...Ain't Gold (Part Fifteen)

“Rich! Richard! Why you ain't call me? I know I left like three messages on your phone.” The girl knocked on the car window.
Rich rolled his eyes to the sky before rolling the window down and acknowledging the girls presence. He and Mookie had come to collect and he wasn’t interested in anything but his money right now.
“What up Tania?”
She leaned in the window. “What up? Nigga, you know what up. That’s all you got to say to me?”
Rich really didn’t feel like talking to her. Mookie stifled a laugh as he looked out the passenger side window.
“What you want, Nia?”
Tania softened. “Hi, Mook,” she said. He barely replied, waving a dismissive hand. “You know what I want.”
Rich shook his head and tapped the steering wheel. “I ain't down like that no more. You know I got a shorty now.”
Tania threw on her skeez routine, long fake nails waving; weave swinging back forth in the wind. “Oh, uh-uh. I know you ain't turning down all this for that skinny bitch?”
Rich turned up his nose. “Look, Nia, go somewhere, aight? I meet up wit you at the club or somethin, aight?” He looked out of the left side of his eye and saw a man coming across the street with two fresh Duane Reade bags. He opened the trunk, put them inside and jogged back across the street.
Tania instantly was down. “Oh. That’s cool. Me an my girls gone be up in there full force tonight, please believe.”
Rich barely nodded as he rolled the window back up, cursing aloud. “Hate that bitch!” he muttered.
Mookie took the opportunity to make fun of him. “Look nigga, I told you not to fuck with her in the first place. Trouble, that's all that is."
"Shit. Well then trouble must love me then." Tania had been all over him for years now, since they had been in high school. All the girls had ben for that matter. Mookie found it amazing that he had no children as much as he slept around. Rich had dodged the baby-mama-bullet thusfar and was in no hurry to discover the joys of parenting with any of these broads.
"Where Miss Young Thang at? Now she straight fine.”
Rich made a one handed left turn on 116th and 3rd, going up to Park and making another left and speeding down the block. “Watch your mouth,” he said in a warning tone. “That’s my lady.”
Mookie threw his hands up. He had never heard rich refer to a woman as a lady in the twenty-three years he’d know him. “You real sweet on Shorty, huh?”
Rich’s answer was slightly muffled because he was lighting a cigarette as he said it.
“What?” Mookie asked.
“I said I love her.”
Mookie almost had a heart attack. “Oh, now I know you trippin. You been listenin to them 112 CD’s again?”
Rich blew smoke out of his nose, snorting. “I ain't been listenin to shit. I love her and you hatin cuz you don’t know shit about that.” He pulled up to Charlene's building, Mookie’s kids mother. Mookie took one glance back before he got out.
“You gettin soft, nigga, you gettin soft. How you love a broad after-How long ya’ll been together?”
“Five months.”
“Five months?” Mookie screeched. “Did you even hit it yet?”
“Get out my car, nigga.” Rich pulled off and kept driving south. Rich didn’t care what Mookie thought about how fast he had fallen in love. Nicole was the best girl he’d ever met. She took him seriously when he told her about his life and his future. Everybody else called him a dreamer. They either laughed or made a passive attempt at being interested. Not Nicole. She hung on to every word like it was oxygen. She seemed thrilled that he had a working brain on his shoulders. She was determined to make him feel good as often as possible. And that’s why he could say he loved her. He was planning to give her the keys to his whole set up.
Mookie had only seen Nicole once, when Rich showed him the picture of her he kept in his wallet. Rich didn’t really want her around his friends or his business for that matter. He wanted her as far away from that life as possible. Toots had made him promise to bring her to the New Year’s Party in two weeks. Nicole had discussed her reserves about being anywhere near his crew, but he knew she’d warm up to them as soon as she met them. Only time would tell.