Free AFRICAN AMERICAN ROMANCE: A Thug to Remember (Hood Alpha Male Pregnancy Romance) (African American Urban Contemporary Short Stories) by Lady Keisha

type to keep tabs on our city’s criminal underworld.”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess these things just get back to you, you know? With someone as well-known as him, I’m surprised the whole city doesn’t know.”
    “So what does he deal?”
    She looked at me curiously. “You don’t partake, do you?”
    “No. Just curious,” I replied nonchalantly.
    “I’m not really sure. I know he refuses to handle heroin, because it’s too messy, but a couple of girls from the house were buying molly and coke from one of his sellers.”
    “In the house?”
    She blushed. “Yeah, a couple of the younger girls. We figured it was best not to tell you. Plausible deniability, you know.”
    “And I’d have made you get that shit out of my house.”
    “Well, that too,” she nodded. “Anyway, what’s your interest in our drug lord?”
    I shrugged, putting my menu down. “I don’t know. I haven’t been laid in a while, maybe I’m just horny and looking for someone new to rub up on.”
    “You don’t have to be so gross about it!” Thea wailed, waving her hands overdramatically in the air.
    “Well, that’s what it is, and you know it.” I found my eyes scanning the room, looking for him, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. “Anyway, are we going to order or what?”
    So we went up to the bar and got a drink, then another, then another. It felt good to let loose like this, even if it had only been a few weeks since I’d been living with these women. Something about being off campus, with my apartment just up the road, seemed to make things even more crazy than usual. So we drank, and we drank hard. We put away pitcher after pitcher of beer, all my careful budgeting down the drain, because I was just having way too much fun to stop. And every now and then, I would catch sight of Randy making his way around the bar.
    I wondered if he was dealing, or if he was just here for pleasure, or a bit of both. Either way, I couldn’t take my eyes off him, and I caught him glancing down at me a few times too. Every time he caught my eyes, I averted my gaze, only to sneak it back to him moments later to see if he was still looking. I felt like a teenager, peering over at my crush to see if they were staring at me. It felt kind of good to have someone to flirt with, even if I was adamant that it wasn’t going to go any further than that. I already had enough to deal with without bringing a drug kingpin into my life.
    So we sat and we drank, and we laughed and exchanged stories about what had been going on in our lives since we’d last seen each other. Two weeks seemed to stretch out into infinity as they shared the gossip and the hook-ups and the break-ups with me, and I couldn’t believe that I’d been living in that hyperactive bubble for the last four years. But by midnight or so, I could see the two of them were flagging, glancing at their watches with sudden interest, and I knew that they would be calling up a taxi and making their moves soon.
    “If you guys are thinking about calling it…” I began, watching as Sam snuggled her head down against Thea’s shoulder.
    Thea yawned widely, then nodded. “I think I need to get back soon. Do you want us to walk you home before we head?”
    “Nah, don’t worry about it,” I waved my hand in the air. “I’ll finish my drink and then I’ll head out, it’s only two minutes down the street.”
    I had ulterior motives, even if I didn’t want Thea and Sam to realize them. Sure, I’d been drinking, and it probably wasn’t the best time to be trying to pull this shit off, but I had to go over and just talk to Randy. Even if nothing happened, there was something about getting that ego-boosting flirt from an alpha male that really put a pin in an already great night.
    Thea followed my gaze straight to Randy, who was sitting at the bar surrounded by a group of men and women, and raised her eyebrows. “Careful, Renee. Don’t get yourself into trouble.”
    I appreciated