AFRICAN AMERICAN ROMANCE: A Thug to Remember (Hood Alpha Male Pregnancy Romance) (African American Urban Contemporary Short Stories) Read Free

and took off running hollering for help.  Stella started crying and collapsed to the floor.
    “Lord help me!” he screamed. 
    “Miss Grayson,” Anton said with a deep voice and in a more reserved manner than before. 
    “Mister Anton?” she said, a little startled but still not on edge. 
    “Girl, get the hell off the floor,” Anton said with a squint of his face.”
    “I ain’t got no money!” she screamed.
    “I don’t want your Donald Trump-ass money.  I came here because I wanted a word with Miss Grayson.”
    “All right,” Thelma said, a little nervous but standing tall and staring straight into his eyes.
    “What I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted by the hospitality of the school, was that we all have different roles in society.  Just because I have been kicked out of Lincoln High, doesn’t mean that I cease to exist.”
    “I understand, Mister…”
    “Anton.  Call me Anton.”
    “Anton.  I just think there was a better way to present yourself, that’s all I was saying.  Are you going to rough me up just because I have an opinion?”
    “No ma’am,” Anton said.  “But I still stand by my remark that you don’t know what you’re talking about.  Anyway…I came here to let you know that if you ever want to talk, woman to man, about these issues you can always text me.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “What, Oprah never explained to you what a cell phone does?  It works on the same frequency for rich white folk as it does niggas in the hood.”
    “I know what a cell phone is,” she said with a curt face.  “But you said woman to man…like what, a date?”
    “Doesn’t have to be a date,” Anton said.  “I just meant if you want to talk about the issues sometime.”
    “Oh…I see.”
    “And maybe we can go out to some place nice.  And you can wear a sexy dress.  And maybe we can dance at a really VIP club.  Feel me?”
    “Ummm…”
    “But not a date.”
    “Not a date?”
    “Nah.  I just think you’re hot.  I’d love to dance with you.  Put on some R and B, Netflix and chill know what I’m saying?  But not a date.”
    Thelma suddenly laughed.  “You are fresh, Mister Anton!  ‘Not a date’ my foot…”
    Anton finally smiled.  “So we good then?  Let’s do it Friday.”
    “Well…” Thelma hesitated, even while Stella was making puppy noises on the other side of the car, scared to death.  “I…I don’t date, Mister Anton.  And even if I did, what makes you think I would date someone like you?”
    “It’s cool, I get it.  You’re shy.  You’re afraid.  But here’s the deal, sugar.  I don’t date no hoes.  You understand?  I treat a woman like a woman.  And you showed me something here tonight.  I don’t settle.  I want only the best.”
    Thelma laughed softly.  “And I’m the best?”
    “You have ambition in your eyes.  The same way I used to have.  I recognize it.  Maybe the only difference between you and I, Miss Grayson, is that we took two different trains to get to the same place.  Feel me?”
    “Mister Anton…”  She shook her head.  “You know what?  Fine.  I will go with you on one condition.”
    “What’s that?”
    “No guns.  No bodyguards.  If you’re going have this discussion with me like a real man, then get rid of the cast of Barber Shop.”
    “Owww damn,” Anton laughed it up with his boys. 
    “Am I Ice Cube?” said one.
    “You Cedric the Entertainer,” laughed another.
    “I can’t afford to do that.  I have to be protected.”
    “Uh, uh,” she said.  “I’m the one that should be protected.  You’re supposed to be a man.  An important man.  Why do you need your brothers following you everywhere?  Do they watch you while you do everything under the sun, including what goes on in the bedroom?”
    “Nah, we get the entrails of hoes,” laughed one guard.
    Anton snapped, demanding silence and respect.  He stared Thelma down.
    “You know what?  You’re right.