He waved her off. “You do too much. I don’t even know if I’m feeling having a baby anymore.”
Blakeney’s heart dropped to her feet. The words replayed in her head for almost a minute before she could respond. The shock was real. “What the fuck do you mean, you don’t know if you’re feeling having a baby anymore? You said that dumb shit like there was a choice at this point. At one time, you were more excited than me. Now you don’t know?”
She was livid. The fact was, she was more upset at herself than she was him. She knew something lingered in the air of her home that smelled like fuck nigga, but she didn’t want to admit it to herself. Now that it was in her face, she wasn’t sure if she could handle it.
“Man, you act like shit can’t change. Yeah, I was excited. Now, I’m not,” he said with a side eye. “Just like a bitch can change her mind about fucking, a nigga can change his mind about wanting a baby.”
Yeah, Blakeney would not play these games with Cory. She had allowed herself to play games with him for far too long when she knew better. Her parents taught her a long time ago to not take shorts from anyone. Cory had been coming short for a while. Now he was all gone.
She slowly stood from the couch that she sat on. “You’re absolutely right, Cory. Since you’ve changed your mind, you need to change your address. You can’t stay here with that energy. I need a man who’s about his business. Me and my son deserve more.”
Cory’s mind was blown. He didn’t expect her to react that way. He thought that it would be a little argument, she would go off and cry for a little bit, then just stay out of his way. At no time did he think she would kick him out.
Once he got his thoughts together, he jumped up from his seat. “You can’t be fuckin’ serious, Blake. You act like I’mcheating on your ass or something. All I said was that I didn’t want a kid.”
Her hand went to her protruding belly. Her son kicked the fuck out of her side. “Nigga, when I told you that I was pregnant, that was when you should have said that shit. I even asked you if we should consider termination. Your goofy ass said you wanted your baby. I’m thirty-six weeks! It’s a lot too late.
“At this point I don’t give a fuck if you were cheating. That would just be an added reason that your ass has to go. You’ve made your position clear. . . You don’t want our son. Guess what? If you don’t want him, then you don’t want me. Get the fuck out of my house, homeboy.” The game was officially over as far as Blakeney was concerned.
Cory’s thoughts were all over the place. He had an amazing situation with Blakeney. Yeah, he lived in her house, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford his own spot. He made money in the streets too. He didn’t work under Travis, but he worked under Lo’ak. Lo’ak came up under Geo, who passed the kingdom down to Lo’ak. Tiberius Sr., who Travis worked under and with, and Geo had a mutual understanding. There was never beef between the two teams, stretching back generations.
Cory made good money on the block, but why get his own spot when he lived with Blakeney basically free? Yeah, he threw her some money for some bills, but he knew that she didn’t need the shit. Her parents bought her house for her as a twenty-first birthday gift. The shit was huge and paid for. He never understood what a twenty-one-year-old needed with a five-bedroom house.Nah, this can’t be happening!
He tittered. “Nah, I’m not going any fuckin’ where.” He sat back down like he belonged. In his mind, he did. “If you want me gone, you better serve me an eviction, bitch. I’ll get my ass out in thirty days.”
Blakeney’s head bucked back and eyelids stretched. There was no way that he just spoke to her in that manner. Yeah, he’d bumped his head. “Okay, bet. Let’s see if you talk that shit when my daddy gets here, ho-ass bitch. You Tony Tiger tough now, but when he gets here, something tells me you’re gonna be Stimpy in this bitch.”
When she turned to the side to reach for her phone on the side table, the unexpected happened. She was knocked down by a punch to the side of her face.What the fuck!
Cory couldn’t let her call her father. He knew that was a death wish. The fact that she would really call him infuriated him. All he saw was black, because in his mind it wasn’t that fucking serious. He didn’t want a baby with Blakeney, and that was that.
Time elapsed fast from the moment the assault started to when it finished. It wasn’t until the finishing point that he snapped back into his sanity to realize what he had done. His hand went to his head, and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. He looked down at the woman that he’d been with for two years. She was unconscious and bloodied. “What the fuck did I do?”
He knew he had to get the fuck on through. This didn’t have to end here. Yeah, he didn’t want a baby with Blakeney because it would ruin an opportunity that he felt hung in the air. He had to get out.
Without a care to check on her, he rushed to their bedroom to grab a suitcase to pack some of his shit. He didn’t have time to get everything, but he needed his essentials. Once he had all of the things he felt he needed, he left the house. Once he was on the highway, he made the call that he’d wanted to make for a while.
A Short Time Later
Frozen Solid . . .
Blakeney lay on her living room floor for almost two hours before her mother popped up at her home because of no response from her phone calls. Marla had planned to come over anyway to help organize the gifts and make sure her baby girl was alright.
The doctors told Marla and Travis, thank God she came when she did, or it would have been a double fatality. Marla called her husband first then emergency services on a three-way call. Travis got there before the police, which gave him time to look at the cameras in his daughter’s home. When he saw and heard the confrontation and assault, he knew right then that he would have his people pay for a plot at York Memorial Park.
Several days later, Blakeney had yet to wake up from her coma. Travis and Marla’s minds reeled with how they would tell their daughter that her fuck-ass boyfriend killed their child. How did they go from the celebration of their grandson’s soon-to-be birth to his death?
Travis called the troops to look for Cory. Derrick led the charge, and he reached out to Lo’ak for an assist. When Lo’ak and Sully saw the camera footage, it was automatic. Cory was excommunicated. It was told to his team that if any of them spoke to him for any other reason than to find his location, the same would happen to them. Excommunicated was the worst thing to be because it meant death.
They hadn’t had luck yet, but Travis knew that they would find him. Niggas like Cory made stupid moves under pressure. That was clear with his actions toward Blakeney.
“Marla, leave that girl alone.” Travis lightly fussed at his wife. “I don’t think she’s going to care that her lips are ashy when she wakes up. That will be the last thing on her mind.”
Marla waved her love off. They coped in different ways. She hovered and had to take care of the people she loved. That was really no different from what she already did, but when she had to cope with something, it became compulsive. “I know she won’t, but if I can stop my baby’s lips from cracking, then that’s what I’ll do. I can’t bring her son back, so this is the least I can do.”
Travis’s heart broke even more at the pain in his wife’s voice. This was something that he couldn’t fix. Neither of them could bring back their little grandson. Yes, he would ensure that consequences for Cory’s actions were felt.
Cory’s mother had already been sent a stylist for the funeral. That was Marla’s doing. She wanted Sandra, Cory’s mother, to grieve in style. Sandra thought that Marla was just being her normal, giving self. That call would come soon when she had to wear those nice black dresses that she picked out.