Just Be A Man About It

15.

I woke up with a huge blanket draped over my body. I sit up and stretch looking around. Damn. Did I sleep outside? I throw my legs over the other side of the chair and push myself up. Amyra starts kicking a little and I rub my stomach. My stomach growls a little, and I smile.

"Mi-Mi's hungry? Well, let's put some food in our system so my baby can be happy. Are you hungry Mi-Mi?"

As if she understood, She started kicking a little bit more and it hurt a little.

"Ouch! Okay. I'll hurry."

I grab the blanket and fold it. I walk into the bedroom to see Malik and Amar both sprawled out on the bed and snoring. I giggle and put the blanket on the dresser. I tiptoe out of the room and go downstairs into the kitchen. I grab a few skillets out of the dish drain and place them on the stove. The doorbell rings and it scares the shit out of me. Who the hell and why the hell is somebody at my door this early? I look over at the clock on the wall and see that it's twelve o'clock. Shit, forget about the morning. I walk to the window and look through the blinds. I want to scream when I see who it is.

"Lay-Lay!" I shout, opening the door.

"Mi-Mi!" She shouts.

We both embrace each other in a long but very much needed hug. I pull away from her and examine her look. Being eighteen was doing her so much good! She looks damn good! Everything she had on was pink from her pink beanie down to her pink boots. She had developed a very thick and curvaceous figure. Her hair was a pretty jet black color and stopped right above her butt. Even though I couldn't stand my mother, she did give me something I will always be proud of, my ass.

"Mi-Mi, you don't know how happy I am to see you right now. I have missed you so much. Don't you ever leave me in Massachusetts again!" She says, pulling away from me.

I laugh and let her in. Alayla, or Lay-Lay, is my little cousin by about five years. She was mainly the only cousin I had that I could tolerate and actually love to be around. Unlike all the women in our family who married a rich man after a rich man, Alayla and I hated that lifestyle. Alayla hated anything that was fake so she never tried to fit in with that so-called "luxurious" lifestyle. Just like my mother, Layla's mom shut her out because she refused to be fake like her brother and sister. That's why we connected so well. We were going through the same shit and we had each other's backs no matter what. I guess Layla, Jason, and I were the only normal ones.

"I'm sorry, boo, but you know if I were to even ask Marie if you could come down here to stay, she would get Lynn on me in a heartbeat. How did you get down here?"

"Girl don't ask a grown woman about how she does her work! Just know I'm only down here to be with you. Everybody else can kiss my ass," she says, plopping down on the couch.

Something is really off about this whole situation. I don't want to press her about it, but I also don't wanna get the others down here on me.

"Lay, you know I know you better than that. You know I'm not gone leave this alone, so tell me the real reason as to why you are here before I sit my pregnant ass on your skinny body."

"Girl don't do that. I don't want your pregnant juices on me. You might jinx me and make me have kids next. Lord knows I will fight these little kids. I was riding through our old hood not too long ago. There were thots in training all around these little boys doing things only a grown woman would do behind closed doors with the man she planned to spend eternity with. Those bad ass kids probably don't even know how to spell the shit that they were doing. Shit, they might not even know how to spell their own damn name. I promise I counted about 30 ass whoopings. They were going to know how to spell 'stay in a child's place' when I was done with them."

I was crying laughing, but I knew she was trying to change the subject.

"Come on Lay. Please tell me."

She looks at me and sighs.

"I hate living in Mass. I have nobody there that I really trust to be there for me, Mi-Mi. I don't trust my mama, because if I were to say anything bad about her sugar daddy, she would only take his side. I wish his old ass would just croak over so it could go back to being me and her. I miss those days where she wasn't some fake ass wannabe. I miss the real ass mama I knew and loved, but as long as she got money coming in her pockets, she'll never be the same. That's why I came here. I came here to see what it's like to be around real people again. There's nothing up there in MASS for me. The only thing up there is my mama and sugar daddy with his other family. Mi-Mi, this nigga got a daughter my mama's age. That's some sad ass shit."

I shake my head and sit next to her on the couch.

"Can I please stay with you Mi-Mi? Please? I don't wanna go back."

"How did you get down here?"

"Jason," she mumbles.

So that's where he's been for the past few days, going to get Alayla.

"Yes. Lay-Lay. You can stay with me."

"Yes! Oh, thank you Mi-Mi."

She hugs me and I hug her back. Even though I'm doing for Lay-Lay to get away, I just can't shake the feeling that something bad might happen. I just hope Marie doesn't do anything drastic when she finds out.