Jasmine exhaled. She was thankful
that she hadn’t blown her assignment with Homicide. But she was more thankful that her childhood crush wanted to come back and see her. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. She made her way back to her bedroom, got in the bed, and smiled her way back to sleep.
Thirty-Three
Jasmine woke up at eleven a.m. She decided to jump in the shower and then quickly head to Long Island to get some more of her clothes, since she still didn’t have a lot of her things in the apartment. She was trying to rush and be back in SoHo before one o’clock, so she would be there when Ish arrived.
Jasmine made her way to the Williamsburg Bridge and was on the Long Island Expressway when her cell phone started to ring. Using her Bluetooth, she answered the call, and BJ’s voice was soon heard coming through the speakers in her truck.
“Jasmine.”
“Oh shit! BJ, I’m so sorry. I saw your text, and I meant to hit you back. I was so hung over. I’m just recovering now,” she said, laughing lightly.
When BJ didn’t laugh or respond, Jasmine could sense that something was wrong. “Everything okay? You doing good?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m good. I got an operation scheduled in about two hours.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll make sure I say a quick prayer for you.”
“Jasmine, I need you to keep it totally one hundred with me.”
Instantly Jasmine’s heart started pounding. “Of course. About what? What’s up?”
“What the fuck is up wit’chu and Black Justice?”
Jasmine immediately shot back, “Ain’t nothin’ up with that nigga!” Her mouth started to get dry, and she was trying her hardest to think as quickly as she could.
“You ain’t fuck that nigga, did you?”
“Oh, my muthafuckin’ God! Hell no, I didn’t fuck him! Me and Simone saw him one night up in the strip club, that night Simone met Ish. And he was with his boys and he was drunk and pushing up on me and shit, but I knew he was high, so it was nothing. I wasn’t trying to pay his ass no attention.”
“Jasmine, you sure?”
“Yes! I’m more than sure.”
BJ started to cough. He sounded like he was choking.
“Oh, my God! BJ, I know you checking up on me because Nico is your boy. But honestly you don’t even need to be stressing yourself with this bullshit. It’s just going to distract from you getting better. Just believe me. I mean, this shit is totally from left field somewhere, and I don’t know what’s going on. But I do know that I wasn’t fuckin’ with that nigga.”
Through more coughs, BJ continued to talk. “Well, the nigga got locked up, and he’s on Rikers Island talking shit. You know how things come back.”
Jasmine was beyond stressed and was on the verge of tears, but she had to hold it together. “What kind of shit could he be talking?”
“He telling niggas that he fucked you and that your new name should be Suicide Pussy because every nigga that fucks with you either ends up getting murdered, like Shabazz did, or they end up in jail like he did.”
“You know what? I’ma fuck that nigga up! When I hang up the phone, I’m calling Ish, and me and Ish will ride over to Rikers Island right now, and I guarantee you the muthafucka won’t talk that bullshit. These lame-ass dudes always act just like bitches whenever I don’t fuck with them.”
“Fuck that nigga. Don’t waste your time going over there. But I’ma tell you this—Just watch where you go. Niggas is saying they saw you coupled up with Homicide at the Knicks game last night, and with this Black Justice shit, it don’t look right, you kna’mean?”
Jasmine broke down and started crying.
“BJ, I am so fuckin’ heated right now. It’s like, damn, can I live? I can’t wipe my ass in this city without people being all up in my shit. First of all, I swear on everything, I was at the Knicks game with my fourteen-year-old cousin. I’ll give you his number right now, and you can three-way him and ask him. He loves basketball, so I figured I would surprise him and take him to see the Knicks and the Lakers. Now when we got there, did I see Homicide? Yes, I saw him, but I had no idea he was going to be there. And when I saw him I was like, He looks real familiar, so we spoke. Come to find out, I knew him since fourth fuckin’ grade when we was in the same class. But I swear to you, before last night, I hadn’t seen him in like ten years, if not more than that.”
BJ could hear Jasmine’s sobs. A small part of him wanted to believe what she was saying, but in his gut he knew she was bullshitting. BJ knew there was no way that rumors like that could start circulating without some kind of truth to them, but he didn’t press her on anything.
“A’ight. If that’s what you’re saying, then that’s what it is.”
Jasmine sucked her teeth. “You know that’s not true because if you’re calling me then I know I’m going to have to hear Nico’s mouth on this, and I ain’t even do shit. Uggghhh! I swear, sometimes I just want to move up out of New York because I can’t take this shit. The dudes are worse than these jealous-ass females that be hating on me.”