Page 71 of Just Listen
“Malice, you must have a lot of nieces and nephews,” I assumed.
He glanced at me and nodded. “I got three. One boy, and two girls.”
I arched a brow. “You babysit?”
“Mmm…you can say that. Their mamas would really leave them with Paisley, and I’d help her.”
“Oh. So, she’s real close to your siblings?”
He nodded. “They love her. My mama too.”
“Oh, damn. Then they’ll probably look at me sideways.”
“Nah, cause my three sisters and lil’ brother already called me about it. I laid everything out for them. Told them that you came along while me and Paisley was broken up. Then you even kept your distance once you seen us together.”
“You told them all that?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Because I didn’t want no assumptions when it comes to you. You deserve coming around with nothing negative attached.”
I tilted my head. “Coming around?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, while checking on the bacon in the oven. “You gotta meet your family.”
I frowned in confusion. “Don’t you mean Khari’s family?”
He paused and locked eyes with me. “She makes us family. So, you’ll have to meet everybody. Plus, you should wanna know what type of people your baby will be around.”
“True.” I had to agree with that, while scratching my scalp. “Ooh, my hair is dry.”
“Yeah?” He moseyed over to the sectional, and sat awfully close. “You need me to grease it for you?” He questioned, as he reached in and massaged my scalp.
I tittered. “You’re joking, right? Cause what the hell do you know about greasing scalps?”
“I know plenty,” he claimed.
Poking out my bottom lip, I nodded. “Then we shall see.”
An hour later, I was thoroughly fed, my scalp was now properly moisturized, and I was lounging on the couch, with Khari fast asleep on my breasts.
At some point, somebody had called Malice’s phone, so he was actively talking, and had absently placed my feet in his lap. My eyes were rolling into the back of my head, while he was massaging the heel of my foot.
“Nah, nigga, you know me. I’m chilling,” he told whoever he was speaking to. “I'm with my baby. She’s sleeping on her mama, right now. So, you know she’s in heaven. Hell, yeah,” he grinned. “And no cap, I got the prettiest lil” girl in the world. Don’t get me wrong. She got some of my features, but that shit mostly comes from her mama. Yeah. She can probably be in a beauty pageant or some shit.” He tapped my thigh. “Say, did you ever model when you was a little girl?”
I opened my eyes and giggled. “What made you ask that?”
He licked his lips. “Cause. You…you like extremely pretty. Like I know your mama used to get stopped everywhere she took you, because people was gushing over you and shit.”
I laughed. “I mean, according to her, people acted like that with all her kids. So, I wasn’t special.”
“Yeah, Ion know about that.”
I hooded my eyes. “Know about what?”
“About you not being special.”
Look, I considered myself a confident girl, but that nigga had me blushing, right then. Suddenly, I was also reminded of why I’d been so smitten with him from the start.
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