A LaLa Land Addiction by Ashley Antoinette Read Free Book Online

show me respect and I’ll do the same. Same goes for the clowns you deal with in the streets. Don’t let a nigga take a tone with you. You’re not a boy. You’re a man. You make sure people treat you like a man. You accept less and the next thing you know they start thinking you’re equals. Once they start thinking that they begin plotting on your spot. Now you ready to listen or you got more to say? Because you can’t absorb knowledge when you’re talking. Niggas that talk too much miss the lesson.”
    Noah stopped himself from replying because he knew if he spoke he would tell Khadafi something he didn’t want to hear. Khadafi was kicking game that would have fascinated a young boy, but Noah was far removed from those influential years. He was a grown man, one who was unsheltered, one who had done a bid already. It was too late to school him. Khadafi had missed those years, but out of respect Noah didn’t remind him of that. Khadafi could see that Noah was uninterested in the direction of the conversation, so he detoured. “Bookie has a son. Messiah. I want you to bring him in. He’s solid and he’s thorough. He isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. I’ll set up the meeting.”
    Noah nodded and then turned to head back to his Range Rover. He stopped midstride and faced Khadafi, staring him in the eyes. “I respect you. Every little knucklehead running these streets grows up respecting you. We’ve all heard the same stories. What you need to worry about is the love. I don’t got that. I don’t know nothing about having love for another man. You learn that by loving your pops growing up. I didn’t have a father to admire, no pops showing me how to change a tire or how to throw up a jump shot. So the respect is there. The love, that’s the main lesson I missed.”
    â€œSo we both have a lot to work on as we develop this bond,” Khadafi said.
    â€œAgreed,” Noah said before walking away. He wondered if he would ever view Khadafi as more than a connect. The nigga don’t even know the day I was born, he thought. Noah shook his head as he reminded himself, He ain’t been a part of any other birthday. I made it this many years without him. I don’t need him. Fuck him.
    *   *   *
    Noah climbed inside of his truck with a myriad of awkward emotions filling him. He was a man with no emotional compass to guide him through the ups and downs of life. It was because of Khadafi’s absence that Noah felt like the knots in his gut made him weak. He couldn’t admit that his father not knowing his birthday had hurt him or even attest to the fact that having Khadafi in his life excited him. He was unbalanced with pride and ego because it was what he used to navigate his way through childhood. He had taught himself to be a man, and having Khadafi show up after all this time was difficult for Noah to process. Nothing but time could forge their relationship in stone.
    Noah put his truck in gear, and when he focused on the road ahead he noticed a black envelope stuck under his wipers. He frowned as he retrieved it. When he opened it a piece of paper with an address written on it fell out. Fuck is this? he thought as his eyes shot back toward the gravestone, but Khadafi was nowhere in sight. Noah figured that the address was the location where the bricks of heroin would be left. They had never done business this way before and he wasn’t really comfortable with the change of plans, but he would have to roll with it. The streets were drying up and he was eager to re-up so that business could go on as usual. He wasn’t the type to miss a dollar, so instead of going home to Naomi as planned, he started his engine and entered the address into his GPS.
    It didn’t take him long to make it across town. He found himself in Grand Blanc, one of Flint’s prestigious neighborhoods. Prestige of course was