“Oh, girl cut it out!” Demi fussed at her daughter, hating that she was happy to see me.
I laughed, tossing my duffle bag in the back, sitting it on the floor. I placed the plaque down on the middle console, so that I was able to reach over, and grab Daylani.
“Awwww. I know. I know. I missed you too,” I cooed to her, getting in the car, and taking her away from Demi.
I closed the door behind me, and I placed Daylani in my lap, so that I could land kisses all over her face. She was still emotional, shedding tears, but you could tell that it was happy tears.
“You going to come home with me tonight. We going to have a movie night, eat all kinds of sweets, and your mama can’t say no because she don’t make the rules at my house, okay?” I asked her, and she bounced her chunky body up, and down in my arms, as if she could fully understand what I was saying to her, and like she was down with everything.
“Aww. You were awarded this?” Demi asked me, picking my plaque up, and examining it in her hands.
“Girl yes. I cried like a little bitch too when she called me up for it. It was the story that she told before she awarded me with it. It really was beautiful,” I voiced, turning my head, so that I could admire my beautiful best friend.
Like a proud mom, she sat there, holding the plaque in her hand, reading off what it said, and she was smiling big.
That same happiness that Uzi had for me back at the ceremony, was the same happiness that Demi had. She knew the monster that I was when I came home. I remember her telling me that I came home ten times meaner than I had already been before jail. She had fears that I might have lost myself, and I think that’s why it made her so proud to be holding this plaque.
“I’m proud of you, Bean. I think we all are. I would love for you to be out here living a much better life, but I know that Ican’t control that part of you, so I just accept it. As long as you’re doing what you have to do to stay safe, that’s all that I care about. You have too many people out here that love you. We don’t need anything happening to you,” her voice cracked when she said that last part, and I started groaning, not wanting her ass to start crying.
Demi has always been the emotional one out of us, and it’s always been something that drove me crazy. A butterfly could land on her nose, and she’ll cry from how beautiful it was. The girl couldn’t help herself.
“I do what I have to do to stay alive. I’m not trying to have my mama bury another child,” I went on to tell her, and with the tears that fell from her eyes, she went ahead and wiped her face.
“You going to keep her tonight for real, or you were just talking?” she asked me.
“I’m keeping her. When I ever lie to her and tell her that I’m going to keep her, and I don’t?” I asked.
“Okay good. Let’s stop to the mall first. I got asked on a date, but I turned it down because I didn’t think that I was going to have anyone to watch her for me,” she said.
“Who you going out on a date with?” I asked, picking Daylani up, so that I could stand her up on my thighs.
“You don’t know him. His name is Keith. We met a couple of weeks ago at the gym. We’ve been talking, getting to know each other and stuff. He’s the total opposite of Gutta. In a whole different kind of lane. He’s in tech,” she said, and I would probably be happy with her getting with anyone outside of her baby daddy. I hated Gutta for her. I loved Daylani like I carried her, but I hated that Demi had a baby with his ass.
I hated Gutta so bad that I couldn’t even get into his music. Every song that I’ve heard from him was degrading towards women too. Mind you, I love rap music. I listen to rap more than I did R&B. I liked the kind of rap music that talked about real lifeshit though. The rappers that speak on where they came from, how they had to get it out the mud, and shit like that. When you turned on Gutta’s music, every lyric was calling women bitches and hoes, how hoes didn’t mean shit to him, and other madness like that. I used to pray for the day that my best friend would get over him, and start dating other niggas, and it looked like that day had finally come.
“I’ll take that over Gutta. Does Keith know that you have a daughter?” I asked her.
“He does. I told him,” she said.
“He knows who your baby daddy is?” I inquired.
“I told him, but he doesn’t know him. He said that he never heard of him, or his music,” she went on.
“Okay. Well, don’t bring that nigga around Daylani. It’s too soon. Continue to feel him out. Any time you want to go out with him, reach out to me to watch her, and if I can’t do it, go to my mama. Whatever you do, don’t have him around her,” I said, dead serious with her. Demi was used to me going on my rants, so she just waved me off.
She turned in her seat, so that she could look at me, and Daylani. She reached her hand over, tickling her daughters feet.
“Mommy, Bean is going to have a baby, and then you’ll finally have you someone to play with,” she said to her daughter calling her the nickname that she used for her.
Daylani sat there smiling, eating it up, not knowing what her lying ass mama was talking about.
“Don’t tell that bullshit to her,” I said, lifting Daylani up, and I turned her around, making her give her back to her mama. Demi laughed like this shit was the funniest thing in the world.
I played around with Daylani for a little while longer, and then I got out, so that I could put her in her car seat. She cut up so bad when I did that. With her little finger, she pointed at the seat next to her, and I knew that was her way of telling me to sitmy ass back here with her. I did just that too. I had to hop in the back with her, and that was the only way she calmed down.
When that little smile came on her face, seeing that she’d got her way, she had me feeling like Dolo. My man has been having baby fever lately. He gets up under my skin badly talking about a baby Ransom. Here I was, getting just a small glimpse of what his ass was feeling.
I just couldn’t. Not now. This world was too grimy for me to want to bring a kid into it. Dolo and I were at our peak with this street shit. I know that he didn’t have any plans of slowing down, and neither did I. I wasn’t sure if a baby Ransom would ever come. If he did, I would have to eat my words because I went years’ talking shit, swearing that I would never in my life have a child.