6. Asif

THAT WEEKEND…

“Freak Joint” by Uncut blared over the backyard as I entered the homie Keenan’s kickback.

As I moved through the crowd, speaking to a few of my niggas, I spotted Milan across the backyard with her cousin and a few homegirls, recording a video to my brother’s old song. A few niggas had surrounded, watching the ladies pop their asses while not leaving much to the imagination.

“Milan’s ass is wild,” Grady said as I took a seat, slapping hands with him, the homie Free, and Low.

“She is.” I peeped again, seeing one of the niggas watching come up behind her to join, to which she didn’t protest.

The words Khari rapped, mentioning how he’d never wife a freak joint rang true as fuck right now as I took Milan’s actions in. But as he also said, they were good for fucking.

“Khari muthafuckin’ ass gon’ always ride the fuck out of a beat.” Low bobbed his head, inhaling deeply on the big ass blunt in his hand.

Just then, Milan locked eyes with me and stopped like I was her fucking daddy. The shit made me laugh because I honestly didn’t know why she did the shit.

She immediately fixed her dress and started over to me as Grady and Low laughed at her ass. Grabbing a red cup, I poured a little bit of Don Julio into it, sipping some as Milan closed the distance between us.

“Hey, daddy.” She came and slid into my lap so abruptly she almost made me drop my drink. “Sorry.” She kissed my face, hugging my neck. Putting her mouth to my ear, she said, “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like when I be acting like that. And I don’t even know him; I was just having fun.”

“I said I don’t want my woman acting like that.” I corrected her, and she was confused for a split second before nodding. “You free to do you. I enjoyed the show. I wanna see you do that later with no clothes though.”

Just like that, Milan was happy and giggling, saying, “We can go right now.”

“Nah, I just got here.” I tapped her thigh. “I gotta piss.”

She climbed from my lap, and I started toward the house, entering through the sliding doors. After relieving myself in the bathroom and washing my hands, I came back out, running right into this bitch named Lisa. I only remembered her because her head game was that of a professional.

“Asif!” She screeched excitedly, hopping onto her tiptoes to hug me around the neck. Gently, I gave her ass the one arm treatment before pulling away. “I haven’t seen you in forever. You usually don’t step out.”

“I know. Thought it was time I got a little break.” I nodded.

“You gonna be busy after?” Lisa nibbled on her lip.

“Yeah, he is, bitch.” Milan came up.

“Who you calling a bitch? Bitch!”

“You! Thirsty ass! Why the fuck you all in his face when you know what’s up with me and him?”

“Milan, chill out.” I interjected, not in the fucking mood for this type of shit.

“What is up, Milan?” Lisa laughed, folding her arms. “He is not your nigga, and you the only one who don’t know that! Asif is free game!”

That last statement set Milan off, so after she hit Lisa, the shit was on and popping.

“Aye, cut this shit out!” I snapped, separating the two from pulling one another’s hair. “You take yo’ ass over there, and you go the opposite way.” I instructed Lisa then Milan.

“Sif got these hos in check!” somebody yelled, and I couldn’t pinpoint who it was in order to tell his ass to shut the fuck up.

Lisa shot Milan a glare as she adjusted her top that had slightly exposed her breasts, before walking off. I did the same, feeling Milan right on my heels. That fucking quick, I wasn’t in the mood to be bothered with her ass and knew it would take more than her stripping down in the middle of my penthouse to get my dick hard tonight.

Sitting back down where I was with Low, Grady, and Free, I ignored Milan sitting at the table with us instead of mingling with her cousin and homegirls.

“When can I get a glimpse of our new staff?” Free quizzed, taking a toke on his blunt.

“She pretty too.” Grady nodded, and Free’s eyes widened. “Sif won’t let nobody get close to her ass though.”

I felt Milan’s eyes zero in on me as her ears seemingly perked up at that information. Again, I ignored her. And them niggas knew not to speak cavalierly about why Anastazia was working for me.

“What’s her name?” Free inquired.

“Anastazia or Stazi,” Low answered, knowing her a little better than them niggas from attending family get-togethers and shit.

“Damn, so give me the rundown on how she look? I wanna know if I should bring her some gifts when I get to the warehouse.” Free blew out smoke.

“Nah, you shouldn’t, and it don’t fucking matter what she look like, nigga. She not there for that, and even if she was, it’s not on the table for you,” I finally spoke up.

“Wow.” Milan sucked her teeth, commenting lowly.

“Oh shit!” Free put his fist to his mouth as Grady shot him a look saying ‘told you.’

“Aye, Sif, let me talk to you real brief.” Grady tapped me, finishing off whatever was in his red cup and standing.

Against my better judgement, I stood, trailing Grady inside the house, waiting until he shut the sliding door.

“What’s good?” I quizzed.

“I wanted to have a real talk with you about some shit. This ain’t something we usually discuss, so I ain’t know how to go about it.” When I just stared at his ass, he continued. “I’m interested in Stazi. And I don’t mean in my usual type of way. I actually wanna see where it goes. I feel like she would be the one to make me change my ways.”

I kept my hands in my pockets, something that had become a habit of mine when I didn’t wanna haul off and clock a nigga, like right now.

Trying to keep my composure so I wouldn’t look like a thirsty, jealous muthafucka, I said, “That ain’t no good idea.”

“Why? You said you wasn’t interested in her like that, and I swear I won’t do shit while she’s working. Only reason I’m even bringing it up to you is because we cool, and I respect you.”

I didn’t like the way he just put that shit as if he was planning to fuck with Anastazia no matter what the fuck I said.

“She not in a place to be dating right now. She dealing with shit, and all she wanna do is make her money and get through this bullshit with her ex. She trusted me to provide her with a safe place of employment, and that means barring you muthafuckas from pushing up on her, even outside of the workplace.”

“Yeah, man, but?—”

“And are you truly ready for that type of shit? You the same nigga who falls asleep in the strip club and you in yo’ mid-thirties. Are you really about to put all that shit behind you to take care of Anastazia and her baby?”

“I am. For her.”

“Nah, you not.” I shook my head, staring down at him. “I suggest you leave that shit alone, Grady, ’cause if you fuck with and fuck over Anastazia, I’m gon’ murk you.”

“So I’m guessing you not gon’ try yo’ hand with her either?”

“Don’t worry about what the fuck I’m gon’ do. Just know you can’t. Not you nor any of these other niggas.”

Grady eyed me for a moment, and I knew he was calling my bluff. He’d been around me long enough to know I didn’t go around gatekeeping pussy, so if I was, it was because I wanted the shit myself. Only reason I wasn’t putting the shit out there plainly to him was because I wasn’t sure what Anastazia was trying to do. Additionally, I felt like if I put claim on her in that manner, muthafuckas would take her working there as a joke. I didn’t want her being seen as a piece of pussy I put on to a job just because I liked her. She’d earned that shit and needed to be respected as such.

“End of the day, boss, we all grown, and she can do what she want.”

I nodded, glancing off for a second and said, “Yeah, she can, but if you go against me, we gon’ have an issue. Can’t enjoy Anastazia if you dead, cuz. Keep that in mind.”

Without another word, I gave that nigga my back, slid open the door, and stepped outside.

I stayed at the party for another hour, then decided to take my ass home. I wasn’t exactly having fun and only decided to show my face since the homie Bill was throwing it and niggas claimed I never liked to come out.

It wasn’t that I didn’t fuck with kicking back. I just knew how niggas moved and how envious muthafuckas could be when you were getting to the money. You wasn’t about to catch me slipping all because you walked into a random backyard party and saw me sitting there. Before I attended any fucking thing, I cased the place, checked my surroundings, and did my due diligence before stepping off in that bitch.

“That Stacy girl works for you or something?” Milan quizzed as I drove down the block. She knew her name, but I wasn’t gon’ press it.

“Nah.”

“Then why are you around her? Terra told me she saw y’all riding in a car together. It was a black Lexus.” She shook her head from what I could see out of my peripheral, but I kept my eyes on the road. “I didn’t believe it, but after hearing Free and Grady talk, I know it’s true.”

“I ain’t about to go back and forth with somebody I don’t belong to, Milan.” I kept it blunt. “You wanna argue for the night, I can drop you off to the next nigga. When you ready to kick it and leave that other shit at the door, we can possibly link up.”

“I don’t wanna argue. I was just asking, Asif.” She got quiet as I stopped at a red light. “What are we doing?”

“You can’t be acting how you act, Milan, then trying to police my moves, love.” I hit the gas.

“I told you I was sorry about the dance, baby! I was just having fun and… I don’t even care about that nigga! I don’t even know him like that!” she whined.

“I don’t give a fuck about the dance.” I glanced her way. “I only give a fuck about the fact that you can’t seem to understand that I don’t give a fuck.

“What I need you to comprehend though, baby, is you not ready for no real shit. Even if I wanted you to be mine, it ain’t in you. You like too much attention and accolades to fuck with a low-key nigga like me. Me admiring you wouldn’t be enough, because you want other niggas doing it too.”

It was one thing for a woman to be beautiful and for other muthafuckas to peep game and comment on it. It was another for her to seek out that attention and comments from other niggas. Anastazia was pretty as fuck, and every nigga in that warehouse had stated so or gave her a look to let her know non-verbally. She didn’t have to do shit or go out of her fucking way to garner compliments from them niggas like Milan did.

“No I don’t, Sif,” she whimpered. “I don’t care what they think, only you.” She started to cry.

“A nigga can’t trust you, Milan. Anything you feel like you can’t do in front of me, you shouldn’t be doing the shit at all. If you gotta stop some shit when I walk into the room, that means you on some flaw ass type of timing.”

“You’re right, baby, and I will do better.”

“I don’t need you to do better.” I shook my head, speeding down the freeway. “I need you to understand where I’m coming from when I say it won’t ever be you and me on some real shit. All I’m doing is giving you a few reasons why.”

“What if I change that?”

Stroking my beard, I said, “I wanna keep shit real with you.”

“Okay.” She sniffled.

“I want Anastazia.”

“What? Why?”

Shrugging one shoulder, I said, “I just do. I always have. She piqued my interest from the first time I met her. And now that she’s around me more, I know it’s gon’ go further. So I want you to know ahead of time so there won’t be any surprises and shit. Or in case my time ain’t as free, if I’m not working, I’m working on her.” I caught her gaze briefly, and her eyes were clouded with tears. “I ain’t trying to hurt you, love, but you been knew what the deal was. And you not stupid. You don’ caught me watching her on several occasions when we in the same room. I didn’t have the opportunity before, but now I do, and I’m gon’ take it.”

I finished speaking as I pulled up to her apartment building.

“Asif, I wanna go home with you.”

“Nah, go upstairs and get yaself together, Milan. Process this shit, make sure you understand this ain’t that, and then, shit, maybe I’ll fuck with you if I’m in the mood, but I can’t make no promises. It all depends on Anastazia.”

Milan scoffed and shook her head.

“So depending on if she fucks with you or not, then that’s how much you’ll fuck with me.”

“In a sense. If she not trying to go there with me just yet, we can continue the arrangement. If she ready, then I gotta cut you off.” When she nodded, I said, “I need to hear that you get what I just said verbally.”

“If she wants you, then you won’t mess with me anymore, but if she doesn’t, then you will,” she rephrased dryly.

“Cool.” I climbed out of the car, rounded it, then opened the door for her.

Using my hand to climb out, she sniffled once to her feet. “I still love you, so even if you cut me off, you’ll be back, because she won’t love and care about you the way I do.”

“Good night, love.” I kissed her forehead and rounded the front of my whip to get back in. “Go inside,” I told her since she was still standing there.

She hesitated for a moment before trudging toward the entrance of her apartment building and entering.

I tried to put the shit to Milan as simply and politely as I could, so I hoped she understood as much as she fucking claimed to.

Walking behind the curtain in the hospital division of the warehouse, I looked Taj over.

“He’s doing great. He just needs to do shoulder exercises,” Anastazia let me know.

“Man, I tried, but that shit hurt!” Taj exclaimed. “Maybe you can help me like you did the first time.” He smiled at her.

“Nigga, you know how to do the shit yaself. Stop making her do extra work,” I said, making Anastazia giggle.

“Aight.” Taj nodded as Anastazia began to step out. “Wait, if I need you, I can just use this button, right?” He grinned.

“Yes, Taj.” She nodded, leaving out.

“Calm down, nigga. It’s not gon’ happen.” Jutting my chin out, I said, “Do them exercises.”

Taj sucked his teeth and nodded as I stepped out and located Anastazia at the sink, washing her hands.

“He is too cute.” She beamed.

“You known for having bad taste, so I can see why you’d say that,” I joked, causing her to chortle as she dried her hands.

“Cedric is a maniac, or coward as you say, but ugly? No.”

“See. Bad taste.”

She giggled, saying, “Whatever, Asif.”

“You hungry?” I questioned, watching her move around the room, putting shit away.

She wore scrubs, and for some reason, it had the same effect on me as some fucking lingerie. Her bottoms hugged her ass and hips subtly but enough to get my dick hard. When she removed her top to expose the tank top she wore under, I had to adjust my sweats while she had her back to me. It didn’t help a nigga at all that her nipples were hard in this cold ass room.

“No, I brought my lunch. This gig pays very well, but I still need to conserve because I don’t know what will happen. In case I go away, I wanna make sure my family has more than enough to take care of Sophie.” She pulled her insulated lunch bag out. “But thank you for the offer, Asif.”

As she talked, I just watched her, admiring not only her but the way she thought. I’d never in my life met someone so selfless, not since my stepmother. A lot of women would go without in favor of their kids, but Lisara and now Anastazia were on a different fucking level. They went beyond going without. The shit was more like a sacrifice. And coming from a nigga with a mother who didn’t give two fucks about me, it was hard not to find Anastazia’s mindset commendable.

“Aight. I will just kick it with you while you eat then.” I made my way over to the table she was seated at off to the side, pulling out a chair and descending into it.

Laughing, she quizzed, “Shouldn’t you go pick you up something? I probably should’ve brought more food, huh? You stayed here all night for me, and I didn’t even think to make you something to eat.” Her face was full of distress, making me chuckle a bit.

“Nah, you good, baby.”

“No, I’m not good. I’m gonna make you something and bring it next time, I promise. I’ve been so wrapped up in all this shit I have going on I haven’t taken time to stop and show you how thankful I am for all that you’ve done for me.”

“Aye, you straight. I’m a big boy. If I want some food, I can get in my whip and go buy the shit. I just wanna kick it with you while you eat yo’ lunch.” I put my elbows on top of the table. “I do want whatever you plan to bring me next time though.”

“Okay.” She smiled, starting to remove the top from her Tupperware. “So you like me, huh?” She squinted her eyes after putting some cornbread into her mouth.

“Very much.”

“Don’t you think I’m too old and damaged for you?”

“No and hell no. How old you think I am?”

“Hmm, like nineteen?”

We both guffawed at her shady ass reply.

“A nigga look nineteen to you?” I sat back in my chair, folding my arms and watching the way her eyes grazed my biceps.

“No, I was just kidding.” She drank some of her water. “How old are you again?”

“I’m twenty-six. So you got ’bout four years on a nigga.”

“How do you know that? I could be thirty-five.”

Sitting back up so I could be closer to her, I admitted, “Made it my mission to find out soon as Leeci brought yo’ ass around.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” I nodded, and I could see the puzzled look on her face begin to form. “As much as this may sound like game or bullshit, Anastazia, from the day we made eye contact in my brother’s office, I thought about you at least once a day. Never forgot your face, your name, your voice. And when my brother actually married Leeci, I was happy for him, but I was even fucking happier to have you close. I knew with yo’ sister being my sister-in-law, I would always know you.”

She watched me for a moment, then set her fork down.

“Asif, I’m not really what you’re looking for. You should be with a girl who is ready to have fun, travel, won’t have trust issues as well as other issues I won’t speak on at the moment, and just someone who has a different outlook on relationships.

“I have a lot of stuff to overcome, and you deserve better than to have to clean up the mess the last nigga made.”

A part of me wanted to ask what other issues she spoke of, but judging by all the shit on the news, I could somewhat surmise that a woman who was being taken advantage of sexually probably wasn’t too keen on fucking. And while I was a nigga who had a sexual appetite as large as the next muthafucka, I was also disciplined. My father taught me young that a man with no sexual discipline, when necessary, wasn’t a man at all.

He was further proved right when I witnessed Cemone’s ass easily go celibate for Yolani like it was nothing. The same nigga who changed bitches like it was nothing, was still somehow disciplined enough to cut that shit off.

“Well, for starters, love, you don’t know me well enough to say what I need. The woman you just described as my perfect match, I don’ hit ten times over and don’ ran into triple that amount. And that nigga ain’t make as big of a mess as you may think he did. In fact, I think he might’ve made you stronger.”

“No.”

“So you telling me another nigga can come into yo’ life and do you the same way that nigga did?”

“Hell no.” She frowned, but then it dissipated when she saw my point.

“Exactly, and I know you can read niggas’ intentions better now,” I stated, and she nodded slowly like it was just now coming to her. “And baby, with six fucking brothers in the house growing up, I been cleaning up after other niggas all my life.”

She tossed her head back in laughter before shaking her head at me and picking her fork back up.

After pondering for a moment, she replied, “Can we be friends for right now?”

“I’ll take it. Long as I’m yo’ only friend, we good, baby.”

She rolled her eyes playfully before smiling. I returned the gesture, hoping deep down she knew I wasn’t fucking around. ’Cause any nigga who called himself becoming besties with Anastazia Chase, I was gon’ have to pay him a visit, and no muthafucka with a working brain wanted a visit from me.

Two days later…

“You ready to eat?” I asked Anastazia, holding up a plastic bag.

“What is that?” she inquired, pulling her own lunch bag from the steel fridge. She’d made good on her promise, bringing me food she’d cooked yesterday.

“My lunch. I’m bringing my shit too now.” I went to sit down but not before peeping the soft simper on her pretty face. “Come on, love. Sit down.”

Only Anastazia could have a street nigga bringing his lunch like he worked a fucking desk job.

“Did you actually make stuff yourself?”

“I did.” I held up the Ziploc bag containing a sandwich, then a bag of chips.

Even though I had my back to her, I knew she was smiling, because whenever her pretty ass smiled, it was all of a sudden warm as fuck, and I felt that shit right now.