Aaliyah is a single mother to a teenage basketball star in the making. Having her son Imani at a young age caused her to sacrifice much of her youth, especially her love life. But she has no regrets her love for her son is everything. Little does sh...
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"Imani! I'm not going to call you again! Get down here you're gonna be late." I yelled to my 17 year old son. We were supposed to have left for his AAU basketball practice 15 minutes ago but this kid is taking forever.
"I'm here! Stop yelling" he said before ruffling my hair and running out to the car. I locked up the house and walked to my Mercedes in our parking garage seeing Imani in the driver's seat.
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"And what do you think you're doing?" I asked.
"Please mom just let me drive, please!" He begged.
"Ok fine but only because you won semi finals last week," I said getting into the passenger seat. "I'm proud of you baby." I said pinching his cheek as he started driving to his practice facility.
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Imani has been playing high level basketball for the last 5-6 years. He is on track to go to the NBA and I couldn't be more proud, I'm really his biggest fan. Technically, he would have pretty good odds being drafted if he declares for the NBA draft this year, but he's my baby and I would prefer if he went to college first but it's really up to him. Right now he is playing on his school team here in Brooklyn, and playing on his travelling AAU team. He has had an amazing season so far on both teams and has his AAU championship tournament this week in Los Angeles.
"Hey mom?"
"Yes Mani?" I said dragging out his name because I know he's going to ask for something.
"You think we can head out to LA a couple days early so I can spend a couple nights at Bronny's before we have to get in competition mode."
"Yeah, sure we can head out on Wednesday instead of Friday, I'll call the hanger and change our flight date while you're at practice."
"Okay cool thanks."
Once we got to the practice facility he went to the change room and I headed over to Imani's physical therapist that works for the team.
"These next few days are going to be especially hard on his body. Just make sure he's stretching everyday like he's supposed to, getting proper rest, and icing or taking ice baths after games and practices." She says.
"Ok thanks. He's pretty responsible but I just wanted to refresh on everything he needs to be doing. We are going to be in LA before the rest of the team, he wanted to hang with Bronny before the tournament starts."
"Ok that's fine just makes sure he knows he can't be practicing with Bronny or playing at all, only video games and hanging out. He can't risk an injury this late in the season."
"Oh that's true ok, I'll let him know."
——————————————- Dinner - Later That Night
"Imani get off your phone, no phone at the table!" I scolded him.
"Sorry mom, Drake just followed me on Instagram, he's messaging me complimenting my game!" He said with a huge smile on his face.
"Wow that's so cool baby," with all of Imani's success more celebrities have been following him on social media and reaching out. They are usually closer to his age though. He's really close with Lil Tjay, and he was really close to pop smoke before he died. His death hit Imani really hard. He's out of his slump but now he never talks about pop and if someone brings him up he avoids the conversation all together. "Yeah he said he's been watching my game improve for the last couple years. It's crazy that I'm at this level ma. I remember not so long ago I would dream about moments like this and being where I am now."
"I know Mani, that's why I constantly tell you how proud I am of you." I said as I reached over the table and grasped his hand rubbing the back of it with my thumb.
Every time I look at him I think of how we got here and how everyone in my life doubted me when I got pregnant. I was his age, 17, now looking at him I see how much of a baby I was and I can't believe how far I've come. His father has been out of the picture since day one, he was an average basketball player when we were in high school, no where near as good as Imani.
When I told him I was pregnant he told me to get an abortion. When I said no he literally never spoke to me again and denied Imani being his. So once I graduated I moved with Imani from Philly to New York. I worked extremely hard to support us for about 2 and a half years before I started my image consulting company. I started doing really well for myself currently making around 3 million dollars a year working with a lot of celebrities and professional athletes.One of my early clients was Lebron James. His wife savanna and I became very close friends and their son Bronny and Imani became even closer friends. Lebron is actually the reason why Imani started playing basketball in the first place.——————————————- Drake's P.O.V.
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Spending time watching basketball with my son is one of my favourite things to do now. It's somethings we bond over and I love it. Right now we're watching some high school ball highlights. This kid Imani Smith is one of the best coming up he's gonna be a force when he gets to the league. He's one of Adonis' favourite players so I'm going to surprise him this weekend by taking him to watch his tournament against Lebron' son Bronny.
After about 25 minutes I realized Adonis was asleep So I moved him into his own room and came back to chill in mine. As I scrolled through Instagram I realized I wasn't following Imani Smith so I followed him and liked a few of his highlight videos. Then I decided I would send him some encouraging words. I think it's always good to encourage the youth. He reminds me a lot of myself. I heard he is raised by a single mother like myself, he's just a kid trying to make something of himself by doing what he loves, like I did. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A/N: Hopefully everybody likes this first chapter! I just had some time on my hands and figured I'd start something new. Please let me know if I should continue this book if and if you like it!
There's not a lot of new drake books on here so I figured I'd make one.
