"NAH, I NEED THIS SHIT ON THE STREETS TONIGHT," Demon says, sitting in his car on FaceTime with his father's right-hand man, Ace. "They moving as fast as they can, D." Ace sighs flipping the camera around to show the topless women slaving over hot plates that had pots of boiling water to submerge Pyrex bowls filled with Fishscale cocaine.
"Get more people. It's been a month since Monique had her baby. Her ass need to get back to work." He tells him. "Why we tryna flood the market anyway? Vic don't think this shit smart. The niggas off-"
"Gone. Don't even worry 'bout them," Demon says dismissively, glancing at the employee entrance and exit at UIC's Medical Center. "What about-" Ace starts.
"If somebody become a problem, I'mma handle it. I been thought this through. We finna get triple what we was getting last month if y'all do this shit right." He cuts him off seeing the woman walkout. "D-"
"You heard what I said. I want it out tonight." was the last thing Ace heard before the teen hung up on him. "I told you I could've got something from the cafeteria." The woman says, leaning down to peer into the window frame of the black 2019 S550 Benz.
"And I told you to stop eating that nasty shit." He says passing her the Jerk Chicken Fries from the Jerk Taco Man. "Watch your mouth, lil boy." She tells him, still graciously accepting the food.
"My fault, momma."
Demon's mother could easily pass as his older sister despite being forty years old, the smooth natural glow of her brown-skin gave her a youthful essence. The turquoise scrubs complimented her skin perfectly. Her dark brown 4C hair had been brushed and slicked into a low bun allowing the diamond studs in her two piercings to show.
"You wrote Juwan back?" She asks him. "Why would I do some like that?" He responds. "Cause he yo blood. Just because-"
"Ain't no just because, ma. Blood don't make nobody family. He can rot in that cell. Ion give a fuck. I'm not writing his ass back." He starts.
"What happened between me and him, ain't got shit to do with you-" She begins telling him, only to end up getting cut off again. "You know that had everything to do with me."
"You need a real father figure. Just cause he wasn't a good husband doesn't mean he wasn't a good father." She tells him, making him roll his eyes. "Ain't no good father beating they baby momma ass over."
"He ain't beat you and that's all that matters."
"I got Vic and that's all that matters. He been more of a father to me than that nigga ever will be."
"Vic not a good influence." She says, shaking her head.
"But he was good enough for you to cheat on Juwan
with? My sister a product of y'all marriage." Demon's statement leaves her stuck. "Stay out of grown folks' business." was the only thing his mother could say.
"I got his last name. He raised me. Biology don't mean shit to me. He my father." He turns looking straight ahead seeing the black Benz he had seen by his friend's house for the past two days in the parking lot across the street.
"If he wanted what's best for you, you wouldn't be running the streets."
"This a choice. Always has been and always will be." He mutters, watching the sixteen-year-old girl walk across the street to go into the hospital.
"A real father wouldn't have given you the option."
"You didn't care when this shit was paying your tuition? Or for Grandma dialysis? Or for Pops' funeral?" He tells her. "I just want better for you, Adonis." She says.
"You got a diploma out of me. That's more than enough."
"It's not too late to change your mind about UIC. Maybe even Malcolm X?" She suggests. Demon had his mind made up and it was no changing it. He knew what he was good at. "We'll see." He says, so she would drop the conversation. "I gotta go check on a patient." She tells him, glancing at the satellite phone.
"Love you." He tells her.
"I love you too, bubba. Stay safe."
$ $ $
"Hey granny," Corinne says softly, sitting down on the chair next to her bed. "Don't talk." She adds, watching her mouth start to move around the breathing tube, ever so slightly. "They been treating you right?" Corinne continues to ask, grabbing her hand.
She feels two weak squeezes making her smile before looking at the whiteboard to see her nurse was De'Anna.
"Oh, you got your favorite nurse today."
"Glad to hear I'm your favorite nurse, Ms. Frasier." The brown-skinned lady says walking in. "How are you, sweetie?" She asks Corinne who forces a smile.
"I'm doing fine. How about you?" Corinne feels her smile become genuine watching the woman's face light up. "I saw my son today. He's a headache but...that's my baby." She tells them, while checking her vitals and the ventilator.
"I thought it was five percent?" Corinne asks, looking at the board. Her grandmother's ventilator displayed that her lungs were only 75 percent of the work while it supplied the other 25.
"After her blood transfusion, she just needed some more help. We didn't want to strain her too much." De'Anna explains in simple terms. De'Anna finishes up before giving Corinne more time alone with her grandmother.
"Riah finna pop, Grandma. Jacobi gone be here any day now." Corinne starts talking, trying to distract herself from how she felt her grandmother's bones through her skin. She continues to hold her hand, trying her hardest not let her emotions get the best of her.
After four hours of visiting her grandmother, Corinne going back to her father's house to see how her room renovation was going only to get included to the plans Kelis had been making.
"This Lollie." Kelis says formally introducing Corinne to the girl she was with the day she caught her in her bed before adding, "And this Cece, I mean Corinne."
"Where are we going?" Corinne asks, ready to get the little adventure over with. Leaving the hospital always left her with a heavy heart and she didn't want to hear her dad try to scold her for not being receptive to Kelis.
"The Sugar Shack." Paris says, making Corinne nod. "I'mma ride in the front with you, D." Lollie announces as they start walking to the cars. Corinne was more than willing to take her own but that was too much for the short trip.
"You good." He tells her, while getting in the driver's seat while Corinne sits in the back next to Five and Kelis.
"Cece, get in the front." He tells Corinne making her shake her head.
"I'm good." She declines making him repeat himself. She sits in the front, adjusting the seat to her liking, not wanting to squish anyone. Kelis and Five did all the talking while the other three teens sat in silence.
"Who was you visiting at the hospital?" Demon asks, making Corinne look up from her phone. "How you know I was at the hospital?" She avoids answering his question. "You gotta pay attention to yo surroundings, shorty. You know who Priest is. You can't get caught lacking like that." He tells her, shaking his head.
Everybody knew who Priest was in the streets and niggas wouldn't target him. They would want somebody easy and that somebody was Corinne. Everybody knew how Priest felt about his babygirl even though he wasn't the greatest father to her.
"I was visiting my grandma." She mumbles, looking back down at her phone. "She straight?" He asks, urged by an affinity for older black women. His grandmothers practically raised him while his mother was strung out on drugs and his father ran the streets, he always treated them and women who reminded him of them with the utmost respect.
"I hope she will be." Corinne tells him, only for him to glance over at her. Her lack of emotion worried him about the entire situation.
"What y'all talking 'bout?" Lollie asks, not realizing their conversation was over before it even started.
"Nothing," Corinne mumbles.
"Oh okay. Cause I thought y'all was-" Lollie starts making Demon cut her off, "Mind your fucking business 'fore I put yo ass out."
He was never in the mood to deal with her but he knew Corinne was clearly not in the best headspace and Lollie wasn't making it any better.
"Like I was saying, cause I just know you don't want her young ass." Lollie starts, making Corinne roll her eyes while getting her AirPods out of her purse. Lollie was only a year older than Corinne just like Meech, Five, and Paris.
"It don't fucking matter to you." He tells her glancing over at the girl in the passenger's seat who had tuned them out with the noise cancellation feature on her Airpods. "It do matter to me cause we-"
"We ain't shit." He cuts her off.
"You let me give you head so that mean-" Lollie begins with no shame because she felt oral sex was territorial but at the same time that was all she could get out of him.
He rolls his eyes asking her, "Why you think sucking dick gone get you cuffed? What I tell you when you tried to fuck?"
She goes quiet making Corinne shake her head, pausing the TikTok to listen closely. "I told I don't know where the fuck yo hoe ass been since you wanna be quiet and act like you got amnesia now." He answers for her. As mean as Demon airing her out was, Lollie brought it on herself.
"He said he don't know where yo hoe ass been." Five laughs, making Corinne shake her head. "Y'all so mean," Kelis says what Corinne was thinking as they park behind the black Hellcat.
One thing nobody could ever take from Corinne was the purity of her heart. You could put her through hell and she would still wish you the best.
"What you getting, Rin?" Five asks, when they all get out walking towards the long line. "I don't know yet." She shrugs stuck in between a scoop of Cookies and Cream ice cream or a banana split. "What you say?" He asks.
"She don't know yet." Demon repeats for her.
"Aye, lemme get a scoop of vanilla ice cream," Meech says. " And I want a funnel cake sundae with strawberries." Paris tells the cashier.
They pay and get their ticket making Kelis and Five step up to order. Corinne felt like they might've been talking but Kelis kept options around. They order and it was Corinne's turn.
"Umm...can I get a scoop of cookie and cream?" She asks, after glancing at the menu one last time. "And lemme get a double scoop of that." Demon says, standing behind her. "That'll be seven twenty-five." She tells them.
"What you getting?" Corinne asks Lollie, ignoring the Devil on her shoulder telling her to leave it alone. "A blue raspberry slushee." She mutters. "Can you add that?"
"Ten eleven." She corrects the total.
"I got it." Corinne says, going in her purse for her wallet. "Nah, you cool." Demon tells her, while going in his pocket his black Prada wallet.
"No, I can pay." She says, pulling a twenty from her pink Louis Vuitton Lock Mini wallet. "I said you was cool." He tells her, moving her hand.
"And I said I got it." She shakes her head, moving his hand.
"Y'all really finna stand here and argue about who finna pay?" Five asks.
"I'm not arguing with nobody." She says, handing the cashier the twenty, after stepping up making Demon chuckle at how small she was thinking she was running shit.
"Nah, shorty. take this." He says trying to force a dub on her. "You good." She takes her receipt and change. "Shorty, take the money." Demon tells her making her shake her head. "I'm good. Keep your money."
"I'll take it." Lollie says, since no one else would. "You ain't offer to pay for shit.", Demon tells her. "Fuck you."
"You can walk back with that bullshit." He says. "You gotta chill." Corinne mutters, declining the incoming FaceTime call. After three more calls, she gives in and answers.
"Where you at?" The olive skinned boy asks.
"Why?"
"Cause I wanna know. Where you at?" He continues to question. "Outside." She kept it curt with him because she wasn't trying to give off the wrong impression.
"You better not be with no other nigga." He tells her making her roll her eyes. "You not even a nigga. Stop saying that shit." She says. Her thumb tempted to end the call.
"You heard what I said." He huffs making her end the call before putting her phone on Do Not Disturb.
"You good?" Paris asks, making Corinne look up from her phone. She nods, clicking her phone silent. "Her boyfriend got her in a bad mood." Lollie says, trying to look at Demon's reaction to her words.
"Y'all seem toxic." Meech says, watching Corinne decline calls from unknown numbers. "He toxic." She tells them putting her phone on DND.
"What's his name?" Paris asks. "He nobody important." Corinne says, walking to the counter to grab the ice creams and slushee.
"Yo fat ass just had to get a funnel cake." Meech complains, seeing everybody else had their dessert .
"How long y'all been together?" Kelis asks, trying to put two and two together. Last she knew Corinne was messing around with her boyfriend because of how Corinne reacted when she saw him with his ex at Priest's annual End of Summer picnic in the park. It wasn't anything big but her energy shifted drastically.
"We not together," Corinne says.
"Wait so-" Five starts. "I broke up with him." She mutters, going unheard by everybody. She was getting comfortable with them and you could tell by how she talked. She had started code-switching from her proper vocabulary to her ebonics.
"Explain this lil situation," Meech tells her.
"You so nosey but basically I liked him or whatever for a lil minute when I was young like fifth-grade but I got over it real fast cause fuck him." She starts making Paris exclaim, "Period!"
"But he ended up finding out, late. Like I was over that and he started trying to talk to me and now it's- Fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh. Now it's seven years later and I'm over it." She says.
"Y'all been talking for seven years?" Five asks, making her shake her head.
"No, we dated for like four of them, off and on. And then I broke up with him cause he cheated on me so now I'm done with him for real. I just can't be with nobody that'll cheat on me." She tells them.
"Cause like why cheat, when you can be single and do you. Like that don't make sense to me." She elaborates. Not a single soul commented on that statement because they all knew she was right and all chose to do the wrong thing.
"So you fuck with lames?"
"Not no more. " She mutters, making Demon nod.
"Well shorty, I ain't scared of Priest so let me know when you ready. " Five says, making her roll her eyes and Kelis look at him. "So you never talked to nobody else?"
"Yeah but whenever I talked to boys or whatever, I would cut them off or disappear when it got too serious cause he was always in the picture and I felt like we been doing this too long to just give up now and I would ghost them but now he a dirty bitch and he can go to hell." She says.
"So you be playin' niggas?" Paris asks, making her laugh, shaking her head no. "They always know what the deal is with me. If they get feelings involved, that's on them.
"Aye, g. She just like yo sick ass, D." Meech laughs, walking to the counter to get him and his girlfriend's desserts.
"Fuck out of here." Demon mutters. He had the typical hood nigga mentality that bitches ain't shit. He had a girlfriend in high school that did him dirty so he went into every situationship assuming that they were going to leave so he always made sure shit went left on his terms. Whether it be him cheating or ghosting them. He refused to feel pain like that again.
"Y'all a perfect match."