Wilde bobbed his head and grabbed his keys to leave. I lowkey wished he would have given me another forehead kiss, but he didn’t. I wasn’t sure what Wilde was doing to me, and I damn sure didn’t know if I liked it.
Iglanced in the rearview mirror for the hundredth time since I’d been in the car. Pierre was still following closely behind me. It was late as hell or early, rather, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the streets. I didn’t begin to relax until I was half a mile away from the garage that I was delivering the stolen Maserati that I was driving to. I was being paid $100,000 for the $200,000 car. The moment I accepted the job, I knew it would be my last. I had enough money to hold me over for a minute while I decided what I wanted to do. If I wanted to remain free, I had to get something legal going on. Playing with fire no longer gave me the thrill that it had when I was younger. There was a time that Pierre had mentioned us getting a franchise like a UPS store or starting a moving company. We definitely needed to do something.
Once I pulled safely into the garage, I breathed a sigh of relief, and my anticipation for the money that was about to grace my palms had me excited. Gordo had money out the ass. He started out paying little young, naïve niggas that didn’t know shit pennies to steal him luxury cars. When I heard him offering aneighteen-year-old $10,000 for a $80,000 car, I almost choked on my own saliva. That kid swore he hit the jackpot and was excited to get ten bands when Gordo was going to make almost $100,000 off the sale of the car after he wiped the VIN and painted it a different color. He knew better than to ever play in my face like that. Really, I could have demanded more than $100,000 for the Maserati, but I was good with that. I had made a lot of money with Gordo. I only had to steal three to four cars a year and could make a half a mil.
I was going to talk to him about taking some of the cars to Wonder, so she could wrap them instead of him painting them. That was just me trying to put some money in her pocket because I respected her hustle. I still flipped Pierre the bird every time he mentioned me liking her, but I couldn’t lie to myself any longer. I had to be feeling shorty if I stayed at her crib while she went through the process of getting that codeine out of her system. I was with a chick one time when she got a call that her granny died. Shorty was hysterical, and I didn’t even give her my condolences, let alone hug her ass. But I was caked up with Wonder while she sweated and trembled. Ain’t that some shit?
Gordo might have been a finesser, but he was a man about his business. The moment I got out of the car, he was ready to inspect the vehicle. When he was done, he nodded his head at his side kick, who promptly grabbed a stack of bills and put them in a money counting machine, so I could see the money was all there. The money was placed in an envelope, and I slapped palms with Gordo.
“Nice doing business with you.” I exited the garage and got into Pierre’s car. I wasn’t a nosey nigga at all, but he had his phone on speaker, and I could hear that he was talking to KoKo. She was still around. They conversed for about five minutes before he ended the call.
“I’m ‘bout to hit that one more time and dead the situation,” he volunteered.
All I could do was shake my head. “It’s a must that you hit it one more time? You know every time you put pipe to her is going to be another time that she gets hopeful about where y’all are going.”
“KoKo is cool and that’s why I’m deading it. She claims she isn’t looking for anything serious, but I can tell that’s a lie. She also wants kids later, and I’m good on that. Nina doesn’t want any more kids and neither do I. Me and shorty get on each other’s nerves, but I love her. I’m ‘bout to get my shit together.”
I didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anything for me to say. I had heard this spiel before, but Pierre would change when he was ready, and I couldn’t tell him if he was ready or not. I knew he loved Nina. For whatever reason, being faithful was just hard for him.
“You think I’m full of shit, huh?” he glanced over at me, and I chortled.
“I didn’t say that. You know when and if you’re ready to change. I can’t call it. You don’t have to convince me, you have to convince Nina.”
“You’re right,” he bobbed his head.
“I do want to talk more about us going in together and starting like a handy man type of business. We can buy a truck and help people move, do junk removal, mount televisions, put furniture together, all that.”
Pierre nodded. “You ready to go the straight and narrow route?”
“Yeah, it’s about time. A nigga getting too old to be running from the police.”
“Feel you.”
“Be safe, G.” I extended my fist for Pierre to bump before getting out of the car.
In my car, I looked at the time on the dash and saw that it was three in the morning. I wondered if it would be rude to call Wonder. I didn’t know how early she had to be up for work. I decided against calling and that only lasted for ten seconds before I was grabbing my phone from the cup holder. The fact that I had only had sex with Wonder since the first time we fucked was wild to me. I hadn’t done it on purpose; it was just since I hit that, I hadn’t wanted anybody else. That was a first.
Wonder answered on the third ring, and she sounded wide awake. “You not sleep?”
She sighed into the phone. “Since I stopped drinking lean, my sleep pattern is fucked up. I sleep for a few hours then wake up.”
I didn’t know of a lot of people that sold cough syrup, but it couldn’t be impossible to get. I commended Wonder for sticking it out and not attempting to find any. She hadn’t even tried to get me to give her any. I was proud of her.
“You need me to come put you to sleep?”
“Confident, are we?”
“Hell yeah. You know I’ll have you snoring and drooling on the pillow two seconds after we’re done. Please don’t front, G.”
“Yeah yeah I hear you talking. Sure. I have to pee, so I’ll go ahead and unlock the door. You can just come in.”
“Cool.”
When I walked into Wonder’s bedroom, she was sitting up with her back against two pillows, scrolling on her phone. Her gaze lifted as I stood at the foot of the bed and pulled my shirt over my head. We stared at one another as I took off my shoes, then my jeans, and my boxer briefs. I walked over to the bed and took Wonder’s phone out of her hand before crawling between her legs.
“Who else you been fucking?” I asked, my face so close to hers that our noses were almost touching.
“Nobody. Where is the condom?”
