Trouble

Problems

"Marina, what brings you here?" He asked still grinding while shamelessly eyeing me up and down.

"Clearly not for you, where is she?" I retorted looking past him in to the house where voices still shouted at a television set.

"She, who?" He feigned confusion.

"My cousin, Stella, your girlfriend." I bit of bile rose in my throat as I said the last word.

"Oh, she's out at moment but, I'll tell her you came." He was about to close the door but I quickly pushed it back causing him to stumble and walked in.

"What do you think you're doing? You can't just walk in to people's house like that!" He shouted trailing a small distance behind me as I walked in as looked around.

"Correction, I'm not in people's house I'm in my cousin's house, we are family, and I help her with her bills, this is just as much my house as it is hers if not more." I answered looking around the kitchen before heading toward the living room.

"Well this is my house too and I don't want you in here." He glared ad he grabbed my arm.

I turned and looked at where he held my arms before looking up at his angered face. I raised and eyebrow at him and he seemed to take that as me becoming scared.

"Let me help you understand something, You don't know me from a hole in the wall, I don't like to be touched especially by you." I pulled my arm out of his grip before I grabbed his throat, digging my fingers into the curve of his jaw, just below his ears and pushed up. "This house, this place you think is yours, belongs to me, my name is on this deed, this property is mine, Now I can have you kicked of my property if I see fit, but for my cousin's sake I won't, am I understood?"

He was surprised at my strength apparently and just nodded while gasping for air. I applied a little more pressure before I let him go and continued my trek to the living room. There were three guys in there.They were big but nothing to be afraid of. They were stretched out in different places with chips, beer, popcorn, wings, and more all over the place. The flat screen TV the family got for Stacy as a house warming gift was spilt screened. One side played football while the other played a commerical that changed to a basket ball game.

"Yo D, you missin the games, man!" The one sprawled out on the on the light blue and brown couch shouted.

"Yeah, man, the fuck you at?" The one in the lazy-boy chair shouted too, all the while his eyes still on the screen.

"Is this house you have my house? Is this how she let you run my house and deal with the furniture?" I asked.

All eyes turned to me in surprise. The three men quickly fixed themselves as I walked in an continued to look around

"And just who might you be, pretty lady?" The one that sat on the floor next in front of the couch asked after he stood up.

"You got a little something there in your teeth." I said dismissing his question as I continued to look around at the abused furniture while he quickly checked his teeth on the reflection of his phone.

"We still have yet to know your name, sweetheart." The one on the couch stated as they watched me look through the items and cabinets of the living room.

"A man tells the woman his name first, then asks her name." I finally turned my attention to them.

All three men looked dumbfounded while Devin, my cousin's boyfriend, looked annoyed. With a sigh I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall next to the pearl white dresser that held images of family and friends. I made her promise never to remove any of them, there was something about this dresser that no one was suppose to know about and I had to keep it that way. All the draws on it had been locked all of the pictures were to stay in place but low and behold there were some missing. I looked through the dozens of photos and saw that everything was rearranged and three pictures were missing.