𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬: 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐄𝐊𝐇𝐈

10. | C H E C K I N G U P

C H A P T E R | T E N
CHECKING UP

𝙲 𝙰 𝚁 𝚃 𝙴 𝚁 𝙼 𝙴 𝙺 𝙷 𝙸

HE drove past El Tigre's the other night, on his way home from a meeting in Manhattan and he thought about her as he was stopped at the light. A smile came to his face when the baby faced girl entered his thoughts and he wondered about her. He wondered if she had really taken his advice and gotten out of the game that she was in before it got her. There was no suitable place in a dirty game like he knew the streets were for a girl like that - - chubby brown skinned cheeks, long baby doll hair, and a smile of a woman in the making yet not quite there yet - - a porcelain doll, somebody's little girl, the last of unspoiled souls left in the world; no, there was no suitable place for her there and Carter was sure of it.

Something about her compelled him and that something went beyond the fact that she was a pretty girl; he'd met, dated, played, and fucked, a bunch of pretty girls in his lifetime. She compelled him further than just that, there was something about her that he could see - - she was so misguided and so lost. When he looked into her eyes that night he didn't see something to be played and played with; he saw a scared little girl who didn't have a soul in the world to care about her or what she was doing to her self-esteem.

Mostly, Carter saw a young girl - - who like most girls yet not all, that he encountered that stripped for cash - - trying hard to fill a void in her life that she just couldn't shake. He thought maybe in those men she danced for she was searching for that one man who probably didn't love her like he should have - - her father.

Carter wondered a lot about girls like that who used their bodies as means of getting paid whether they were stripping, prostituting, or fucking big shots like him to pay the bills - - he wondered where the hell their father's were. That night he had told Destini that he was staying in the city, he'd called her from the club and told her not to wait up but all that changed after he sat down and talked to Stoni that night. His mind was changed in an instant Carter went home instead of staying in New York after he dropped Stoni and Allison off in Harlem. He literally walked into the room, woke his girls up out of their sleep - - all three - - Khloe, Brooklyn, and Kayden and told them that he loved them.

He hugged them for what had to have been fifteen minutes and kept telling them over and over that he loved them and that no matter what he'd always be there for them and he meant it. Stoni had compelled him to do that because in some odd way he saw his daughters in her that night yet unlike her, his girls had the benefit of actually seeing and feeling their father's unconditional love and as long as he had breath in his lungs he would give this to them, no questions asked.

Destini thought that Carter was either being crazy or insanely drunk when he did what he did but he didn't care because he was neither; all he wanted to do that night was let them know that their daddy loved them and like three little musketeers, they all climbed in Destini and Carter's bed and slept together as one family. Carter had Stoni to thank for inspiring that.

But he couldn't leave it just there, he couldn't help but think about her as he passed the club and since he knew where she lived because he'd dropped her off that night - - he hadn't seen her since - - he decided he needed to go check up on her and see if her listening skills were as good as she promised they'd be when he told her to get as far away from El Tigre's as possible. He didn't want her to have the fate a lot of girls like her had before her.