Chapter 31

"Ace," Yuri sings in my ear, "Ace, wake up."

When I don't do as she say, she tugs on my earlobe with her teeth. I moan involuntarily as she starts kissing on my neck. I open my eyes to make sure it's really her 'cause Ri don't do shit like this. This the same girl who won't let me do more than tongue kiss her. Now here she is, kissing all on my neck while her hand undoes my belt.

"Ri, what you doing?" I whisper.

I don't know why the fuck I whisper except that the room is dark as fuck and I don't wanna throw the vibe off.

"Uh-uh. No questions," She says.

She covers my mouth with hers and I feed into the kiss. My tongue slides into her mouth and she sucks on it with her tongue.

Damn. She must've wanted me as bad as I wanted her.

Her warm hands finally undo the zipper on my jeans. My hips jerk up uncontrollably. I wish she stop playing and do something if she gon' do it. All this teasing shit for the birds. I'm boutta' bust just feeling her touch on me.

I moan again as her hand strokes my shit. I hate how I'm moaning and letting her control the show like some bitch but I don't really gotta choice. This Ri we talking 'bout. If I move too fast she might turn the lights on and call all this shit off. I'm too wound up for all that so I'ma stay on this ride no matter how long it take to get where I'm going.

Out of nowhere, her warm tongue starts swirling 'round the tip of my dick. My mouth falls open. Thank God for the dark 'cause I'm acting like a born-again virgin in this bitch. No wonder she getting all wild for me. The darkness prolly giving her confidence to do what she been wanting to do for years.

Then she take half of me in her mouth at once.

"Damn, Yuri," I say.

"Mm-mm," She mumbles with my dick in her mouth.

She comes up for air.

"No talking," She says.

I say nothing else as she brings her mouth 'round me again. She struggles to take more of me in her mouth so I jerk my hips up to meet her halfway. All I'm thinking is, this ain't nowhere near the most experienced head I've gotten, but that's what makes it the best. That's how I know Ri ain't out here topping up every nigga. Or shit, I'd like to think she ain't 'round here topping up no niggas. This my fucking baby and the only nigga dick she should have in her mouth is mine.

She comes back up, breathing kind of heavy, trying to catch her breath. All I needed was to feel her mouth around me; I wasn't tryna bust nowhere but inside her.

I lean forward and wipe her face clean. Her eyes have tears in them, probably from me choking her but I pause anyway.

"You straight?" I ask.

She nods her head.

"I need to hear you say it," I say.

"I'm straight, Ace. I just want you to kiss me," She says.

Shit, she ain't gotta tell me twice. As I'm kissing her, she climbs on top of me. I let her turn herself on as she move her hips against me. It's sexy, I can't lie but I need to really feel her and our clothes is in the way. I flip her over and shrug out of my jeans so that I'm down to my boxers. She's still in a bra and shorts so I unsnap her bra first. She go to cover her chest but I kiss her hands and move them out the way. When she's exposed to me, I start sucking on her titties.

"Ace," She moans.

My dick is standing at attention at this point. Usually, this is where I'd say fuck it and just slide in. But, it's Yuri so I take my time. I go down on her, sliding her shorts off her legs. Then I ease her underwear to the side and start doing shit with my tongue that have her pushing my head until my nose is all up in it. When she's got her two off, I come back up.

I wipe my face and go up to her ear.

"I can stop right now if you want," I say.

Now why the fuck I said that I don't know 'cause I was already easing her legs apart and teasing her entrance.

Yuri nods her head. At first I think she's telling me to stop so I start to get up. But she stops me.

"I want you, Ace," She says.

I kiss her as I finish what I was doing. I ease halfway inside but I slide in a lil' too smoothly for my liking. I get to thinking about how many niggas been here before me but then she moans my name and makes me forget about all that.

I push deeper inside until I'm full-on stroking her.

"Ace. Ace," She moans louder.

"Fuck," I say back.

"Ace!"

I open my eyes to see Yuri standing above me and not pinned under me like she was in the dream. I groan as I pull the blanket over my head.

"I was about to fix breakfast before going to class but I guess you don't want none," She says.

I don't move, hoping if I lay perfectly still, then maybe I can return to my dream where the only thing Yuri was eating was my dick.

"If you don't give me company, I'm not cooking extra for you," Yuri says.

I push myself off the couch. I take a quick piss in the bathroom before hopping in the shower. My shit was still rock solid but it's nothing a cold shower won't fix.

When I'm done, I throw on a white long sleeve and a pair of jeans. I throw on a fresh pair of custom Air Forces before running a brush over my head. I'm still brushing my hair when I walk in the kitchen.

Yuri's hair is pinned up in pink and purple rollers. She has on a long T-shirt covering the shorts I just know she have on underneath. She's at the stove frying bacon when I enter.

I sit the brush on the counter and walk up behind her. I wrap my arms around her waist and lean down so that I'm smooching on her neck.

"Someone's happy," Yuri says.

She ain't talking about my mood either. That fucking shower ain't help nun.

I smack my teeth and back off her.

"Girl you killing me, you know that? You gotta nigga having dreams about you like I'm thirteen again," I say.

Yuri smacks her teeth.

"Now you know you wasn't having no dreams about me back then," She says.

"Shit prolly not you specifically. But wet dreaming still," I say.

She drops the fork she using and grabs the kitchen towel to whack me with it. I grab a fresh one from the counter and swat at her legs with it.

"Ow!" She yells, "See, now you ain't eating."

"Aw, come on. Don't do me that. How you gon' hit somebody and not expect to get hit back? That's what's wrong with y'all females these days," I say.

Yuri points the fork at me like it's a weapon.

"Don't say 'females'. What did I tell you about that?"

"Here you go," I say.

"I told you what the professor said about that in my Women and Gender Studies class way too many times for you to still be using it," Ri says.

"I pay for you to go to college, remember? If I wanted to hear a lecture I woulda enrolled myself there," I say.

Yuri smiles before turning back to the stove. When she first told me she was thinking about going back to school, she had already missed two years from working so much. She was unsure but I ain't think twice about it. I sent Cam on a flight out here and paid her tuition in full. Yuri lost everything when her dad got locked up and her mom is a dopehead who would steal money from her all the time. If I ain't pay for her school, she woulda kept putting it off to work to pay for her mom's rehab and her own apartment.

When she found out it was me that paid her tuition, she kept asking me to take the money back. I told her to request a refund if she wanted it that bad. I don't know who she thought was boutta catch another flight to get the money back but she ain't request a refund and her ass still in school. I'm slick regretting paying for the shit since she feel the need to bring the lessons home with her.

"That's the only reason I'm feeding you at all," Yuri says.

Eventually she gets around to setting the plates with eggs, bacon and french toast. She don't own a table since she can't afford it so we post up in the kitchen like we usually do. She sits on the counter with a paper plate in her hand while I lean against it, using the counter as a tabletop.

As we eat, I start thinking about what was on my mind before I went to sleep last night. I was thinking that I fucked up getting involved with Angel 'cause that's like shitting where I eat. He in the same city as me so he like in my backyard. It made it easy for him to keep an eye on my business and control my alliances. Now that he's an enemy, it makes it harder to operate under him. I keep thinking there's nothing I'll be able to do when I get home that Angel won't know about. That's bad for business.

I rarely get a chance to catch up with Caese since he always on the move. From what I know, business is good but Angel made another attempt on his life. He holding his own but he not tryna' draw attention to him or the business. That's the shit that make me wish I was back home. Me and my dawg supposed to catch them bullets together, just like we did last time. Now he dodging bullets that was meant for me 'cause I made a bad business move fucking with Angel.

Caesar said Reese is still supplying but they been butting heads recently. Business is business so I doubt their personal beef is gonna stop Reese from making money, but who wants to do business with somebody they can't trust?

I figure while I'm out in Cali, I can try to bridge some connections to span from the west coast to down south. Who knows? Maybe our next supplier is here in Rosewood.

"Ri," I say.

"Hm?"

"You keep up with what's going on round here? Like I know that nigga Geedy used to run the city but you know who in that spot now?"

"Duecy," She says.

"What you know about 'em?" I ask, stroking my goatee.

"I know he's in prison, which is where you're gonna be if you fall in with him," Yuri says.

I smack my teeth, throwing my plate away. I had half a french toast and some eggs left but she done made me lose my whole appetite.

"Don't say shit like that, Ri," I say.

"Then don't ask questions you don't want the answers to," She says with a mouth full of food.

"All I asked was a simple question. What's the point of me being here if I can't talk to you? I might as well be living with a stranger for all that," I say.

Yuri doesn't answer. I'm about to leave the kitchen when she sighs.

"I'm sorry, okay? I just want you to be careful and that Ducey nigga is bad news, for real, Ace. He came up under Santana but he's nothing like him," Yuri says.

Wait, what? Just how many niggas was Santana out here putting on? It's like he gave the whole world free game.

"How you know he came up under my pops?" I ask.

"'Cause people 'round here talk. Nobody rise to the level he on without making a name for themselves. You know how many people he's killed? How much dope he's moved into the city? He's probably the reason my mama can't get right," Ri says.

I wanna tell her Duecy ain't got nothing to do with her mama's addiction 'cause a crackhead 'gon get they fix either way, but I know it's a soft spot for her and it's easier to blame everybody else.

"Ri, you know what I do, right?" I say.

"That don't mean I have to like it or I have to help you with it," She says.

"I'm not asking you to get me a sit-down with the nigga. I'm just asking you to put me on game. The city's changed a lot since I last came here and even then, I only saw it through my dad's eyes. I'm my own man now and Santana ain't here to guide me. So won't you be a nigga's tour guide while I'm here," I say.

Yuri sighs. She sits her plate down.

"What do you want to know?"

...

Rosewood is a beautiful city if you can find the light at the end of the tunnel. The light for me was leaving. The light now is harder to find.

I recognize some of the streets as I drive down the block in Yuri's car, but a lot has changed. Back then, you couldn't drive through the crip's side of town without getting flagged down or shot up. Now, their turf is limited to a few short blocks in a janky ass neighborhood. So I'm guessing this Duecy nigga either a blood or don't fuck with crips at all. I'm hoping it's the latter since bloods usually only wanna deal with other bloods.

I drive through the city, noticing lil' diners me and my pops used to eat at when I came in town. There's a donut shop on the corner called "Craig's Hole" we used to laugh at all the time. I shake my head laughing. I can't believe that nigga ain't change the name after all these years.

As I drive, I recognize what used to be a convenient store that used to sell all the best mixtapes. It was how Santana and I kept in touch with our New Orleans culture since Lil Wayne's shit was everywhere back then. We rapped the Carter 3 in the car like our lives depended on it. I even tried to grow dreads like the nigga when we moved back home.

I go out my way to visit the motel my pops owned back then. It's old and condemned now. Shit probably turned to dust once he left the city but it was a solid idea while he was here. A whole building that can act as a front while you handle whatever business that needed to be handled. I've seen my daddy kill people in this motel. I've seen kilos of dope fly in and out this motherfucker like real birds. He never used all the rooms, but he had more than enough if he ever needed to. That's what inspired me to buy The Loft. I hit the ground running when I jumped off the porch and I operated on what he taught me.

There must have been a lesson I missed since I'm here in Rosewood while a snitch lurks in my own business.

I get back on the bridge until I see the West End exit. I drive down until I pull up to the block Yuri told me about: Flendale and 75th. Soon as I turn on the street, two niggas approach the car with black bandannas over their faces and an AK and a shotgun pointed at the car. I reach for my gun in the arm rest but the fat nigga to my left cocks the shotgun.

"Don't do it," He says.

I raise my hands since it's nothing else I can do without my gun. The skinny, brown-skinned nigga to my right pulls his bandanna down so he can talk.

"Who you looking for?" He asks.

I look from him to his gun. The fat nigga presses the barrel of the gun to my scalp. I clench my teeth. I hate for niggas to pull my card especially when I can't do nothing about it. I'm in a city I haven't been in since I was twelve and my pops is dead so my name don't hold no weight. I worked too hard to have some fat ass nigga playing with me like this though.

"One of you niggas gon' get that gun out my face. I suggest it's you, fat boy," I say.

He nudges my head with the gun. I turn my head so the barrel is pressed against my forehead. I ain't the least bit scared cause I can see it all in Fat Boy's face that he ain't 'bout it. No wonder they got his ass doing security work.

"Aye, I asked you a question, cuz," The skinny one says.

The fat nigga gon' gain some balls when I turn my head. The end handle of the shotgun collides with the side of my head. My vision immediately goes blurry. I blink a few times but don't shit clear up. I press my hand to the side of my head but I already know what I'll see. The blood in my left eye has me blinking over and over trying to steady myself.

"Nigga, you know who you fucking with?" I say, but it comes out in short gasps.

My body starts leaning to the right. I know what's happening before I'm fully slumped over.

"Damn, Teemack. I think you knocked the nigga out," I hear just as my eyes close.

...

When I come to, I expect to be on Yuri's sofa. Except, I don't smell no bacon and my back don't hurt from sleeping on the couch. Instead, I smell blunt smoke and the side of my head hurts, not my back. I open my eyes to a brown-skinned nigga with a fade standing over me. He got a wife beater on with sagging jeans. He puffs on a blunt while he looks down at me. My vision still hazy but I recognize the pump shotgun by his leg.

"Who you here for, cuz?"

I look up at the nigga. Then I realize it's a crowd of niggas hanging over me. A door opens behind me, letting out cold air. That's how I know I'm laying on a porch. A porch with at least twenty niggas surrounding me. Every last one of 'em is armed too. I don't like my odds but I ain't letting no nigga play me like I'm some type of bitch. Hoe don't run in my blood and these niggas ain't boutta' change that.

"Stop blowing that fucking smoke in my face," I say, trying to get up.

He raises the pump to my chest. I pause as I look up at him.

"You just gon' have to shoot me, nigga, cause I ain't letting you stand over me like no bitch," I say.

He pulls on his blunt again before exhaling.

"Let the nigga up," He says.

Immediately, the crowd around me falls back. I stand up, looking around for the fat nigga that knocked me out. He ain't nowhere to be found but I promise myself I'ma deal with him before I leave.

I notice all the niggas back up except for this one nigga who stands next to the nigga doing the talking.

"I let you up. Now answer my question," He says.

"Where the fuck my car at?" I say, brushing dirt off me.

The nigga glances over his shoulder, out to the middle of the street where I see Yuri's grey car parked. Still no Teemack in sight though.

"That beat-up ass car? Nobody want that shit," The nigga says.

Everybody on the porch starts laughing, including niggas gathered on the sidewalk watching us.

"What's yo name bruh?" He asks.

"Ace," I say.

"I don't know a 'Ace'. What about you, Pedro? You know a nigga named Ace?" He asks the nigga next to him.

"Nah, bro. I ain't never heard of 'em," Pedro says.

If that's Pedro, then the nigga next to him gotta be Murda. Yuri said them niggas always together but they not what I was expecting. With a name like Pedro, I thought he woulda looked a lil' more Spanish. He darker than Murda, with a curly bush. They both look like rough and tumble wild niggas.

"It's not too often we run across a face we don't know on F-Block so I suggest you tell me where you coming from and where the fuck you thought you was going before I clap yo ass," Murda says.

I ain't expect them to lay out a welcome mat for me but I ain't expect all this shit either. I knew gaining access to Duecy wasn't gon' be easy since he in jail and I'm probably on a federal watchlist. But I figured his security would've at least eased up. I mean, what the fuck kinda threat do I pose to a nigga doing life anyway?

"I'm here to see Duecy," I say.

The way the porch goes silent you'd think I just signed my own death sentence. Murda takes another pull from his blunt then passes it to Pedro.