sauntering by us. They were gawking disrespectfully, and shit like that irritated me. Kiandra wasn’t the confrontational type. She worked in the human resources department of Diamond Cove University, and she’d probably never been in a fight in her life. I despised bird brain bitches that felt it was cute or okay to ogle or straight up flirt with me when I was with Kiandra. She didn’t like when I cursed them out for it, so I had learned to ignore it. Just once, I wanted her to stand up for herself and knock a bitch’s head off her shoulders, but that simply wasn’t Kiandra’s personality.
When the smile disappeared from my face and my nostrils flared slightly, the women’s gazes snapped in another direction. Kiandra was safe. She was plain and borderline boring. She liked to travel and eat, but she didn’t do clubs, lounges, or hookah spots. Kiandra listened to R&B, gospel, and jazz. I could list ten popular rappers, and she wouldn’t know who any of them were. The way she dressed was modest, and she couldn’t tell the difference between a Chanel bag or a Birkin bag. She was the kind of woman that most street niggas wanted to wife. Her creditwas good, and she didn’t have a record. She could put shit her name, and they’d never have to stress if she was sleeping around, up to no good, etc. A woman could be unapologetically her, and I could still rock with her, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish she was a little more spontaneous. A little freakier. That we had more things in common.
I owed Kiandra. At first, she started out as something to do. She was pretty. A good girl that wanted to test the waters with a bad boy, and I gave her that. I was twenty-four at the time and mature when it counted, but there were times that I still moved reckless as hell. I was posted up in Kiandra’s crib one day while she was cooking for me. When taking her trash to the dumpster, I spotted someone that I had beef with, and I beat his ass right then and there in the parking lot. My dumb ass didn’t leave fast enough and not only did neighbors call the police, but they told them which apartment I’d gone into. Thanks to me, Kiandra’s place smelled like weed, and she got evicted.
I felt like shit. With an eviction on her credit, it was hard for her to get a new place, so I gave her $50,000 to help her buy a crib. She was able to get a loan through one of the local credit unions, and she was approved with no money down, but I told her to put the $50k toward her closing costs, appliances, the mortgage, etc. After I got her in a new place, I felt like my debt to her was repaid. I was still sleeping with her on a causal basis and doing my thing with other females as well. After about a year, I got shot four times, and I was fucked up for a good three months. Kiandra nursed me back to health. She was there for me every single day. Shorty even took two weeks off work, so she wouldn’t have to leave me alone.
Her parents loathed me. The one time I saw them, they looked at me like I was shit on the bottom of their shoes. I had tattoos covering damn near every inch my body, including a small one on my face. Even my knuckles were tatted. Theylectured her for weeks about dealing with me, and it went in one ear and out the other. I began seeing more and more how trifling females could be a nigga’s downfall, so aside from just giving her money, I cuffed her. I felt she’d not only be good for me, but taking care of her was my way of saying thank you. Looking back, I wifed her for the wrong reasons, but we were three years in, and what could I do about it? I knew that Kiandra loved me, and I had no desire to break her heart.
I kept thinking over time the love would come. But I looked at Kiandra like a best friend versus my soulmate. Since I wasn’t looking for some whirlwind romance type shit, the situation was fine for me for the most part. Kiandra stood 5’4, and she had deep brown skin, doe shaped eyes, and thick hair that touched the middle of her back. She rarely wore weave, she didn’t get her nails done, and she didn’t wear make-up or lash extensions. She had a little weight on her and would look good in form fitting clothes, if she wore them. While Kiandra being a good girl wasn’t a bad thing, there were times that I was drunk or high, and I wanted some nasty ass sex. I liked a female that talked dirty, threw that ass back, sucked my dick at random times. That wasn’t Kiandra. Shit, she rarely sucked dick at all.
In the car, the sounds of Keith Sweat wafted from my speakers, and Kiandra looked over at me. “Oh, I meant to tell you at dinner, my parents want me to go with them to Stone Ridge for the weekend. They’re leaving Friday morning and coming back Sunday evening. That cool?”
I chuckled before glancing at her. “What you mean is that cool? I don’t tell you where you can and can’t go.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’ve never stayed gone for an entire weekend. You might need me,” she jested.
“I think I can manage for a weekend. I know you like Stone Ridge. Go have fun. Maybe your parents won’t spend the entire weekend trying to talk you out of dealing with me.”
“I think they have pretty much accepted the fact that it’s a waste of time.”
That got a snort out of me because that would never happen. Her parents would use their last breath to try and deter her from being with me, and I refused to believe otherwise. It didn’t bother me at all because I wasn’t fucking her parents. They could dislike me all they wanted, but Kiandra was twenty-nine years old. I wasn’t pressed to get married, but if I ever did marry Kiandra, I’d bet money her parents wouldn’t attend the wedding. That was also fine by me, but it would bother Kiandra. Kiandra talked a good game, but I knew being in a relationship with someone her loved ones didn’t approve of wasn’t easy for her.
“I told my dad you were thinking about getting your real estate license. I could tell he was impressed.”
I didn’t respond because there wasn’t anything to say. I didn’t seek approval from Kiandra’s father. I was thinking of taking the real estate exam because I needed money the legal way. In high school, I dabbled with selling drugs, but I was never big time with it. I made enough money to stay fly and to buy an eight-year-old Camry my senior year, but I was far from a kingpin. After high school, I got turned up off scamming. Counterfeit money, fake checks, credit card fraud, selling CPN numbers. From the age of nineteen to twenty-three, I saw at least two million dollars from scamming. I had a two-bedroom condo, two closets filled to the max with clothes and shoes, jewelry out the ass, a BMW, a Maserati, and every electronic device that a person could think of. I even had a few females that did income tax fraud that got me back an $11,000 refund two years in a row. I’d never even worked a legal job.
When their asses got Fed time, I fell back from scamming and started robbing. I guess one could say I’d done everything except get a job. I only robbed big fish. If my take wasn’t at least $10,000 after a robbery, I felt like I wasted my time. Themost I’d ever gotten from my cut of a robbery was $83,000. I sold some of the jewelry that I copped when I was scamming and even though it had been a year since I’d robbed anyone, I had money stashed. I was living quite comfortably, but I knew sooner rather than later, my ass needed to get on my grind and start making legal money. One thing I had was the gift of gab, so I knew real estate could be lucrative for me. Not even knowing how hard the real estate test was to pass made me hesitant because I wasn’t a dummy by far.
I approached a red light, and Kiandra reached over to touch my arm. “And I’m still waiting on you to find a class to enroll in.”
Chuckling, I looked over at her. It was very possible for a woman to be smart, ambitious, motivating, and like nice things. I didn’t look down on any female that carried Chanel bags and drove foreign cars, but Kiandra wasn’t into all that, and it saved me a shit ton of money. She wanted to see me win and it wasn’t for her own gain. I had just parted my lips to speak when I noticed the person in the car beside us. He was staring a little bit too hard and by the time recognition set in, his window was rolling down.
“Kiandra! Get down!” I yelled as I reached underneath the seat for my gun, but it was too late.
Glass shattered in her face, and she screamed as a barrage of bullets hit my car.
