Single Ladies by Blake Karrington Page A

don’t do house calls, but yo’ crazy-ass husband insisted on it,” Ms. D said while rubbing the top of Naomi’s head. “We was about to eat dinner. Are you hungry?”
    â€œWait! Hold up! Where did Ralphy go?” Lisa asked, and whipped out her cell phone to call him.
    â€œI don’t think calling him is a good idea. He left his phone here,” Ms. D said, nodding toward Ralphy’s phone sitting on the table in front of her.
    Lisa took a deep breath, then exhaled, shaking her head as she walked over and grabbed his phone. This was the first time that he ever did something like this. “A’ight, Ms. D. Thanks for watching her. How much do I owe you?” she said, digging into her bag for her wallet.
    â€œLittle girl, didn’t you just hear what I said? We’re about to eat dinner. I cooked an hour ago,” Ms. D told her. “Besides, yo’ husband already paid me.” She then got up off the couch and headed to the kitchen with Naomi in tow. “Now, I don’t know what you did to that boy, but he left out of here wit’ an attitude!”
    Lisa kicked her shoes off and took a seat at the dinner table with Naomi, and listened to Ms. D as she began serving the food. Ms. D went on with 101 suggestions on how to fix a broken home. Most of her ideas involved kinky, sexual favors, which gave Lisa a laugh more than anything. She knew none of that stuff was going to work for this particular problem. This was going to require something more, and Lisa didn’t have the slightest idea what that was. This was drama . . . real drama. And one way or another, she was going to have to deal with it.

Chapter 10
    â€œNow look. You’re gonna be the first person in the hood who knows where I work,” Lamar told Falisha as he threw his duffel bag into the trunk.
    Falisha stood at the passenger side door. She was excited that she was going to finally find out where Lamar worked. It was like uncovering an ancient Chinese secret, except that Lamar made her promise not to tell anybody. It took a minute for her to agree to those terms, but in the end, she did. “So, what’s in the bag?” she asked, smiling from ear to ear and hoping to get an idea of where they were going.
    â€œYou’ll see when we get there,” he teased, slamming the trunk closed and walking over to the driver side.
    Just as he was about to get into the car, a cream-colored Cadillac Escalade turned onto the block. Lamar caught an instant attitude because he knew that it was Big Fox, and he was there for none other than Falisha.
    Falisha noticed the truck too, and inched away from Lamar’s car so that it didn’t look like she was about to go anywhere with him.
    Lamar peeped her move. “Oh, yeah?” he said to Falisha as she started to walk across the street.
    â€œDon’t do this, Lamar. Just give me a minute,” she replied right before the truck came to a stop in front of her.
    Lamar just stood there and waited to see what she was going to do.
    Fox rolled his window down and sat up in his seat. “I see you out here wit’ ya li’l boyfriend,” he said, looking over at Lamar, and then smiling.
    â€œYou play too much!” Falisha shot back, and playfully pushed his arm. “I thought you was taking ya daughter out today,” she said, looking into the truck to see if the little girl was with him.
    â€œI just dropped her off. I had her all afternoon. I thought me and you could catch a movie or something tonight,” he said while rubbing his freshly groomed beard. “Come on,” he calmly told her with a nod of his head.
    Falisha didn’t want to go, but at the same time she couldn’t deny him either. It wouldn’t look right with Lamar standing in front of his car waiting for her. Also, she didn’t want to give Fox the impression that she was about to go somewhere with Lamar. Finally, she walked around to the