Gino and I missed our flight, and neither one of us was mad about it.
Plus, they don’t let you transport the kind of cash we were holding in your suitcases anyway, so flying out west was out of the question.
There had been rows and rows of bank in Grandmother’s crypt, each one stacked at least three bricks high and I don’t know how many across. All I saw were 50s and 100s. All of it banded and sealed in clear plastic.
My hands were shaking so bad Gino had to help me lock that bad boy back up, and then we jetted to a cheap motel off of White Plains Road and came up with our plan.
We bought four duffel bags from the Army-Navy store, then found one of the car dealerships that were known for taking cash under the table in exchange for a brand-new ride. Back at the cemetery it took us over an hour to clear out the crypt and stack the money inside of the duffel bags, and as soon as we closed the trunk we hauled ass getting out of there.
Cash talked real loud with the dealer we went to, and I had picked out a gray 2004 Volvo. Nice ride, lots of features, but not flashy enough to scream “drug money” and get us pulled over for driving while black. Gino was chilling behind the wheel, taking us out west, and I sat back in the leather seat and tried to stop my head from spinning.
Finding G’s money didn’t bring my family back and it didn’t solve all of my problems neither. I had no idea where Grandmother was actually buried, and the location of Jimmy’s body would always be unknown to me, but I comforted myself with the thought that I had done something for the living even if I couldn’t do anything for the dead.
We had hit Harlem one last time before watching the bright lights of New York City fade in our rearview mirror, and I felt good about what I’d done. Gino had taken me to Rita’s house where I gave my girl enough cash for her to not only buy herself a slamming house and pay her tuition in full, but enough to put both of her sisters through college and treat herself to all the Naughty Girls toys she wanted. I’d tore Brittany off a hunk of change, too, dropping it off at her crib in a big red box and making her promise not to open it until after I left. I had a feeling Cecil and his little detail shop were gonna be like last week’s dirty drawers once my girl saw how lovely I’d left her rolling.
And now, Gino had checked us into a Hilton Hotel in Ohio off I-70, heading west. We could have stayed at a posh luxury hotel like we used to when we were traveling with G, but neither of us needed all the bells and whistles or the reminders of that kind of high-rolling lifestyle. Besides, we wanted to keep a low profile. Money had a way of drawing trouble to you like flies to shit, and we were way past all that. We were starting over from scratch, just me and Gino, and even though we had mad money to burn we both wanted to put it to better use.
“ California… I can’t wait until we get there,” I said, whispering into Gino’s chest. He held me close as we stood in the middle of the hotel room. It was nice and clean, but it sure wasn’t the Taj Mahal. “You can build your business any way you like it, boo. As a matter of fact, the way we’ll be clocking we can do just about anything we want.”
Gino kissed me and nodded. “But, what do you wanna do, Juicy? We both know what I want, but let’s talk about something that you really want.”
I thought for a quick minute.
“I want…,” I said, moving even closer to him and squeezing him around the waist. During the three weeks we’d been in Brooklyn we hadn’t had sex once. Gino had known how bad I was hurting, and all he had done was hold me and kiss me and be there for me every single moment. “… I wanna do something that I like to do. I wanna push my JuicyOriginals from my own dress shop. And… I wanna have me some babies, Gino.”
“Babies?”
His lips were on mine again, so soft and wet I started getting dizzy.
“Yep. Babies.”
He was teasing his tongue along the softness of my lips and my coochie started coming alive.
“Well, come on then,” my man whispered, leading me toward the bed, pressing his hard dick against me and sliding two fingers down into my panties. “Come on, Miss Juicy Juice. Let’s go get started.”