The middle.

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Jason
             Declan's gang all took seats in the living room while my boys all stood around talking amongst themselves. In total there was about 25 of us in there and there was still some of my boys that wasn't here yet. I cleared my throat and the room got quiet real quick. Declan stood beside me with his arms crossed. "As all of y'all know, we no longer have beef with each other." Declan said. I nodded. "Yeah, instead we have somebody bigger on our hands to deal with. This man is much closer than you all think and we're trying to keep our family and friends safe for as long as possible while we go after him." I gave Za one of our special looks and he nodded.

"With that being said, not all of us are going to be in the same location, but we will be on the same mission. We want the ones that won't be here to go back to the states and lay low but not too low. We want you all to keep watch out for this man." Declan said. His crew all nodded and my gang just stood there. They didn't take orders from anybody else but me. "Y'all too, the fuck? Y'all heard the man. Za, Khalil, Addis, and Julian are staying here with me. The rest of y'all get your plane tickets ready because you're going back to the states. Oliver," I said and he looked up through his glasses. "I need you to provide all the weapons you can get, man. We really need you on this one." He grinned and grabbed his briefcase. "On it, sir."

"They call you sir?" One of Declan's members said with his face turned up. Declan glared at him. "They do." I said and pulled out my phone. I was about five minutes late for breakfast with Alani and wasn't about to keep her waiting any longer. "You will too after I'm finished chopping your ass up and putting you in the dump for the rats to eat." The man looked around awkwardly and his crew laughed at him. I see he was the Za of Declan's crew with all of that mouth. "Sir, yes, sir!" Another one of his member's said and they all laughed. Declan and I bumped fists. "I'm out, yo. You got this?" I asked. He nodded and I walked out the room.

Lani was standing at the door with her purse on her arm and her phone in her hand. She was too busy texting to notice me standing there so I cleared my throat and she smiled when she looked at me. "Jason." She said and wrapped her arms around my neck. "I was about to say," I said and she pecked me on the lips. "I know you weren't going to stand over there and not give daddy some love." She rolled her eyes and opened the front door. "My dad is at work." I shut the door behind us and laughed. "I'm your daddy, baby girl. Don't deny it."

She walked to my car and waited for me to unlock it with her arms crossed. "You going to open the door or just stand there and stare at me?" I grinned and looked at her still. "I mean I can look at you all day but I won't cause I'm hungry so," I unlocked the car and reached behind her to open the door for her. "I won't."

She got in the car and I shut the door. I ran over to the other side and got in too. "Call me daddy and I'll take you anywhere you wanna go." She groaned and rolled her eyes again. "Jason, please just drive so I can get some food. I don't even care where we go." I nodded and leaned back in the seat with my hands on the steering wheel. "Cool. We can stay here then and eat what your Mami cooked, Mami." I winked and she pressed the button on the car to make it start. "Jason if you don't start driving this car!" She said and looked out the window. "You're already late so why make us later?"

"Because I wanted to get on your nerves, obviously." I leaned across the console and kissed her lips. She happily kissed me back and I took her bottom lip between my teeth. "S-stop." She said and I pulled back. "Whatever you want, babe." Lani narrows her eyes and I pulled off. "Where are we going though?" I asked. "Waffle House. I want chocolate waffles."

I gave her the side-eye. "You're disgusting." She shrugged and looked down at her phone again. "Whatever. They're amazing and you're just jealous because you don't like chocolate." I grabbed her free hand and kissed her knuckles. "I do though." She rested her hand in mine. "That's not even what I meant but okay."
~~~
Alani
Jason looked down at his menu with a serious face. His lip was slightly swollen from all of the stolen kisses I had gotten from him on the ride over here and his hat was now turned to the back. "Jason?" I asked. He lifted his head to look at me. "Can we talk about the divorce?" I was scared to ask him about it but I knew that if I didn't, it would eat at me for the rest of my trip here. He slightly nodded. "What do you want to know?" I let out a sigh of relief. "Everything, is that okay? I didn't want to make it seem like I was being nosey or anything-" He cut me off. "You're not. The divorce isn't final but it should be in a couple of weeks or so. I paid big money for them to make it a speedy trial to finally have it off of my back." I nodded. "And Sarah?" He looked back down at the menu. "Sarah got her shit and moved out of my house. She took a third of everything with her but I can make that back in a couple months."

"Out of curiosity, how much does divorcing Jason McCann earn a woman?" I asked and took a sip of my tea. He grinned again and it was the sexiest thing ever. "About $1,000,000." I choked on my drink and slammed it back on the table. He reached over and held my hands a over my head. "You good?" I nodded and he let me go. "That's a third of your bank account?!" He shook his head no. "That's a third of what I had stashed in my house that she knew about. I meant it when I said she wasn't getting shit from my bank account."

"You keep money in your house? That's dangerous."

He closed the menu and looked at me seriously with his hands folded on top of each other. "Not if you know how to hide it. I have money everywhere, Alani. You do too." I looked at him confused. "Excuse me?" He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me. "I started stashing away money for you after that first night I spent at your house. I knew you were something special when I actually stayed there willingly with you. So I put aside some money for you whenever you decided to come back to daddy."

"Your name is Jason." I said and picked up the paper. He laughed. "Same thing."

The paper was a printout of his last transaction into "my" account and he wasn't lying when he said he had money everywhere. "Why did you do this?" I asked seriously. He took the paper back and put it in his jacket pocket. "For you. Maybe to start your own fashion company or magazine or whatever you wanted to do with it really. It was just a thought that turned into something bigger."

"Your father would have a couple of cows if he saw that." I said. He tapped his fingers on the menu. "I don't care what his racist ass thinks. It's the 21st century and he needs to realize that. Until then, I refuse to even see him." Boy, was he full of surprises today. "Can we talk about that?" I asked. He nodded. "Sure."

"Why is he racist?" Jason shrugged. "Why are you Caribbean? Why am I a mafia leader? He didn't choose to be that way himself. My grandparents were serious about him only associating with people of his kind so that he could be more successful in life and he took it and ran with it. He drilled it in mine and my sister's heads for awhile too until we realized that we were our own people and had a mind of our own."

"You liked the chocolate, basically?" I asked and he nodded. "So much. Black women are just beautiful inside and out. From their big, crazy hair to the melanin in their bodies. Every part of y'all is crazy beautiful." I flipped my hair over my shoulder. "Well, we are the queens of the world." He grabbed my hand over the table and smiled. "That you are."

The waitress came to our table finally with a perky smile. "How may I help you all today?" She asked and looked at me first. "For the Mrs.?" I looked down at the drinks menu. "I'll have the chocolate waffles, thanks." She nodded and scribbled it in her notepad. "And for you, sir?" Jason scrunched his nose up at me and I laughed. The waitress was so confused but she waited patiently for Jason's order. "I'll have the regular waffles with syrup and eggs with a side of bacon." The woman wrote it down and took our menus up. "Alright, I'll be right back." She walked off into the kitchen and Jason and I busted out laughing.

"You're so gross!" He said and covered his face with his hands. "Oh, God. Just disgusting." I rolled my eyes and took his hands down, replacing his face with my own hands. "You're just jealous, like I said. Besides, the baby wants chocolate so I have to give her what she wants."

Jason nodded. "Right. How do you know it's a girl though? It's too early to determine the sex." I shrugged and looked down at my growing baby bump. "I just know. It feels like a girl, you know? I haven't even thought of names yet."

He ran his fingers over my knuckles and looked down at them. "You have time to think about all of that, love. Just take it slow. This is your first pregnancy and you shouldn't stress it too much. Just enjoy it." I smiled and kissed his hands. "And Declan said that you wouldn't be any help."

"Shit, I probably won't be. I have never changed a diaper a day in my life and I don't like children. Except your brother, he's cool."

I sucked my teeth. "Of course! Cause he acts just like you do. Both of y'all need your asses beat." He tapped his foot on the floor. "Who's going to beat my ass? You?" I nodded and he smirked. "I wouldn't mind beating your ass, baby girl." Once again, I rolled my eyes. "You always have to turn whatever I say into something sexual."

The waitress walked back to our table with our food in hand. "Hey, I had to keep some of the bad qualities about myself. Wouldn't be me if I didn't." I cut into my chocolate pancakes and ate the first piece right in front of his face. He groaned. "Just looking at that is making my damn stomach hurt, Lani, shit."

The Black Woman #Wattys2016Where stories live. Discover now