REDEMPTION

TWENTY ONE

Gotta face reality
There could never be anymore us
Won't deny it's hurting me
_______

Caught!

An evil smirk rose upon Tip's face as he looked at the present he'd been sent, courtesy of his last homeboy in Philly. He finally felt like he had exactly what he needed to get Lauren to get rid of whatever loyalty she still had for BK and begin to run her mouth.

"Aye," he said, walking into the hotel room from the balcony with a lit blunt in the corner of his mouth.

He'd been hiding outside, getting high, because ever since he let Lauren get a few puffs of the laced blunt he'd rolled, she'd been smoking his shit up like a chimney. His funds weren't what they used to be, so he couldn't let her continue flying through his stash the same way she was trying to fly through his pockets.

"What?" Lauren replied dryly as she flipped through a stack of menus trying to find something to eat.

Tip couldn't hide the disgust on his face as he watched her. She was lazy as hell and didn't do a thing that he expected of any woman he was with. She didn't cook, didn't clean... she just didn't do shit. She was a waste of a woman, and he didn't know how BK had been able to put up with her for all these years.

"Look what we have here," he said with a smile. "I told you she was flaw."

With eyes glossed with indifference, Lauren glanced up into his face and he handed his phone over to her. She sighed heavily before looking at the screen, but once she saw the picture on it, her eyes narrowed, and her entire body went rigid.

"Scroll to the right, there's more."

She flipped through the photos on the phone and got an eyeful of what BK and Baby had been up to while she was gone. There was a picture of her wife, her daughter, and her best friend riding in a drop-top Bentley, laughing and smiling as if they were having the time of their life. Then another one of them walking in the park, with Baby pushing Ginger's wheelchair as BK felt her up from behind.

The next picture was just about the same except BK was squeezing Baby's ass. That one set off a volcanic eruption in Lauren's head. She clenched her jaw so tight that her teeth nearly crushed into dust.

"I told you she had moved on. By the looks of it, they all have. It's almost like they are happier without you," Tip said, adding fuel to the flame. "And she still livin' with her."

"I can't believe this shit. She told me she was moving out. I gave her money to!"

Lauren went through the pictures a few more times, and each time she felt the hate in her heart grow to another level. But it wasn't BK's that was the focus of this new emotion. It was Baby.

From the first day that she'd met Baby, she'd been jealous of her. It wasn't something that she would ever admit, but it was true. There was never a person who met Baby and wasn't instantly drawn to her. With her gentle spirit and caring heart, she was just the type of person you instantly loved. When Lauren was introduced to her family, the first thing she noticed was how much they loved each other, but they all doted on the youngest child most of all.

No, Baby didn't have even half of the material things that Lauren did, but she never envied them no matter how much they were flaunted in her face. Baby was always content with whatever she was given and was also genuinely happy for Lauren for the things she was able to obtain. She was selfless to a fault, and Lauren hated it.

Truthfully, she felt like she loved Baby like a sister, but through the years, she was never able to get over her deep-seated feelings about how everyone always seemed to love on Baby and not her. People always thought Lauren was pretty, but they never admired her the way they did her best friend. She couldn't help always wanting whatever it was that Baby had, and stealing it away was Lauren's way of proving to herself, as well as to Baby, that she was the superior one.