Nikia passed Celebrity to Lamar and made her way inside. Before the door shut behind her, Lamar’s .40 was in her father’s face. The ten seconds of staring seemed like an hour.

“Since you haven’t shot.” Slam eased his gun from his waste band and smirked. “The only thing that’s stopping me from putting those cute tattoos of yours on the ground is my granddaughter in your arms.” Slam hissed.

“Pretend that she isn’t because this will be the only time that you get close to a man like me. The only reason you’re still on your feet, breathing, is because I know all of those good Christians inside that house is going to send me right where you just left.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

Nikia returned from getting the beers and found her father and boyfriend in a standoff. “What is going on?” Nikia asked in awe.

“Here, take her,” demanded Lamar. She complied, and he said, “Now shoot, pussy. Shoot me now. Raise your arm so that I can blow that gray hair off ya fuckin’ head.”

“Lamar!” Nikia screamed. “Are you kidding me?”

“It’s a time and place for everything,” Slam said, smiling.

“What the fuck is going on?” Nikia screamed.

“Your lame ass dad. Your mom should’ve kept the fake death routine going on, so you would still think he was dead. But you may as well pick a side because this is already passed negotiations. Your absent dad, or me, your real daddy?” He tilted his head to the side and squeezed his eyebrows before he squinted his eyes.

“Y’all are crazy,” she replied.

“He’s been threatening to kill me over my block for years now. But, answer my question. Daddy”—he nodded towards Slam—“or daddy?”

“Lamar, don’t do this,” she said forlornly.

Slam’s head slowly moved left to right, from her to him, as if he watched a tennis match.

“I guess you rolling with him,” Lamar said, snatching Celebrity out of her arms.

“Lamar, please,” she pleaded.

“Old head, you’s a sucka,” growled Lamar, letting his gun down and backing up.

“I’ll see you in traffic,” Slam said, pulling Nikia into his arms.

“Indeed.”

Lamar pulled off with Celebrity in his lap. Two blocks away, he pulled over and put her in a car seat that he kept in the trunk. Back in the pilot seat, he sent Nikia a text message:

Do not go to the crib in Jersey. Stay at your mom’s crib or get a hotel. Ur dad has been out to kill me since he’s been out of jail. And please do not let him or anyone mysteriously know about where I lay my head Nikia if you want to see your daughter again. Alive. I mean it.

CHAPTER 40

Since Lamar’s run in with Nikia’s father, Slam, he had not seen or talked to her. It had been eight days. She’d been constantly calling his phone and leaving messages asking him to leave whatever it was that he and Slam were going through alone. She begged for him to allow her to see Celebrity. Lamar had been staying downtown at the Sofitel Hotel at Seventeenth and Samson Streets. Amillie had been sleeping with him in the exorbitant hotel with his daughter in a crib provided by the hotel.

They were in the hotel’s restaurant sharing a champagne flute and a medley of seafood—shrimp, scallops, salmon, lump crab—before she was due to report to CFCF to start her ten p.m. shift.

Breaking the silence between them, she said, “You really need to leave her alone, Lambchop.”

The comment caught him off guard. Celebrity started to whine and he adjusted her in his arms. Mr. Mom.

“I mean, if it comes down to you or her dad, she’s going to pick him. You are her baby’s father, but that bond isn’t sharper than a father and daughter. And God forbid he comes up dead, you’ll be the first one she’ll point the finger at,” Amilli said in a careful, hushed tone. The light music and dim light of the restaurant aided her message.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. But her dad is going to die. Bodies did already dropped.”

“Lamar—“ Amilli paused because she never called him by his government name.

“What’s up?”

“I love you, believe it or not.”

Silence recaptured the restaurant. Lamar thought about the bomb that she had just dropped on him. They were spending a lot of time together, but Lamar definitely wasn’t ready for her to confess to loving him. She was surely wifey material. Her head was on straight, she was a looker with a good job, and down for him playing the game. But he was still lost for her words. Problem was, he couldn’t honestly say that he loved her, too. At least not yet.

“Yeah, I can believe that you do,” answered Lamar.

“OK, well, let’s be in this together then. I want to be your wife, your friend, your rock. Everything you need,” Amilli said openly, playing in Lamar’s dreads. “Please, Lamar, just give me a chance to be in your life full-time.”

Silence filled the air again. Too much came at Lamar at one-time.

“Listen, I really got a lot going on in my life right now, Amilli, and I don’t want to accidentally fuck you around.”

“But she’s going to hurt you.”

“This ain’t about her.”

“Maybe she won’t physically, but mentally and emotionally, she’ll destroy you.”

“I understand that, but I gotta make the right decisions for me. I have a baby now, too. You have to see how that plays a role in this bullshit.”

“And I do respect that,” she said, interrupted by Lamar’s cell phone.

“Yo, wassup, homie,” Lamar said into his phone.

“Aye, Lambchop, where you at?” Gunna asked frantically.

“In traffic. What’s up? You aight?”

“Naw, not at all. These pussies just chopped on me.”

“Who?” he asked, signaling the waiter for the check.

“Slam and them. Them niggas just dropped some shells on the block. They tried to earth me. I ain’t got no gun because the police still had the one from when I got locked up.”

Oh, yeah that, Lamar thought. “They gone.”