Money Over Everything

Got Money

Moette

I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning as I tossed around my answer in my mind. Sleep didn't hit me until it was time to wake up. Reggae music blasted through the house, vibrating the walls and shaking me right out of the decent sleep I fell into. Leave it to Poochie to pick Tuesday morning to do a deep cleaning of the house. I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling when she came barging in.

"Damn, Moe. It's going on noon. What are you doing still in bed?" Poochie asked, closing the door behind her, leaning the broom in her hand against it. "Laying up thinking about your little boyfriend?"

"He ain't my boyfriend, and after the stunt you pulled last night I don't think he'll ever be," I muttered sitting up in bed. "Poochie, you took in me and my sister when nobody would. We've been through a lot of stuff together...Shit, we even have stuff we'll take to the grave. How can you think I'm gonna let someone step into our lives for the worse? You should know me better than that."

Poochie took a seat at the edge of my bed, mulling over my words. She peeked at me through her mess of blonde curls, shaking her head as a sad laugh passed between her lips. "When I was younger I had a friend who was just like you. Beautiful, smart, and a natural born hustler. Everything I know about getting money she taught me. Me and her used to buddy up and get niggas for their money on the regular and we were killing it until she met this guy. He was all GQ and shit; he stayed dressed in the best with nothing but the best on his arm."

"Lemme guess: your friend fell in love with him and got her heart broken by his ain't shit ass?"

"Worse: she fell in love with him and he ruined her life," Poochie replied. "One night we had this really big job to pull off and she chose to go with him instead of me. After that night I didn't see her for months and when I saw him he was strung out on drugs. I asked him what happened to my homegirl and he said he hadn't seen her in a while. Turns out, she was strung out too. Real bad. She wouldn't even look me in the eye."

"Damn, Poochie," I said, holding myself. "I wasn't expecting you to hit me with some deep shit like that. You really think Swan is really going to lead me down a road to drug use? I've never even seen him light a cigarette."

"It doesn't always have to be drugs or alcohol. The point was...I don't want to see you end up hurt because you start moving too fast with some guy you barely know," Poochie replied, her cheeks turning red out of embarrassment; she rarely gave out advice so this had to be hard for her. "Slow down and know who he is and what he's about before giving your heart to him. That's all I'm saying."

"What does that have to Darion."

"That guy fed my friend dreams, told her she could be anything she wanted in the world and he would help her. Well look at how that turned out. He ruined her life, and I won't let any stranger feed this family sweet nothings and do us wrong. I won't apologize for the way I came at Swan, but I will...apologize for having you think this was me not caring about your feelings. I'm tough like this because I do, Moe."

Poochie apologizing and acknowledging my feelings was too much for me to handle before breakfast. All I could reply back with was, "I appreciate that, Poochie."

There was a knock on the door and in walked Damaris followed by Darion and Roni. I could tell there was still some unspoken words between the mother and son because Darion took a seat at my computer desk, studiously ignoring Poochie, who didn't seem to give a fuck one way or another. Roni climbed into bed next to me and rolled onto her stomach, turning her attention to Damaris, who stood in front of everyone looking like a bedroom Barbie. It was hard to take her serious while she was wearing hot pink silk robe with a matching slip and fuzzy pumps.