Carter, Shan, and I left Tallahassee for Atlanta the next morning to check up on Rihanna. She was upbeat, feeling better, and happy to see my lil girl.
A special guest was happy to see us as well. The first words out of his mouth was some ole bullshit, as usual.
"Uh oh," Jarvis grinned while extending his arms out. "Mr. C. Beyonce. Together? Drama has to be right around the corner."
"Shut up big head and come give me a hug," I spat.
He squeezed me tight before giving Shan a hug. He gave Carter a look over before bursting out laughing. Carter caught the chuckles too, as the two men laughed at each other for seemingly no reason at all.
"Crazy," Carter said before giving him a pound. "Seems like I been catching up with old students all month."
"And I'm sure I was your favorite," Jarvis joked.
"You forgot to put least in that sentence."
"Oh it's like that Mr. C?"
"Damn right. You the reason I quit."
They laughed, though Jarvis focused his attention on me. He knew the real.
"Now we all know I was Mr. C's favorite student," I boasted sarcastically, before winking at Shan.
"Not really," Carter said seriously. "Matter fact, I prolly liked Jarvis better than you."
We continued our banter into the living room. It felt good to be able to jump right in and mingle with the people that had meant so much to me. Though I wasn't as close to Jarvis as I used to be—in fact Rihanna had grown closer to him than me—he was still one of the few male friends I had. And one of the few people in my life that could make me laugh at any time. He was a natural cutup. I still don't know how his ass became a doctor.
"Yo, Mr. C. You gottabe bout 60, 70 years old by now," he said as he sat on the lazyboy, feet up like this was his damn house.
Carter took the jab in stride and laughed.
"Bee was right. You do have a big ass head. Your head way too big for that receding ass hairline."
If Carter was gonna go down, he was damn sure gonna go down swinging. The jokes were getting dirtier by the minute, especially when Rihanna offered us some drinks. When grown folks get to talking and drinking, the lil ones have to go find something else to do, so I had Shan go swimming in Rih's pool. We moved our talking to the dining room, near the glass window so I could see her from inside of the house, and got a card game going as we talked our shit and caught up. 10% catching up. 90% shit talking.
"What I wanna know is, how was the dick?" Rihanna asked, like it was her God-given right to know.
"I'm all for honesty and all of that. But that's a lil too much honesty," Carter said.
"You must have been wack then," Jarvis said. "Men don't shy away from their woman boasting about their skills in the bedroom."
"Who says my skills were put to use in the bedroom?" Carter grinned.
"NEXT SUBJECT," I hollered, before laughing. "Rih, you'll get the deets later on. But not right here, not right now."
"That's fucked up Bee. I remember when you used to tell me everything," Jarvis said.
"Vice Versa nigga. When's the last time you told me who you was fucking?"
"She do got a point bighead," Rih said.
"Okay foreheady Murphy," he said, rolling his eyes at Rih.
Rih and Jarvis was about to start going at each other, but Carter intervened.
