All Hail the Queen (15 page)

He never was the type to play games. He offered up nothing but the truth and it was always up to that person to swallow it or spit it out. He truly was a real stand-up guy. He'd been that way since day fucking one . . .

Naeema climbed from the passenger seat of the turquoise Geo Tracker and then held it forward to let her friend Roz climb from the back as Sasha hopped out of the driver's seat. She paused at the sound of music already filling the
late-night air from inside Club Infinity. “They playing our jam,” she said, smoothing her hands over her wide hips in the black off-the-shoulder latex dress she wore with patent leather booties.

Cassie's “Me & U” already sounded good as fuck and Naeema partied right there in the parking lot. The blunt they smoked and the Ecstasy they popped had her feeling nice.

“I know them other guys, they been talking 'bout the way I do what I do,” she sang along with the music, raising her hands to shake her shoulder-length curly weave.

“Let's get in the club, bitch,” Roz said, grabbing Naeema's arm and pulling her behind her.

Naeema and her friends crossed the crowded lot. She paused when she spotted two heads outlined through the rear window of a Honda Accord suddenly become one. She walked up to the car and looked down through the driver's-side window at some chick giving the dude in the driver's seat mad head. She was nasty with it. Spit. Slobs. Deep throats. Licks. All kind of tricks.

She had old boy grimacing and gritting his teeth and grabbing the back of her head.

“Dayummmm,” Naeema said, knocking on the glass as she laughed her ass off. “You a bad bitch.”

The headmaster looked up with spit all around her mouth and chin.

Naeema gave her a thumbs-up.

“Man, fuck her,” the dude said, grabbing the chick's head and guiding her mouth back around his dick.

And she went back at it.

Naeema laughed and clapped as she let
them be. She continued to the open gate of the fence surrounding the parking lot. Sasha and Roz were just ahead getting in the long line leading into the club. Club Infinity stayed packed.

Now Naeema could hear Yung Joc's “It's Goin' Down.” She partied her way up the street and in line with her friends. “I want some Henny,” she said.

“I want a hard dick to ride,” Roz said in her leggings, tank, and thigh-high boots.

“Me too, bitch,” Sasha said, dropping it low to the ground and winding it back.

Naeema's co-sign never made it to her lips as they moved up in line and her eyes fell on a tall broad-shouldered dude standing by the entrance with a bright yellow T-shirt with SECURITY written across his chest in black. He was talking and laughing with someone but Naeema's eyes remained locked on him.

Damn he fine. Sexy.

Everything about him. His looks. His build.

Shit.

Step-by-step they moved closer to the door. To him. She half-listened to her friends talking about this and that, but her eyes—her attention—rarely strayed from him. She felt excitement as she got nearer to the door. To him.

What the fuck?

Naeema had seen and had plenty of men in her twenty-some odd years. Fine motherfucking ones. She was used to men.

Oh shit.

Her heart pounded as he looked down the
length of the line and then did a double take when his eyes fell on her. Stayed on her. Only her. He would look away if someone said something to him but always his eyes came back to her. And found her eyes already on him.

Must be the weed and the X.

Right?

“How you doin' tonight?” he asked when she stood before him, his eyes taking her in from head to toe.

“Better now,” Naeema said, offering him a smile as she looked up at him with her heartbeat. “You?”

“Naeema, let's go,” Roz said, tugging at her hand.

She yanked it away.

His eyes dipped to take in the move. “I'm damn good, right now,” he said.

“Man, fuck it. I'm going in,” Sasha said.

“Naeema,” Roz called.

Mr. Sexy Security moved the metal barricade and Naeema didn't hesitate to move through the opening to stand at his side.

“So you're Naeema?” he said.

She nodded. “Good thing I don't have any warrants the way they yelled out my name.”

They shared a look before they both looked away like third graders with a crush.

The conversations of the last few people entering the club filled the air along with “Shoulder Lean” by Young Dro blaring through the open door.

“So are you content, Naeema?” he asked, as the other security entered the club and he started stacking the metal
barriers.

“Content?” she asked, not sure what he meant.

“You know what I mean,” he said with a smile. “Happy. At peace and all that good shit.”

“Why?” she said, avoiding the question.

“Your name . . . it means to be content.”

The fuck?

“I never knew that,” she admitted, looking at him.

“Me either,” he said, showing her the phone in his hand. “I looked it up.”

He winked at her.

“Still, you taught me something about myself I ain't even know.”

“That's what's up,” he said.

“And who are you?”

“Call me Tank.”

“Tank? Is that your real—”

“Nah.”

“You got a girl, Tank?” she asked, feeling nervous as shit when he finished loading the barricades inside the club and came to stand back beside her.

“Nah, but do I have friends,” he admitted.

“Friends?” she scoffed.

He nodded as he reached over to wipe at something on her cheek. “Friends. Not a lot but a few. And when I meet the young lady that makes me want to lock it down she will know I never lied to her and the friends are gone because she's my only lady. The truth is always better than a lie. Right?”

Naeema looked up at him. “Right,” she agreed skeptically because she had never met a man like him . . .

Naeema smiled at the memory. She had stayed outside
with his sexy ass all night and had no clue or care what went on in the club that night. His conversation had been too good. His sex appeal too good. His looks too good.

That night she skipped out on her girls and she went home with Tank. For the first time in her life she spent all night with a man and didn't fuck. They talked. All night. About nothing and everything.

But that next night . . .

Naeema tilted her head back and fanned her neck as it suddenly got warm.

She looked back down at the message and fought the urge to text or even call the chick back as she powered down the phone, left it on the counter, and walked back over to Tank. She took his hand in hers again and wished like crazy that she hadn't let it all go without a second thought.

She knew she was fucked up. Her way of thinking. Doing. Being. Just fucked.

And he stuck around waiting on her to get her shit together.

She bent and pressed her lips near his cheek wishing he smelled more like himself than the antiseptic smell of the hospital. “I know if you were able you woulda got to the bottom of this shooting but I promise you I'm doing my best . . . it's just my best ain't nothing without you. Bonnie ain't shit without Clyde,” she whispered, her throat tightening. “And even though I know you would not want me out there hunting down the dirty motherfucker that did this shit, you would still help me figure it all out.”

Another kiss near his mouth.

“Come back to me, Tank, 'cause baby you all I got in this world,” she admitted, reaching down to take his hand in
hers. “I know I act like I don't need you but I do. Just like I know you need me.

“I ain't got no mother. No father. No son. No grandparents. Nobody. If you leave me too I don't know what the fuck I'll do. I swear to God,” she admitted, unable to stop the tears.

Her pain and her fears were in every damn drop.

“It just ain't the same,” Naeema muttered, looking down at the blunt she was blazing inside the Tahoe. To her it was a waste of good medicinal weed to pack it in a fucking cigar wrapper.

Still, she blazed. Shoes off, one leg bent with her foot pressed on the driver's seat, SiriusXM's The Heat station playing, the SUV parked in the right direction for her to see the entrance in and exit out of the parking lot of the hospital, but far back enough to handle her shit if the cops rolled up.

Naeema hit the blunt again and leaned her head back against the rest with her eyes closed as she held it in her lungs before opening her mouth to release it. It was the first time she felt relaxed in days. For just a few minutes she was going to allow herself to feel nothing. No fears, tears, sadness, or anger.
I don't want to feel a damn thing but high.

She took two more strong tokes before she brushed the edge of the blunt against the side of the ashtray and then lightly tapped it to put out the embers. “Whoo!” she said, raising her head.

She felt like she could barely open her eyes.
Fuck it. Why bother?

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the
driver's-side window with a little smile. She hadn't smoked since the night of the shooting. She was feeling it.

“I said we load it, cock it, aim and shoot . . .”

Naeema reached out with her finger to tap the button on the steering wheel to raise the volume. There was a song playing that had this 1970s, “listen to it while you shoot up heroin” vibe. She peered over at the digital screen. “‘Bulletproof.' Raheem DeVaughn featuring Ludacris,” she read.

She never heard it before. Didn't know if it was old or new but she liked that the flow of it was mellow as shit and that's what she needed. Something laid-back.

“I said we load it, cock it, aim and shoot . . .”

She reached into the armrest and pulled out both Tank's Glock and her 9mm. “Load it, cock it, aim, and shoot,” she said, pointing the barrel of both guns toward the windshield.

POW! POW! POW! POW!

She winced as the memory of Tank's shooting came back to her with the same fiery flash of a bullet being shot from a gun.

“Load it. Cock it. Aim. Shoot,” she said, looking down at the guns in her hands.

POW!

“And shoot,” Naeema said softly as she closed her eyes.

POW!

“And shoot.”

POW!

“And shoot.”

POW!

“Fuck,” she exclaimed, feeling her high fade in the truth of what she missed that night.

One shot at Fevah that missed?
An accident.

Three additional shots long after the passenger door closed under the weight of Tank's body? Shots that all landed in Tank. Intentional. Deadly intentional.

Naeema felt a chill spread over her body.

Tank was the target of the gunman from the jump.

9

N
aeema was breathing hard when she stepped off the elevator and forced herself to just quick-walk down the hall to Tank's hospital room.

“Somebody done blazed 'round this mofo,” she heard someone in the waiting room say when she passed.

She made a quick note to change clothes just as she pushed the door open. She paused to find a woman sitting by Tank's bedside looking comfortable. Naeema's eyes squinted when she recognized Tina, the full-figured, dark-skinned cutie that she ran up on at Tank's house last year. The one she slapped down to the floor for her smart mouth. True, she and Tank had not been together at the time but still . . . respect is always given when demanded.