Chapter 10
“You sure you good, Precious?” Savio asked as they entered her home.
She’d been really quiet since she got out of her super secret meeting, and he wasn’t too proud to say he was curious as fuck about why. What the fuck had happened in that meeting that had her looking so spooked?
She looked up at him, and he could tell he pulled her from a deep thought. Cashmere offered him a small smile, but he could still see something bothered her behind the sweet grin.
“Yeah. I think I’m just going to lay down for a bit.” She hesitated for a moment before she said, “Hey, do you think you can talk to Cell about bulking up Ivoree’s security? It’s not that Twizz isn’t doing a good job. I just want extra eyes on her.”
Savio’s brows furrowed, and he immediately went on alert. Gently, he reached out and smoothed her hair away from her face as he asked, “The fuck happened in that meeting?”
Cashmere averted her eyes and shook her head. “Nothing. It would just give me peace of mind.”
He knew she was lying, but he would let her live . . . for now. “Just answer me this. Is there a threat I need to know about?”
Cashmere shifted uncomfortably before she shrugged and looked him dead in the eye. “Honestly? I’m not sure.”
That was the truth. He could feel it. Savio nodded and leaned down to kiss her cheek.
He wanted to sample her lips again, but he refrained.
She didn’t seem like she was in the headspace to receive the kind of passion he had for her.
In the back of his mind, he knew he still needed to tread lightly with her, even though she had reciprocated his kiss.
Cashmere was the type to run at the drop of a dime, and that was the last thing he wanted.
From the moment he met her, there was something that told him he needed to keep her around for as long as possible.
“Get some rest. Anything you need me to do in the meantime?”
She shook her head. “You can take the rest of the day off if you want. I’m not going anywhere else today.”
That was different. Cashmere filled her days with shit with no days off. To him, it seemed like she busied herself as a distraction or maybe out of habit. The fact that she wanted to take the day to rest made him even more curious about what went on in that meeting.
“Aight. Hit me if you need anything. I’m just about to link with Twizz and hit Cell up. I’ll check in with you later.”
“Thanks,” she murmured before she turned and headed for the stairs.
Savio watched her until she disappeared before he did an about face and headed back out the door. With his phone in his hand, he dialed Twizz as he got into his truck.
“Yo?” Twizz answered the phone just as Savio started up his truck.
“Where you at?” Savio asked.
“Library with Vee.”
“Which one?”
“On campus. You good?”
“I’m about to pull up.”
“Bet,” Twizz said before they ended the call.
Savio’s mind drifted to his relationship with Twizz.
Back when he took the lil nigga in, they had both been lost. Savio hustled relentlessly to make a name for himself and took Twizz on the journey with him.
He taught Twizz everything he knew, and now he wondered if that had been the wrong move.
Before prison, Savio had been focused on the come up and that was it.
He ran through women, partied, and flaunted his riches.
Twizz followed suit. The problem was, Twizz didn’t have a downfall like Savio did.
Prison had a way of either angering a nigga or humbling a nigga.
His time on lockdown humbled him. While Twizz had held him down, he didn’t have to feel the stress of confinement, so Savio feared he didn’t understand the importance of staying clean and getting out of the streets.
How could he when Savio preached the benefits of running the streets since before the nigga even hit puberty?
When he pulled up to the library on the campus, he parked and got out of the car.
It had been a long ass time since he stepped foot into a proper library.
They had a sad room in the prison that he did his bid in that they called a library, but the smell of all the books in this space gave him a sense of nostalgia.
He didn’t know why. He didn’t particularly spend a lot of time in the library when he was young, but he guessed libraries just held that kind of magic.
It didn’t take him long to spot Ivoree at a table with her laptop in front of her and books spread all around.
Shorty looked so much like her sister, it made him miss Cashmere.
A flash of her soft lips pressed against his had him adjusting himself in his black jeans before he made his way to Ivoree.
“What’s good, Vee? Where’s Twizz?” he asked as he slid into a chair across from her.
Ivoree looked up, and her eyes widened when she saw Savio. She smiled and said, “He just went to get me a coffee.”
Savio’s brows pulled in. “Does he do that often?”
“Get me coffee?”
“Leave you unattended,” Savio clarified.
Ivoree shifted in her seat and averted her gaze. “I mean, I guess. I ask him to do something, and he does it.”
She shrugged, and Savio shook his head.
“Check it. Twizz ain’t here to run errands for you. Y’all gotta come up out of whatever comfortability you’ve formed between y’all. He has a job to do, and it ain’t fetching you coffee whenever you want it.”
Hurt flashed across Ivoree’s eyes. Savio realized he sounded harsh, but the way Cashmere acted earlier had him on edge, and he wasn’t about to apologize for being hard on these two knuckleheads.
“You and Cash are comfortable with each other,” Ivoree challenged.
She sounded defensive and hurt when she spoke, and Savio felt bad but also thought it was a bit funny.
It was clear Cashmere was the tough one because if he had come at her like that, she wouldn’t have folded.
She would have cursed him out, and then he would have had to remind her who the boss really was.
She thought she was the boss, but Savio knew better.
Deep down, Cashmere knew too. He let her live for the most part though.
Ivoree was clearly too sensitive for his cool demeanor, so he tried to soften his approach a bit. He pressed his elbows onto the table and leaned forward.
“Right, but the difference is I still do my job.”
Understanding flashed in Ivoree’s eyes, and she softened a bit toward him. “I guess you’re right. Not everyone can have a you as security though.”
Savio grinned to break the tension. “Right about that.”
She giggled and then looked back at her laptop as she nonchalantly said, “I wish my sister would stop doing whatever it is that she does so we didn’t need all this extra security. I swear, I’m happy as hell I’m going to be a doctor. I want to lead a soft life. Too much of it has already been hard.”
Savio nodded. He respected that Ivoree knew what she wanted, but he felt the need to take up for Cashmere. “Not everyone has the luxury to choose your kind of path though.”
Ivoree glanced at him and looked mortified. “I know that. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Savio nodded, but before he could respond, Twizz’s deep voice interrupted them. “Aye, what’s good, Sav?”
Savio looked up and saw Twizz approaching them with a cup in each hand. He placed one on the table and took a sip out of the other one. Savio shook his head and stood up.
“Come over here for a minute.” Savio walked off to the side of the library next to the autobiographies where they could still see Ivoree.
“What—”
“You an errand boy now?”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Savio said as he glanced down at the cup in Twizz’s hand.
Twizz glanced down at his drink and shrugged. “Nah. She wanted some coffee, so I offered to get her some.”
Savio shook his head. “Get ya head on, boy.”
“I ain’t no boy,” Twizz warned.
Savio looked him dead in his eyes. “You actin’ like it. What is you here to do?”
“Security, but—”
“But nothin’. Where’s the coffee shop?” Savio asked. He had a point to make and wasn’t about to let up until he did.
“Across the building,” Twizz mumbled.
“Say that shit wit’ ya chest.”
“Across the building, man. I already know what you gonna say. Ain’t shit poppin’ off at a damn library, though, G. She good.”
Savio shook his head. “Let me make this clear . . . No more running errands for her. Ivoree’s sister is strapped enough to hire her a damn errand boy if that’s what she wants, but your job is to be her bodyguard. That’s it. Tighten the fuck up.”
“Aight, man. Damn. This shit is boring as hell, though. All shorty does is talk my damn ear off, study, and go to class. Ain’t no action.”
“Ain’t supposed to be action.”
“Aight. Aight. I hear you.”
“Do you?” Savio looked at Twizz, wishing he really did hear him.
“Yeah, man. I do. I got you.”
Savio looked at him for a moment longer before he eased up. He ran a hand down his face and asked, “What you got goin’ on tonight?”
“Harold is havin’ a kickback. You should slide,” Twizz said, which instantly pissed Savio off again.
Harold was no good. He was heavy in the streets and had beef with a lot of people.
Twizz didn’t need to be kickin’ it with that nigga.
As Savio looked at Twizz, he knew the younger man was grown and would do what he wanted, despite Savio trying to correct his teachings.
Savio sighed. “Look, I’ma just say this. You might be my lil nigga, but you ain’t a lil nigga. Man up. Leave that street shit alone,” Savio warned.
“I hear you,” Twizz said, and Savio felt like he really was heard, so he let the shit go.
“Cash wants me to talk to Cell about beefing up security for Ivoree. I just wanted to let you know before I talked to him. Ain’t got nothin’ to do wit’ you. I think there’s some shit goin’ on that they’re being extra hush about, so make sure you’re on point.”
Twizz nodded seriously. “I got you, for real.”
And Savio felt like he really did. When Twizz said something, he meant it. A man of his word, just like Savio taught him. He just prayed that whatever was going on behind the scenes wouldn’t touch him or the people he cared about.