Page 24 of Delirium 2

“Y’all about to ride to the city. I’ll be back next week,” I said as Lakeland handed me her phone. Vellz sucked his teeth and pulled mine from his pocket, probably annoyed that he didn’t get the reaction I would have normally given him.

I wasn’t myself.

And wouldn’t be for a very long time.

I was pretty numb. Numb to bullshit. Numb to life. Literally just living this shit on cruise control. When I said I didn’t have the energy to give Vellz the attention he wanted, I meant it.

“We not about to go yet, damn,” Lani complained, showing me the bottle of Don Julio she pulled from her Glamaholic tote. “We about to get faded first. Lil’ pregame. I know you need a shot.”

“Hell yeah, I do,” I said, handing Lake her phone back. Snatching mine from Vellz, I put it in my purse. Nothing fancy. A knock off Prada I got from Fashion Nova. I liked nice shit, just couldn’t afford it. However, now that I was making three thousand a week, I planned to step my shit up a little. First purchase was a black, everyday Coach bag. Something plain that I could wear with just about everything. Second purchase was a hot pink Glamaholic bag because I loved pink. Both bags were being delivered next week.

“Why you actin so funny, man? You trippin bout that bitch?” Vellz mumbled, too close to my ear for comfort.

I moved my head with a frown. “Vellz if you don’t leave me the hell alone about that bitch. I do not give a fuck about what you got going on. And I put that on my peoples.”

Couldn’t bring myself to say on Meech.

Or my momma.

My peoples sufficed. He knew what the fuck I meant and if I put it on them, then he knew for sure I was telling the truth. Chevelle was the least of my worries. Honestly.

“Because you fuckin’ X?” He asked, shaking his head. “You one of them overly goin type females now, huh?”

I looked at him. Squinted and turned my face up. Shaking my head, I took the bottle of Don from Dom and turned it up against my bottom lip, taking a sip. After that first shot, I took another one right after.

“You so got damn stupid,” I insulted, talking to Vellz. “Like… really fucking dumb.”

That was what he wanted.

He wanted me to turn up on him. He wanted to see a side of me that I didn’t really care to show him. Vellz getting any kind of reaction out of me was an error on my end. He didn’t deserve anything from me. At all. But… my God was he dumb. I was one of them overly going women. Yeah okay. Exodus wasn’t even widely known to fuck with a lot of women. For years, he’d been with the same bitch. I wondered if Vellz's insult came from thinking I was like every other women in Everly who wanted a piece of a Christ brother. If that was the case, he really was stupid. He knew me. He knew I didn’t give a fuck about clout. Especially since he didn’t have any when we got together. I didn’t chase shit like hood fame. I hated it when he started to make a little noise in The Woods.

“Now I’m stupid. You on some shit, for real.”

I didn’t say anything. Turned my attention to the conversation my cousins were having and tuned him out.

About an hour and a half later, Vellz and his niggas were still lingering around. We’d gone from one bottle of Don to a third. He left for a second, grabbed two more bottles, weed, and came back. I paid him dust, vibing with my cousins but that didn’t stop him from trying to talk to me. Every now and then, I gave him a couple of short sentences, but I was extremely dry with him because I honestly did want him to leave me alone.

Before I knew it, it was inching in towards seven and my cousins were getting ready to leave so I requested my Uber. I hugged Lani, Dom, and Kiera goodbye before Lake and I headed towards the entrance of her building with Vellz and his boys on our heels. The only reason the nigga was around so much was because I was here. He was a joke, for real.

“What you gon’ do about that?” Lake mumbled, referencing Vellz and how clingy he’d been since I fucked him.

“Nothing. What I’ve been doing about it.”

“You know that ain’t gone work. You gon have to really cut into that nigga, Rei.” She paused. “Shit, I don’t think that’ll work either. That nigga love yo’ crazy side.”

“He ain’t seen me at my craziest,” I said through a light laugh. “I’m not worried about that bitch.”

Lake snatched the door to the building open and we walked in. Making it to the stairs, the both of us were caught off guard by Five walking down them laughing with this hood rat named Esha. The minute he seen Lakeland, his eyes widened and Esha smirked. I noticed. I wondered if Lake did she was so fixated on Five. I eyed the bitch up and down, knowing what type of time she was on. Shaking my head, I snorted. Five was so got damn dirty and broke. I mean… maybe he wasn’t dirty, but the nigga was dead broke. These bitches didn’t give a fuck though. Everybody in The Woods knew he belonged to Lakeland. But bitches like Esha thrived on fucking another bitches nigga.

She was busted. Dog faced with a big, stupid booty. Sloppy, dented up booty you could sit a cup on. It didn’t fit her frame. At all. She did some low level, broke bitch shit and went and got her ass done in a bitch basement. Nicole a couple of miles up got all the broke hoodrats with a cool thousand together with the ass shots. Shit was ridiculous. The only niggas in The Woods that paid her bad built ass attention were the broke dusties. Five for sure fit the criteria. I wondered if he’d fucked her nasty ass. Lake needed to get tested, ASAP. Iesha was a fuck raw in the back-alley type of bitch.

“What the fuck do we have here?” Lake asked.

My eyes followed Esha until she was out of the door. She walked by Vellz and them wearing a smile, switching that nasty shit from side to side like they would bite. Like I said, there was only a certain caliber of niggas that would hit Esha and Vellz did not fit the description. At all.

“Man don’t start. She was comin’ down when I was comin’ down.” Five said. “What up cuz? You see how your girl trippin on me?”

I didn’t say anything. I eyed him up and down and pulled my chiming phone from my purse. My Uber was two minutes away. “Mmhmm. Give me a hug, bitch. I’ll call you when I make it out there,” I said to Lakeland, holding my arms out.