“What?” she laughed. “I wasn’t insulting either one. Yes, I’m single. And I’m twenty-three. You?”
I stared at her. Twenty-three was young. I was seven years older than her and while they say women matured faster than men, I typically didn’t like to deal with anyone under the age of twenty-five. It was rare that their asses were mature, so I damn sure wasn’t trying to go too young.
“What? That too young?” she sensed my hesitation.
“I usually like them twenty-five and up. I don’t like that immature bullshit.”
“There isn’t anything immature about me. I’ve had my own place since I was seventeen, I work full-time at a bank, and I’m in college. I don’t have time to be immature.”
I knew nurses, teachers, etc. with kids, and side hustles that still found the time to be immature. When dealing with women, it was just the luck of the draw. Almost everyone I ran into talked that big girl shit about not catching feelings and understanding a man not wanting a relationship but once you sexed them good a handful of times, they forgot all about it. Perfect example was Misha trying to bring a baby into what was supposed to just be some freak shit. I took shorty’s number and told her I’d call, but I still wasn’t sure.
In the car, I thought about what Pierre said about Wonder. I had to chuckle at the way I got on her nerves. I couldn’t care less if she liked being involved in the game I was playing or not. I was gon’ taunt Drew’s hoe ass for as long as I wanted to. I could tell by the way he glared at me and Wonder at the park that he wasangry. And I was going to keep adding fuel to the fire. Fuck Drew and fuck Boone.
I letWonder breathe for two days, and then I decided to pop up at her shop. When I walked in the garage, she was wrapping a Lexus. As she squatted on the side of the car, smoothing out the vinyl, I found myself wondering who taught her how to wrap cars. I couldn’t front; she was nice with it. From what I could see, she had decent clientele, but I felt she should have been wrapping cars back-to-back. Cars should have been lined up around the block waiting to be wrapped by her. Wonder looked over and saw me. I laughed when she rolled her eyes, and that made her suck her teeth.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I just came to check you out. See what you got going on. You heard from Drew?”
Wonder once again rolled her eyes as she stood up. “He’s blocked. I don’t even know why you think he cares about the situation. He was with his baby mama at the park. That’s who he should be focused on.”
“You can tell yourself that BS if you want to, but you saw the way he was looking at you like he wanted to come where we were and slap the taste out of your mouth. It got up under his skin for sure. He was so jealous hearted and bitter that he started lying, telling people my cousin was on his paperwork. He could never show any proof, and that same cousin died at the hands of his friend, Boone. I’m going to make that pussy hate me ten times more than he hated my cousin.” Just speaking on Drew had me heated.
“Using me to make him mad is crazy work. Who said I wanted to be in the middle of your games?”
“You don’t have a choice.” I meant every word of what I said. She didn’t have a choice. I had already told Wonder what it was, and I wasn’t going to keep repeating myself.
“Do I have a choice with you being here right now?” she snapped and brushed past me.
I watched Wonder as she walked around to the other side of the car and started working on it. I had to ask myself if I really liked getting underneath her skin because I was an asshole or if it was because when her brows were furrowed, that bottom lip poked out, and her face slightly crumpled from frowning, she was sexy as hell. The plan wasn’t to be attracted to Wonder, but I was.
“Friday night. We’re going to the racetrack.”
“Of course we are,” she grumbled.
“Bring your friend, KoKo.”
Wonder’s eyes snapped in my direction. “No. Don’t involve me in no bird shit. You introduced me to Nina, and I like her. I am not letting my best friend talk to Pierre’s baby mama,” her nose scrunched.
I had to appreciate the fact that she seemed big on loyalty. She’d only met Nina once and most females wouldn’t give a damn about one interaction in the club. They’d still try to fuck Pierre themselves, or at the least, turn one of their homegirls on. I couldn’t even be mad that she didn’t want to turn her people on to Nina’s man because at the wrong place and the wrong time, Nina would definitely run up on KoKo and do her dirty.
“Who said you had to be bringing her for Pierre?” I shrugged passively. “But you don’t have to invite her if you don’t want to. I’ll pick you up around eight.”
Wonder ignored me. I stood back and watched her work. “I’m going to see if some of my homeboys want to get their whipswrapped. I could have you at least five or six cars lined up to be wrapped in the next day or two.”
Wonder cut her eye at me. “Am I supposed to say thank you?”
“That would be the polite thing to do.”
She drew back and turned to face me with her hands on her hips. “I know you aren’t talking about the polite thing to do. Aside from you opening car doors for me, I’ve never seen you exhibit any form of manners. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were raised by wolves.”
I grinned. “Bring a bag with you Friday. I think I want you to spend the night at my crib again. My granny raised me, and she is something like a wolf indeed,” I winked at her.
“I hate you,” she glared at me.
I blew her a kiss and walked out of the shop. In the car, I checked my missed calls and Lonna was among them. I called her back, and she answered on the first ring.
“Have you been with Misha?” she asked, making me frown.
