Girls from da Hood 11 by Nikki Turner Page B

thirty-one-year-old Mike B’s sleep, causing his body to jerk. He realized he had dozed off with the ear bud in his ear watching Straight Outta Compton on bootleg. It had been a long day for him. He had been grinding and pushing himself for the past few days, tying up all loose ends so he could prepare to get on the road and go handle some important business in the south for the weekend. Apparently, sleep had finally caught up to him. He wiped the cold out of his eyes and looked over at his iPhone, laying onto one of the many pillows on his bed and looking at the screen. His spider senses went off when he saw the name that appeared across his screen. It was a number he was only used to seeing if it was something of importance or an emergency. It was one of the only few clean numbers he would talk on. At three a.m., he was sure it was one of the two.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” he wasted no time asking, hitting the ANSWER button on his Bluetooth.
    â€œDid I wake you?” his girlfriend, Lenore, asked.
    Her voice was raspy and her tone was low like his. Without even knowing what was wrong, he knew something was amiss. They had been dealing with each other long enough to know the only time her voice sounded like this was when she was tired and couldn’t sleep.
    â€œYou know I never sleep,” he replied.
    A light chuckle could be heard on the other end of the line. “Yeah, that’s what I was just thinking.” He could tell she was now smiling through the phone. “Besides, even if I was, you know I’d answer for you. W’assup tho’? What’s wrong?”
    There was dead silence for a moment. He could tell she was trying to conjure up whatever made her call him. An eerie feeling overcame him. He knew whatever it was had to be bad. Her next words confirmed it.
    â€œSomething happened to your cousin.”
    â€œTwan?”
    He was now wide awake. He knew that was the only cousin she could be referring to. He never introduced her to anybody else in his family besides him.
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œNot sure, but I hear somebody was shooting up at the diner,” Lenore offered. “Denise and I were just getting back in town from New York and stopped to get something to eat. By the time we got there, we saw the ambulance pulling off. We overheard your cousin was in it.”
    â€œAre you fuckin’ serious?”
    The words tore into Mike B’s chest like hot slugs.
    â€œI wish I wasn’t, babe. I saw Jeff up there. Have you spoken to him?”
    The mentioning of his right hand man made him lean over and retrieve his other phone from the night stand. He noticed he had a few missed calls from his partner and a few numbers not locked in his phone. An eerie feeling swept through him for a split second. He didn’t believe in coincidences.
    â€œNot yet. About to hit him up now. He’s been trying to reach me. I fucking dozed off.”
    â€œOkay, I just got to Denise’s house. I’m dropping her off then coming to you.”
    â€œSee you when you get here.”
    Mike B discontinued the call and wasted no time calling Jeff on his other phone.
    Jeff picked up on the first ring.
    â€œNigga!” he boomed into the phone.
    â€œI just heard.”
    Mike B could tell by the sound of Jeff’s expression, what his girl had just told him was what it was.
    â€œMeet me at the spot in the a.m.,” he then said.
    â€œSay no more.”
    Mike B hung up the phone and laid back on his king size bed. All he could think about was how he was going to look his aunt in the face after he had promised her he would protect his younger cousin in the streets with his own life.
    Â 
    Â 
    Later that morning . . .
    Â 
    Â 
    Mike B slipped from up under a lightly snoring Lenore, and climbed out of bed. She had managed to take his mind off of the present situation with some bomb head that knocked him out quicker than Mike Tyson in his prime. But he was