Side Chic (18 page)

             
“Bye Tre…” She smirked. “You have a good day now.”

             
“Fuck you
…
” I mumbled under my breath and continued up the stairs.

             
When I pulled into the parking lot of Service Master, I noticed Lala’s car parked next to one of the company vans. “What in the fuck is she doing here?” I asked aloud as I gathered my things and got out of my car.

Lala

After seeing Tre the night before and thinking over how he’d treated me. I’d decided that it was time to stop trying to be nice and worrying about protecting a motherfucka who obviously didn’t give a damn about me. I was more than a little hurt by Tre’s reaction and especially the fact that he’d put his hands on me. After dealing with him for over two years this was how he was going to treat me? No one could have ever told me that things would turn out this way. This man wasn’t the man that I’d been having a relationship with
for the past two years
. He was somebody else or maybe he’d been this way all along. I’d just never seen this side of him but when shit gets hot people normally show their true color
s! It’s cool though because I was
about to show him another side of me as well. He
was
going to wish that he’d seen my red ass and ran in the other direction!

I’d decided to wait for Tre at his job. When I saw his Charger pull into the parking lot of Service Master, I mumbled. “
Game
time motherfucka!” I got out of my car and walked over to his.

He pressed the button on his keychain remote to lock his car doors and activate the alarm before turning to acknowledge me. “What are you doing here Lala?” His tone was much calmer than it had been the night before. He looked as if he hadn’t had much sleep.
Oh well he was
about to lose a whole lot more!

“I came to see you. Don’t worry I won’t take up much of your time.” I assured him. “I did some thinking last night after I left you. I realize
d
that I have more than gone out of my way to be good to you but in return all I got was shitted on…” He got ready to say something but I held up my hand to silence him. “I’m not finished! I can understand your frustration and everything given the situation but the way that you handled things last night was dead wrong! So now I’m done being nice! From this moment on I don’t give a fuck about your relationship or nothing else! Why should I give a fuck? For two whole years you didn’t give a fuck but now you want to play victim like you were raped! Well you can play it however you want but here is how I am going to play it! When I give birth to these babies, I am going to slap a paternity test on your ass and then I am going to dig into this Service Master check! I’d advise you to start looking for another job because your ass is going to need it!” After saying my piece I turned to walk away but he grabbed me by the arm and spun me back around.

“Wait a minute! Are you threatening me?” He snarled.

I snatched my arm away from him. “No motherfucka I am promising you! Don’t put your hands on me again or else you will also have to worry about coming up with bail money!” I warned. “I tried to be nice to you but you didn’t want it that way so now fuck you!” I headed to my car.

“Oh so now it’s like that? When you get mad you want to threaten a nigga?” he followed me.

“Tre save that bullshit for somebody who actually wants to hear it! I sure as hell don’t! Your only concern is your selfish ass self! You don’t give a damn about me, my babies or your family at home if you ask me!” He grabbed me again, turning me around to face him. He held onto both of my arms so tightly that it hurt. “Let go of me!”

“Fuck that! Lala, I am not going to lose my family for you and nobody else! I mean that shit! Why can’t you just go back to Danville where you were? We can work out something as far as me helping you with the babies but all of this paternity shit that you are talking about ain’t going down!”

I looked him dead in the eyes and burst out laughing. “Ooooh so now we can work something out? Now you want to be civilized? Hmmm…let me think about that for a second.” I rolled my eyes up in my head pretending to think for a second. “Ummmm…nope! Now who’s the stupid bitch? You thought that you could treat me the way that you did and then
expect for shit
to still be good? Nigga you must
be smoking! Now turn me a loose!”
I can’t lie looking up into those brown eyes of his was making me a little weak but I kept reminding myself of how he had treated me the night before and remained strong.

He tightened his grip and spoke through clenched. “What you think this shit is a game? Bitch…I mean girl this is my fucking family that you are playing with! What do you expect to gain from this bullshit?”

“Right now I expect for you to take your hands off of me!” I snapped.

“Excuse me but is
everything alright over here?” A
familiar voice asked from behind Tre.

Tre let go of me and turned around. Mr. Johnson was standing there waiting for an answer. “Yeah everything is straight.” Tre answered.

“Lala are you okay?” He asked looking from Tre to me skeptically.

“Yes sir everything is fine.” I smiled. “Tre and I were just talking.”

“Alright, I didn’t know what was going on. I saw you two through the window and things looked a bit heated. I just wanted to make sure that everything was fine.”

“Yes sir, I understand and I appreciate that.”

“No problem. How have you been? I see that you’ve been eating good.” He joked nodding towards my belly.

I laughed. “Yeah I have been eating pretty good.” I played along.

“How far along are you?” He asked.

“Seven months and I will be glad when it’s over.’

“Well congratulations. I sure do miss having you around here. You were one of my best workers.”

“Awww…thank you. I miss you too Mr. Johnson.”

“I don’t know your reason for leaving but if it had anything to do with your pregnancy you could’ve come and talked to me.
I would’ve found something else for you to do.”

“That was one of the reasons.” I admitted. “But there were a few other personal things as well.”
I glanced at Tre briefly.

He scratched his head. “I see, well listen here if you ever want to come back after you have your baby just let me know. There’s always a place for you here.” He patted me on the arm.

Tre looked like he wanted to choke the hell out of the both of us. “Thank you so much. I will keep that in mind.” I looked at Tre and smirked.

“Alright then it was great seeing you again. Take care and congratulations again.” He gave me a hugged and then went back inside the building.

“I guess I’d better be going. I’ll be in touch.” I told Tre as I opened the door to get inside my car.

“Lala, this conversation isn’t over. We need to come to some type of agreement.”

“Bye Tre.” I closed my door and started the ignition.

“This shit isn’t funny yo.”

“I agree and it’s about to get even less funny real soon.” I put my car in reverse and left him standing in the parking lot. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter as I thought about the helpless expression on his face. “That’s what you get for fucking with a bitch like me!”

A few minutes past before my phone vibrated alerting me that I had a new text message. I picked up my phone and checked the message.
Tre: We need to talk once both of us have calmed down and are thinking clearly.

Me: Boy bye…stop texting my fucking phone…remember that? It’s funny how your words can come back to bite you in the ass isn’t it?
After replying I turned off my phone and
tossed it in the passenger seat.

When I got back to my parent’s house I packed up my things so that I would be ready to head back to Danville the next morning. I’d handled my business here for the time being and now it was time for me to head home. I was missing Nisey and Evan terribly and also ready to leave Boykins.

Later that night as me and my parents sat in the living room eating some of my mom’s homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream. My dad asked. “So have you talked to the babies’ father?”

“Yes sir, I have.”

“And…what did he say? Is he going to help you with them?”

“Yeah.” I lied, well not really because he was going to help. Maybe not by choice but he was definitely going to help. “Yeah everything went well.”

“That’s good.” My ma commented. “I thought he was going to be a bit of a problem being that he’s already living with a woman. How is he going to tell her about you and the babies?”

“I have no idea. That’s his problem not mine.” I answered truthfully. “I really don’t want to talk about this on my last night here. I just want to enjoy the two of you.”

“Alright baby.” My ma agreed. “You know, I really don’t like the idea of you driving back by yourself. You are too far along to be traveling long distances alone. I know you aren’t due for another month or so but anything could happen.”

I hadn’t given that any
thought at all but I was sure that everything would be fine. My parent’s worried way too much.
“I’ll be fine ma.”

“Lala, your mama is right. Maybe you should let me take you back or you could stay here.”

“No, I couldn’t ask you to do that. And what about my car? If you took me back how am I supposed to get my car?”

“Or you could stay here.” He repeated.

“No daddy, I have to go back.”

“Why do you
have
to go back?”

“Because that’s where I live now.” I laughed. “I will be fine and if anything happens I have my cell.”

“Baby, I don’t know about you traveling alone…” My ma said again. “I will just be worried to death the entire time.”

“Ma, I will be fine.” I assured her.

“Alright Lala
,
but call me every hour to let me know that you are okay.”

“I will…I promise.”
We sat and talked for a while longer before I decided to go to bed. I kissed both of my parents and told them I loved them because I was sure that they would both be asleep when I left in the morning.

I took a hot shower and then got in bed. After laying down I remembered that I had turned off my cell earlier. I got up and got my cell from my pocketbook and turned it back on so that I could set the alarm to wake me in the morning. No sooner than I powered on my cell a flood of text messages came through. There were several from Tre telling me that we needed to talk and one from Nisey telling me that she couldn’t wait to see me and how much she missed me. I also had a voicemail notification. I dialed my voicemail and typed in my pin. Tre’s voice poured through the phone,
“Lala, this shit has gotten way out of hand. I apologize for p
utting my hands on you last
night. That shit wasn’t cool. I was just frustrated. I mean, first you up and leave without telling me anything. Now you’re back and I hear that you’ve written this book and you’re pregnant! It’s just a lot for a nigga to digest all at once.
I understand that you are mad but shit doesn’t have to be this way. You and I are better than this. Also you were right when you said that you’ve been more than nice by leaving and not causing me any problems. Not just that but you put your own feelings to the side for me. I appreciate that because you could’ve done like most bitches and caused a lot of drama but you didn’t. Well I’m going to get off this phone but I would appreciate it if you would call me back so that we can talk and come to some kind of agreement. Alright holla back.”
With that he disconnected the call.

I sat there on side of my bed holding the phone with tears streaming down my face.
Now why couldn’t he have just done that to start with?
I wondered. All I’d wanted from the beginning was for him to be civilized. I looked at the time on my phone. It read 10:21pm. I strolled through my call log until I came to Tre’s name and then pressed send.
The phone rang a few times before he answered.

“Hello.”

“Hey.” I sniffled. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Are you crying?” There was
unexpected concern in his tone
. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I replied using my hands to wipe my tears away. “What’s up?”

He ignored my question and asked. “What do you mean nothing? Something is obviously wrong if you are crying.”
I let out a sigh. “I’m just very emotional due to the pregnancy and listening to your message made me cry. Tre, I don’t want to fight with you. That is not at all why I came here. I just wanted you to know about the babies because I felt you deserved to know.”

I heard him let out a sigh as well. “I feel you but listen I am at my last building.
I should be done within the nex
t hour. I am in Suffolk tonight so I should be back at the Service Master building no later than 12:30 or 1:00. Do you think we could meet there and talk when I get off?”