Page 69 of Heart Of A Goon II

Damn house was so big that I didn’t even know where to go. I headed down a hallway, hoping to find the kitchen. The hallway I had headed down was a dead end, but at the end of it, up on the wall was a huge portrait of a man and woman.

The were both staring into each other’s eyes. His hand caressed her face, as her hand rested on his wrist. Their smiles were fucking contagious with the way they stared into each other’s souls.

It didn’t take a genius for me to put the pieces together. These were their parents, and it was evident by the man. Menace and Don were the spitting image of the man in the portrait. Menace inherited his eyebrows, which made him look eviler than he was. My eyes roamed the portrait, as I looked at their mother and took a few steps back.

Kora resembled her mother heavily. They shared the same dark almond shaped eyes, high cheek bones, and pouty lips. Her hair was pulled up into a big bun, but I was willing to bet that she had curls like Kora.

“You wanna fuck my mother?” I heard Menace’s raspy voice behind me.

One would have been startled by his lack of announcement, but I was starting to embrace the quietness that came with the Caselli’s, specifically Menace.

“They were a beautiful couple. I can feel the love they had for each other in this picture, and I never even met them.”

It was clear that his parents loved each other. Even if I didn’t know who they were, you could still feel their love radiating from the picture. His father stared into his wife’s eyes like he would do anything for her. The same way that Menace stared at Stevie. As if he would give up the entire world if she asked him to.

He finally came into view, standing beside me with his hands tucked into his pockets. “They took that picture the day after I was born. Pops said moms delivery with me was so rough. The first thing she asked for when she woke the next morning was to stand outside. She wanted to feel the wind and sun on her skin.”

My stomach turned thinking about Boobie, and the fact that she was pregnant with my baby. It was easy to whisper into a woman’s ear you wanted to give her your seed, but it came with more than that.

Women died from childbirth.

While niggas took it as a joke when they busted nuts in women they knew they had no plans on having a future with, some of those women ended up pregnant. I’d never judge a woman on her choice to abort a baby or keep one, but some kept their babies. They had to go through nine months of their bodies and mental changing and then give birth in the end.

It was the reason that I respected women who were selective with their bodies and who they shared it with. As stupid as Boobie was to be with a bum like Sigel, she wasn’t out here giving it away to every nigga that whispered something sweet in her ear.

The minute I asked her to let me make us parents; I knew what that meant. Even if we didn’t work out, she and my child would never go without. I would still be present in my kid’s life, because that was what a father did.

“I heard Inez when she gave birth. We were in the waiting room, and even back then I knew childbirth wasn’t some shit to play with.”

He looked over at me. “He was a crack baby?”

Between him and his sister, they were going to drive me into a mad house. I would have been offended, but this was Menace. I don’t think he even understood what offending someone meant. From the look on his face and the tone of his question, I could tell he was concerned if Melle was a crack baby.

“Nah.”

“Wonder had a rough birth. We prepared and had binders of shit for the birth and couldn’t follow none of that. I already had my answer for when they asked me.”

“What question?”

“Save my wife or our son.”

“And?”

“Save my wife. There’s not another Wonder. I could spend billions and never find a woman that is like her. Plus, I didn’t know that little nigga.” He snorted, as he continued to ball his hands up in his pockets.

I chuckled. “And now?”

“Don’t ask me that.”

I stared at him, realizing that was a hard question for him to answer as a husband and a father. “Couldn’t make one?”

“Nah.” He squeezed his eyes closed tightly and rotated his neck from side to side. His jaw flexed as he continued to squeeze his eyes open and shut.

“Mens, you straight?”

“If something happens to you, I can’t forgive myself. I know what you mean to her… so get on that jet and go to her, Gavin.”

I ignored the fact that he never called me by my right name. “Before Zoya, I was out there doing me… I’m supposed to be family, right?”