Page 4 of Contract With A G

However, regardless of the agreement, Kharti is my girl, so I should be able to ask her a question that Caine didn’t have to know about. Our history goes back way further than theirs. I’m talking Hightower High School days when she and I both didn't have a pot to piss in.

“Kharti.” I finally got up from the couch.

“Yes?”

“A man just came to the door and told Caine that a youngster named Smoke is dead. Do you think it could be Smoke, Kayla Jones’s brother from South Hill Apartments?”

“Toya, I don’t know anything about anything, and it’s best you erase that conversation from your memory completely if you know what’s best.”

“What does that mean?”

She sighed and faced me.

“Look, I know on the outside, Caine may seem like a laid back, businessman who minds his business, but shit gets a lot deeper than that, okay. You know how the streets are around here, and they get grimy, so Caine has to do certain stuff and be a part of things that can’t be discussed. While you are around us the next nine months or so, you may see things or hear things that don’t need to be repeated. Not even between you and I.”

“Okay, but speaking of this agreement, you told me that I had to get pregnant, lay low, and have a baby. Not be a possession of Caine’s while I’m pregnant. That is new to me.”

“Well, Latoya, he’s Caine, and everyone around him does what he says. Just fall in line and you will be straight, alright?”

She picked up an empty water bottle from the coffee table and walked to the kitchen, leaving me standing in her living room. I ignored my worries and went into the bedroom to grab my red shorts and white T-shirt I’d worn over here.

I put on my clothes and waited for Kharti to get done straightening up the living room before she offered me a ride home. We walked outside to the carport and climbed into her BMW that Caine had recently bought for her birthday. It wasn’t brand new when Caine got it, but it only had about 20,000 miles on it, so to her it was practically new. Her old car had over 200,000 miles when her big sister passed it down.

Kharti backed out of the driveway and quickly turned the nob on her radio to blast Control by Rihanna. For the entire ride, the only thing that came out of her mouth were curse words toward the people cutting her off in traffic. This was the quietest her and I had been around each other in a long time. I think we both felt awkward in a sense but hopefully that would go away with time.

When we arrived at my apartments, Kharti let her window down and reached her arm out to type the gate code on the keypad, but it didn't work as usual.

“Damn, this shit is going to forever be raggedy, I see.” She complained, typing on the keypad more aggressively.

“It’s okay, friend. I will just walk from here. I got my pepper spray in my purse ready for any dummy that tries me. I hope niggas like lemon pepper spray like they do them wings.” I laughed through my nose expecting her to join in on our inside joke, but she didn’t. Kharti grabbed her phone from the cup holder and gave her attention to whatever was on the screen instead of replying to me.

“Did you hear me, Kharti?”

“Yeah, yeah, girl, I heard you. Text me when you get inside.” She never lifted her head from her phone. I had been around my Virgo friend enough to know that she couldn’t hide her irritation for shit. She wore her frustrations on her sleeve, and you always knew when something was bothering her.

“Are you okay, Kharti?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Just trying to see when the fuck my husband is coming back home.”

I reached for the door handle.

“Oh, your period is supposed to be here on the 18th, right?”

“Yeah, like clockwork.”

“Okay, good.”

“Yeah. See you, love you.”

Again, she didn't reply.

When I got out of her car, I walked over to the side gate that was already cracked open and stepped over the unkept weeds growing over the concrete. Of course, I wasn’t out here alone, because everyone slept through the day and hung out at night in South Hill Apartments. I saw the usual fiends standing outside, hoping to score their next high, and plenty of the known drug dealers looking to sell it to them. I kept my head to the pavement, hoping I didn’t actually have to lemon pepper a nigga tonight. I wasn't for no shit, but God knows, shit usually comes for you over here.

“Yo, Toya!” I heard my name called from the group of niggas sitting around a green box near my building. I looked over and spotted Michael, my brother’s childhood friend, and my ex’s little brother, sitting there with his arm in a sling.

“Big sis. Where you coming from this time of night by yourself?”

I walked toward him, and he blew smoke into the air away from me because he already knew I was about to start fussing. Michael and my brother both should’ve been tired of hearing my mouth by now, but clearly all that fussing hadn’t done shit. He was standing out here in the middle of the night like niggas around the city weren’t killing teenagers for little to nothing. There was once a time when you could hang outside the apartments without worrying about ducking, but those times were way gone.