Chapter 6
R ennix
“ What is absolute fulfillment? Being fulfilled in every aspect of your life: career-wise, emotionally, physically, and most of all, mentally. Most people don’t reach absolute fulfillment, but they get pretty damn close because they pick and choose what is most important to them.”
The old woman on the TV went on and on as always, and of course I sat here watching it because for some odd reason I always found myself watching talk shows and shit.
I guess I liked to listen to others talk about their experiences and what they deemed important in their lives.
It always made me think about my own life and what aspects of it I deemed important.
I had never considered any sort of fulfillment because the life I lived never yielded those options.
There was always doing the necessary to get by, never the picture of satisfaction or a slower pace.
My eyes found the TV as I was about to tune back in, but there was a knock at my door. I didn’t have to guess or ask who it was because she had seen me when I walked in the door a few minutes ago. I assumed it was Juicy, but when I heard my brother’s voice, I realized it wasn’t.
“Yo.”
“Ol’ girl with the big ass forehead told me you wasn’t back here, but I knew you were.” Rem walked in holding a food carton and a drink. Fool hadn’t brought me shit, but damn sure was coming to have his lunch in my office.
I just stared at him.
“Yo, you’re always in here watching that talk show shit. You like to listen to people who like to listen to themselves talk. Change the channel or something. Put on a movie.”
I laughed then reached for the remote. “I don’t tell you what to do in your free time, so don’t tell me what to do in mine. Shithead.”
He waved me off. “Yeah, yeah.”
The room was quiet for a minute while I swiped through Hulu, looking for something we’d both agree on.
“So you’re fucking your friend now, huh?”
I cut my eyes from the TV, quickly landing on him. I looked away when I spotted the smirk he sported. “Yeah, and I’m minding my goddamn business while doing it.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I knew that friend shit was for the birds. Probably not for her, but you. Hell nah. Only lame ass niggas be tryna be friends and shit. You’re my twin, so I know you ain’t no lame ass nigga.”
“Man, shut up. That wasn’t the plan, but it happened.”
“So, what, y’all fucking friends?” He bit into his sandwich.
“No, that’s me. We’re tr?—”
“Aww, shit, not Renny getting in a relationship. This is your first one, right?” He was trying to be funny.”
“Gone ahead and get your jokes out while I’m expecting them.”
He laughed and threw his hands up in surrender. “I ain’t got no jokes. I’m glad you growing the fuck up.”
“Nigga shut up.” I waved him off, eyes finding my watch. I had just gotten here a few hours ago and was already ready to cut out. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the last few nights between being up with Caya and looking over plans. I was just moving through life on the busy kick.
“So, you’re happy?” Seriousness filled his once amused tone.
“What you asking that for?”
“Because I did, little brother. Your happiness is everything to me. Well yours, Jade’s, Dimitri’s and Indiri's. I give a fuck about all of y’alls happiness because it’s my job.”
“You take this older brother shit too serious. Only happiness you need to be worried about is yours, and by the way, I’m your twin. Three minutes don’t make me shit to you.”
He chortled. “That three minutes bothers you more than me.”
“Whatever.” I waved him off just as there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?”
“I need to talk to you, boss.” Juicy’s voice filled the space outside my office.
Shorty took my silence as an invitation into my office and opened the door. I didn’t care for that, but I also didn’t feel like getting at her right now.
“Damn, y’all are twins.”
“No shit. Ren, when the fuck you start letting your employees barge in here? She just almost got her T-Rex shaped ass shot.”
I shook my head. “I don’t. Now what you need?” My attention rested on her face and not the fact that she barged in my office in a bikini bottom, heels, and donut pasties.
Juicy sucked her teeth loudly. “Um… can I talk to you in priv?—”
“No need. What you need to say to me can be said in front of my brother.” I looked away from her and my eyes landed on my phone. I had a text from Caya.
“Damn, I was kinda thinking we could speak in private.”
“Yo, what do you need?”
She glanced between me and my brother before settling her attention back on me. “ Fine. Are you fucking Stardust? Because if you are we c?—”
“It don’t matter who I’m fucking or not fucking because it ain’t your business. As a matter of fact, I ain’t even fucking you. Soon as you get that through your thick ass skull, the more money you’ll make because you’ll be out there dancing and not in my fucking face.”
The look she gave me was priceless, but I got my point across and that was another brownie point for me when it came to Caya… Keeping the bitches out my face.
She stormed out, leaving me and my brother in the office. Of course he busted up laughing. “Yo, you got a type on you. Cause what the fuck did you see in her?”
“Not a damn thing, but you see them lips? They can suck sin from Lucifer.”
He laughed.
My phone vibrated again, another message from Caya.
Caya: Going to see Lotus tonight with Harlem. You?
She was responding to my message asking her what she was doing tonight.
I didn’t do the texting, so I clicked her contact and requested to FaceTime. I didn’t know anything about this rapper Lotus, but per Chicagoans, he was a poet with the cadence of a rapper.
“I’m in the middle of a client, Rennix. How can I help you?”
“Where you going to see him at?”
“I don’t know the exact location, but it’s the club that’s almost up north in the old factory building. The name just changed recently. It’s in my phone and I have gel all over my hands. Why, what’s wrong?”
“Shit. Where is Adonis gonna be?”
“With his auntie. I’m cashing in on those favors. Am I going to see you tonight?”
“Depends on what you tryna do wit?—”
“Yo, I’on wanna hear all that. Wait till I leave to get on that lovey dovey shit.”
Caya laughed. “Hello to you too, Reminisce.”
“What’s up Friend Caya… nah, my bad. Girlfriend Caya,” his real funny ass greeted.
I cut my eyes. “The fuck up.” I mugged him then focused my attention back on Caya. “Get back to what you doing and don’t forget to send me that address. I’m tryna see how far you are.”
“Alright, Renny.” She said that shit to get under my skin because she’d heard Reminisce say it before.
As soon as I was off the phone with her, I dialed my brother. He knew club scenes because he owned a club, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he had just changed the name of his club over some legal shit with this bitch ass promoter.
G answered on the first ring, sounding like he was asleep. “Yo.”
“You ’bouta have that nigga Lotus at your club tonight?”
“Yeah, Prada booked him the other week. Why?”
I was about to respond but Reminisce spoke before I could. “His girl is gonna be there with her friend. He’s tryna be nosy.”
Dimitri laughed. “I didn’t know you had a girl. This new?”
“Who has a girl?” I recognized Beyah’s voice in the background.
“Rennix.”
“Oh, are we gonna meet her?” she asked.
“Yeah, if we all go to the club and see Lotus tonight.” Reminisce had a big, stupid ass smirk on his face.
“Nah. My wife can’t go see Lotus.” Dimitri’s voice got stern as hell.
Beyah laughed. “That was two, almost three, years ago. You’re being dramatic and it wasn’t that serious.”
“What wasn’t that serious?”
“He tried to kick game. Shit didn’t land, but he still tried even after she didn’t go.”
I could hear Beyah in the background laughing. “But on a serious note, I really wanna meet your girlfriend. Dimitri knows that man is not checking for me. So, yes, we will be there tonight as well.”
“This wasn’t even that type of situ?—”
“Doesn’t matter. She done already got up and grabbed her phone to call Jade,” Dimitri said into the phone, making me shake my head.
“Damn.”
“Ay, you got us for a section, right? I’on do general admission. Shit’s for the common folk,” Reminisce said.
I didn’t know how inquiring about an event ended up as me doing “meet the girlfriend” with these nosy ass people because it was not in my plans.
I mean, yeah, I had every intention of popping up on Caya, but not on some letting her meet my siblings shit.
Though I wasn’t used to things like this, I wasn’t really bothered by it.
A lot of things with Caya were different, a lot just seemed to happen naturally.
She wasn’t somebody I was just fucking, but somebody I actually fucked with.
I made it to Oddest, my brother’s club, about two hours into the event.
I already knew where my brother’s section was and even the section where Caya would be was located.
The two sections were next to one another.
That was no surprise, as a little after I talked to my brother, I spoke with Kinga.
He’d be at Oddest tonight too, he and his people were celebrating Sora’s birthday.
I entered the club, bypassing the bouncer because he probably thought I was my brother.
Dimitri wasn’t my twin, but him, Reminisce, and I could pass for triplets were he not so many years younger.
The whole first floor was live, red lights beaming off half-clothed bodies and most of the dudes in white T-shirts hanging off the wall.
No matter the space or year, niggas were always gonna throw on a white T-shirt.
I glanced up at the stage, a girl moved from side to side with the mic in her hand.
She was probably the opening act. Instead of staying on the first floor, I climbed the stairs, moving past the bodies that adorned them, sure to keep my eyes ahead.
Once at the top, my eyes scanned the dark red lit space until I felt a tap at my shoulder.