Lighter Shade of Brown (Urban Fiction) BWHM

Chapter 42

Cleo sat on the couch in front of the television. On the screen Janet Jackson told Tupac she was gonna find someone to fuck him up. As much as she lived for Tupac, she barely ran him or Janet's ass any attention. No, her worrisome thoughts had her mental on lock. Non-stop those thoughts replayed the previous day's events on repeat: Her fight with Coco. Seeing C's again for the first time in a year. The altercation that jumped off in front of her building after he brought her home. Ant's demand for space.

Each of those happenings harassed the hell out of her brain. Okay, well maybe not each of those happenings, but most definitely two without question. Which two? The whole Ant and C's of it all, of course. How the hell could she still love C's? Even after everything he'd done to cut her out. And why the hell did Ant's need for space fuck her peace of mind so thoroughly?

Her eyes squeezed shut as Ant's words reiterated themselves on surround sound inside her head...'Yeah I know you love C's, but we both know you feeling the shit out of me too.' Could there be even a gram of truth to that wishing ass assumption? Did she have feelings for Ant? Maybe she did. However, if she bust it open and decided to sell the inner workings of her heart by the pound, no matter what emotions she may feel for Ant and Tech, her ache for C's downplayed them all. Nothing or no one compared to Caesar Gianni. It was an undeniable truth she'd spent the better part of eighteen months attempting to outrun.

A knock at the door pressed pause on her brain wrestling. She left the couch to peep out the front window. A high yellow girl with a baby clutched to her chest stood in front of her door, mugging the hell out the cheap aluminum that perpetrated as a barrier. Her eyes rolled. If this bitch was one of Coco's loud mouth cousins...

Cleo grabbed the tarnished gold knob and yanked open the door. She and the girl glared at each other for a moment before the chick finally discovered her words. "Tech here?" The chick asked in a thick accent that sounded a little like Tech's.

Cleo sucked her teeth. Different day and jumpoff, but same motherfucking problems. Now which one of his bitches was she? "Why the hell do you want to know?"

"He ain't come home last night and his hoe down in J building says you his favorite hoe. Na is he here are not?" The girl shifted her weight from one leg to the other, when the baby started to fuss.

He ain't come home last night—is the only thing she heard. "Wait, what'd you mean he didn't come home last night?" She opened the screen door and stepped out on the cement porch, forcing the girl to back up into the rail. "Are you saying you and him live together?"

"Don't play dumb wit me, jigga boo! Know he's tol' ya 'bout me," she clutched her baby tighter to her chest. "He tells all his lil' pissy tail gurl's 'bout me and the buhbe. We his family."

Despite the cash money shit spurting from the girl's mouth, the scared shitless look on the chick's bright yellow face betrayed the weight and measure of what she was built for. Physical conflict was not a part of her hard knocks training. Cleo's glare drifted to the child clutched to her chest. Tech's hazel eyes stared back. Her spinning world slammed on brakes.

The girl may have been seconds away from pissing up Liberty's dusty ass welcome mat, but the baby in her arms supplied major receipts to her claims. That Haitian bastard had played her! But how the hell could she be mad?  She's the dumbass who'd opened herself up to him. Just like she was the same dumbass who gave him full access to all of her buttons and controls. Even after Ant tried to put her up on game.

"You need to get the fuck away from my door. Tech's not here!" She turned to go back in the house.

The girl stepped away from the rail, to rush her from behind. "Wait a damn minute. If he didn't stay here, den where did he stay? Do ya tink a new hoe is beatin' our time or maybe dem people got him?"