Welfare Wifeys by K'wan Read Free Book Online Page A

my nieces and nephews all extra and shit.”
    “Please, ain’t nobody beating these bad-ass kids, even though I should from all the hell they give me. One of these hating ass bitches was trying to be funny and called them on me. That’s my word, when I find out who it was imma slay one of these hos.”
    Mookie shook his head. “Just like a Butler, always ready to kick ass first and take names later.”
    “You’re one to talk.” Jada rolled her eyes. “If I recall correctly the last charge you caught was for assault.”
    Mookie downplayed it. “That wasn’t nothing but a little misunderstanding.”
    “You call putting forty-two stitches in someone’s head a misunderstanding?”
    “Hey, if he hadn’t pulled that pistol on me I wouldn’t have had to clobber his ass with it. The lil niggaz of this generation have a serious lack of respect for the O.G.s.”
    “What the fuck ever, Uncle Mookie. And why do you have your jailhouse ass in my robe? You know how much that shit cost?”
    Mookie sucked his teeth. “A’ight, a’ight, don’t get ya drawers in a bunch.” He slipped out of the robe and stood in the hallway as naked as the day he was born. “I’m done with it anyway.” He tossed it to her and shuffled down the hall, leaving Jada holding the damp robe with a disgusted look on her face.

Chapter 5
    Of course it would’ve been too much to ask for Mookie to have washed the tub out after ringing it with God only knew how many days’ worth of street soot. Cursing under her breath, Jada washed the tub and opted for a quick shower instead of the long soak she’d planned. Even after scrubbing the tub thoroughly, the memory of the dirt ring soured her on the idea.
    Moving as quietly as she could so that the kids and her grandmother wouldn’t notice her, Jada slipped into her room and locked the door behind her. She tossed the towel she’d been forced to wrap herself in into the corner and stretched out naked on her bed, praying for the sleep that had eluded her during her binge. No sooner than her eyelids began to drop, her bedroom phone rang. Jada snatched the phone up and answered with attitude. “Yeah?”
    “Thieving ass bitch, you gonna get just what your hand calls for,” a muffled voice said on the other end.
    “Eat a dick and die!” Jada slammed the phone down. She had started receiving the disturbing phone calls about a week or so prior, not long after her last blowup with Miles’s father, Cutty, over some missing money. Even though the argument had happened weeksprior she still remembered his sharp words as if he had just said them.
    She had been ducking Cutty’s phone calls for more than a week, but he caught her out there that time by having someone call her on three-way. The moment she had heard his gruff voice come over the phone an icy finger ran down her back.
    “What the fuck is popping, Jada?”
    “Damn, hello to you too,” she said sarcastically.
    “Yo, now ain’t the time for ya fucking mouth, B. I’ve been trying to track you down for over a week and couldn’t get through. What the fuck did you get that extra line installed for if you ain’t gonna be around to answer it?”
    “My fault, I’ve been busy.”
    “So busy that you’ve forgotten the ones who’ve taken care of you?” he shot back.
    Jada looked at the phone as if she’d heard him wrong. “Cutty, don’t come at me with that jailhouse bullshit because I’ve been taking care of me and these kids since you left. I’ve got a massive headache right now, so please don’t add to it.”
    “If you stayed in the house instead of running out boozing all night then you might not have this problem.”
    “Cutty, I don’t know who you’ve got on the line that you’re trying to impress, but knock it the fuck off,” Jada capped.
    Cutty laughed. “Apparently you must’ve forgotten who I am?” Cutty was one of the fallen legends of Douglass Projects. Before the same streets they praise decided to betray them,