Free Thirsty 2 by Mike Sanders, Nuance Art Page B

voice was scratchy as she struggled to speak. “I don’t want to bury my mama!” She burst into tears and her voice was trembling.
    Carlos took the phone away from his ear and put her on speaker. He took out a key and unlocked the desk drawer where he kept some of his personal belongings. Taking out a blue bank book with the Bank of America logo on the bottom right corner, he looked at the amount in the book, which was just a few thousand shy of six figures. “How much y’all trying to raise?”
    “No!” Sapphire stated and then cried some more. “No—I don’t need no more of your money.”
    “But I wanna help.” Carlos humbled himself, something he’d never done for a woman. “You know I got y’all. So I can either write you a check or I can send my people to the bake sale and make a donation.” Carlos regained control of his senses and got firm. “Either way, I’m giving you this money—it’s the least I can do.” Carlos wrote a check for ten grand while he waited until Sapphire stopped crying. He made the check out to her and was determined to meet with her at the hospital and give her the money.
    “Okay. But you know you don’t have to,” Sapphire said. She never did answer the question Carlos asked about how much she needed. “Justice will be here in a few hours and she’s gonna help me with everything.”
    “Justice is coming today?” Carlos perked up in his seat with excitement. “I can come pick y’all up and—”
    “That’s all right,” Sapphire cut him off. “You and I both know she still wanna kill your ass.” Sapphire’s words were sharp but true. “Just leave the check for me at the church. I’ll be there to pick it up later.”
    “Aiight, baby girl. Stay strong.” Carlos said as the call ended. He finished endorsing the check and then reached to the back of the drawer and found an envelope to place it in. He wrote Sapphire’s name in big, blue letters and sealed the envelope and placed it in a black travel-size portfolio. He got up and unlocked the door and proceeded to walk out. He went to the break room to get Preme so they could leave. On their way out, Carlos smiled inwardly as they walked past Luther assisting one of the new barbers with a fade. Old man’s still got it , he thought as he and Preme exited the shop and headed to his car.
    ***
     “You need to get over that bitch,” Preme told Carlos. They inconspicuously sat in Carlos’ truck parked across the street from the church and watched Justice and Sapphire get into Sapphire’s Audi A5 S coupe. Carlos almost let an admirable smile escape his lips as he saw Justice for the first time in over two years. She had lost a pound or two, but she was still as thick as he remembered. Her beauty was still intoxicating to him.
    “I am over that bitch,” Carlos lied through gritted teeth. Preme still had a vendetta against Justice because it was her brother’s fault that he was walking with a cane.
    “You ain’t over that bitch because if you was, you wouldn’t get mad if I slumped her ass right here.”
    Carlos saw Preme holding his cane as opposed to one of his automatics, but he knew Preme was serious.
    “We out.” Carlos put the truck in drive. “Let’s go check this nigga’s temperature.” He changed the subject, pulled away from the church, and turned up Wacka Flacka’s “Hard in the Paint” allowing the melody and lyrics to get him hyped. While listening to Waka, he briefly thought back a few months to when Waka had come to Charlotte to get his tour bus tricked out and some niggas had tried to stick him up on Independence Boulevard. He looked over at Preme and asked if he had heard about the incident.
    “Yeah, I heard about it. I heard them niggas pulled up and had ratchets on ‘em.”
    “Did they draw?”
    “Like Picasso.” Preme laughed. “Them niggas was bussin’ in broad daylight at Waka. Niggas out here thirsty. Can’t be comin’ round here flossin’ all that ice an’ shit like