HearT StringS

|{Niko Brown}|

I met the love of my life for the first time when I was only eight years old. His family had just moved in next door from Manchester, due to his father's new job.

He was a skinny, awkward nígga with no friends or any drop of confidence at the time. But after that one time that i shared my lunch with him at school when no one else would sit with him, we quickly became best friends.

Puberty hit, and Aiden... well he hated that name to I called him Ace.

Anyway, Ace grew into himself and became the dominating force of nature that he now was.

By the time we were 14 we started to realize our feelings for each other, which marked the beginning of all our troubles.

Long story short, we came out with each other, we were everything to each other for years, even after both our families disowned us for being 'a disgrace' as they put it, we stood tall for one another. We loved each other beyond literary description, we never spent a single day apart.

Ace was the one that got away, my first love.

But then all that changed when Ace got locked up for killing someone who was trying to violate me when we lived on a street corner in the hood, he was a minor but got tried as an adult and got 22 years.

For two years after Ace got sent away all i could do was try to find a way to get him out, I couldn't function without him, I didn't know how to do life without my boy, I mean how could I? We had spent all our time wrapped around each other in every way possible.

I visited every chance i got, i made a scene at times when they wouldn't let me see him, like the time when Ace was in solitary confinement for stabbing someone in the eye for instance.

But then Ace had randomly taken me off his visitors list and ordered me to go have a life, to move on. Which was how I knew he had me fucked up, because how the fuck was i supposed to do that when my whole heart was locked away. No matter how much i begged, it had only fallen on deaf ears. I had cried for like a month straight at first, then came the anger stage. I got involved with a rough crowd, slinging dope and gangbanging, and fighting every single day. To the point where i became notorious for my bad temper, nonexistent patience, and my inability to chill.

Meeting Dreya and then having my little princess had for sure helped me calm down some, enough for me to figure out my financial stability, which i did by cleaning my money and opening my tattoo shop. But somehow i still ended up in jail for three years, for nearly killing someone with my barehands in self defense. I was angry as fuck bruh.

However, getting locked up turned out to be the best thing that had ever happened to me. Walking in there and seeing my baby was everything, touching and having him inside me felt like paradise, being inside him felt even better. Ace ran the joint up there, and I ain't all there in the head myself, so nobody fucked with us. I wanted to be there forever, I wanted to do something to extend my sentence just so I could be with him. But that nigga went and fucked it all up.

He'd threatened to never speak to me again if I ever did that.

"How the fuck you think I'mma let you do that? Get that stupid shit outta your head fast, I mean it." Ace had warned angrily when I told him about my plans.

First of all, he was the only one allowed to talk to me like that, anyone else would've... anyway, I digress.

I had no intention of leaving despite what Ace had said to be honest, and he knew it. So to prove his point, he'd fucked up a prison guard's face for no reason, and had spent the rest on my sentence in isolation. So by the time my three years was done, I couldn't bother to try to stay, because what was the point if I wasn't gon be with my man?

So I got out.

Getting out was bittersweet in more ways than one. I was happy to see my angel again fasho, she was so big and smart and beautiful. And I was happy to see my baby brother Nathan again, that nígga ain't sane in the slightest but I loved and protected him with everything in me... after all he was the only member of my family who was still speaking to me.

All in all, I never thought I would be able to love anyone else ever again after Ace, I ain't even think it was possible in any stretch of my imagination.

Not until I met him, Sebby Jackson.

Sebby was one of the most beautiful human beings I had ever seen in my fucking life, both inside and out. He was sweet in that innocent-baby kinda way, the opposite of Ace.

Yet his petulant attitude, his childish giggles that wrinkled his forehead, his ability to fall asleep in the weirdness places, made me fall stupidly in love with that boy. Yeah 'stupid' was the word, because boy-.

That nigga showed me.

I mean I should've known better, he had his own 'Ace', named Quincy James. Quincy had been to Sebby everything that Aiden was to me, and I was probably delusional thinking he would ever give that up. So needless to say, that went nowhere fun.

After that I was done with niggas as a whole, I was done with love even. So I found peace where I could, I got back together with my baby moms. We been good ever since, great even. As a matter of fact she was laid up on me right now.

"Where's your head sir?" Dreya asked me with a smile on her face, as she drew circles on my chest.

"Right here baby." I responded, then pulled her in for a passionate kiss. We kissed and grabbed at each other frantically, We was both naked so it wasn't nothing to slip right back into her and went to work.

I was hitting it from behind when her phone went off, and she reached for it. So I grabbed the phone and tossed it on the table, out of her reach. "Don't do that." I warned, trying not to get irritated.

"Shit daddy I gotta go, that was my boss calling. I have some important documents to fax." Dreya argued.

'Document' was all I needed to hear for my dick to go right to sleep. I pulled out and laid on my back, while she ran around the room hysterically getting dressed.

"I'm so sorry baby, I'll make it up to you I promise. Please don't be mad at me." She pleaded.

I ain't got nothing to say to that so I ain't say shit. It was a Saturday and we was finna spend the day with our little girl on some family time shit, but it was so like Dreya to choose her work over us.

Dreya got dressed and kissed me before rushing out of the room, only to rush right back a second later. "Oh before I forget, my little brother is coming to stay with us for a bit." She said.

My head snapped up with the quickness. "Wait what? I ain't even know you had a brother, and why he coming to stay here? You can't just throw shît like that out when you about to head out, the fuck?" I said angrily, it was way too early for me to be this worked up already, but this was turning out to be my constant state lately.

"I know and I'm sorry, I should've said something earlier. But yeah I have a brother, but I forget I have one too sometimes because he's a mess. I haven't talked to him in years, not since he ran away from home. But I guess he needs my help now or whatever." She replied, rolling her eyes at the end.

Dreya apologized some more and ran out of the house, to help her boss fax a document. He got two working hands and everything, yet he always making her do shit jobs on weekends, all for the sake of a future promotion.

I got up and pulled my sweats on, then lit a joint and stepped out into the living room.

"Daddy!"

I jerked up my head at the sound of the childish voice. I barely had time to put out the joint, and catch my not-quite-eight-year-old daughter as Nyla hurled herself down the hallway and into my arms. "Hey peanut." I rubbed my nose gently against hers. "Did you have fun with uncle Nate?" Nathan swaggered in just then, he was on the phone.

"Yeah we went to see a boy he likes at a barber shop, and then we saw black panther, and uncle Nate bought me an iPad." She waved the iPad at me, grinning happily.

She was so fucking perfect.

"Huh. Is that right?" I sent a quick glare Nathan's way, then turned back to my daughter. "That's great peanut. Go change up and come back out, I got some things planned for us today." I told her.

"Yay!" She squealed and jumped down, then paused, "Where's mummy?" She asked.

"She had to work baby, but you and i are gonna have a lot of fun."

Nyla nodded sadly and went to her room.

I matched gingerly to where my baby brother stood, still on the phone, and smacked him upside the head. "Ow!" Nathan flinched, hanging up.

"You gon stop using my daughter to get niggas, dickhead. And how many times I gotta tell you you to stop buying her shit without asking me first?" I scolded.

Nathan jumped up and landed unceremoniously on the couch, he relaxed his back before responding, he was so fucking annoying.

"That's my niece, mind your bidness old man." Nate said, closing his eyes.

I ignored him and went to pour myself a cup of coffee. "How's that going anyway? He still don't want you huh?" I called over my shoulder. Referring to Ronny, the boy Nate had been chasing for nearly six months.

Nathan beamed at the mention on Ronny, grinning from ear to ear. "That nigga love me, he just playing hard to get. But I'mma wear him down real soon... in more ways than one."

I chucked, shaking my head in amusement. I'm glad my baby brother was excited about someone again, after that Marlo nigga crushed his heart and disappeared years ago.

I ended up spending the day with my brother and my baby girl. We played games and went shopping, and watched movies all day. It wasn't the family time I had hoped to have today, but it was an amazing family time nonetheless.