Chapter 10
“B lake, you got until the end of the day to pull up on me or I’m kicking the door down.
I hope we understand each other.” Brooks’s voice was deadly calm as he left what felt like his tenth voicemail.
Being sent straight to voicemail again had his jaw clenching and trigger finger itching.
His baby sister was testing him, and she knew better.
This was completely unlike her, and he was having a hard time wrapping his head around her actions.
Brooks Bishop didn’t play about much, but Blake?
He definitely didn’t play about her. He’d been more father than brother since the day she was born.
Their bond went beyond siblings. She was his first best friend, the first person he’d ever felt truly responsible for.
Soulja, their father, had pulled him aside when Blake was just a baby, laying out exactly what being her big brother meant.
“A Bishop woman needs a Bishop man to watch her back,” his father said. “That’s your job now and forever, son.”
And Brooks had taken that job seriously.
Blake deserved it. She was brilliant, driven, and had never given him reason to worry.
Until now. Weeks of ignored calls and dodged visits had him seeing red, and he knew exactly why.
Word traveled fast in their circles, and Emon Dowlen’s name had been coming up too often alongside his sister’s.
Brooks understood the game, and knew the streets, and that was exactly why he didn’t want Blake anywhere near it.
He wasn’t in it as deep anymore, but he still had his ties.
You never fully left. He hoped Emon wasn’t feeding lies to his sister.
He’d got the calls and pictures from her night out on the town, and he knew his car was there when he pulled up on her two weeks ago. Blake was hiding from him, and it was unnecessary. She needed to stand on what she had going on. Or he wouldn’t take it seriously. It was simple.
And If Emon wanted to politic with his sister, he’d needed to handle it properly. Fuck the rest. He’d been letting them rock because a little birdie let him know she was straight, but the bullshit needed to end today.
The knock on his office door pulled Brooks from his thoughts.
Looking up from the business proposal he was editing, he spotted Blake standing in the doorway of his office, chin high, despite her obvious nervousness.
She was dressed in her scrubs, probably coming straight from clinicals, but there was something different about her. She had a glow he hadn’t seen before.
“So, you do remember your brother,” he said, leaning back in his chair, removing his glasses.
“Cut it out, Brooks. I’m here now.” She walked further into his office, settling into one of the leather chairs across from his desk.
“Two weeks later.”
“I’m grown.”
“Then act like it. Hiding ain’t grown.” He studied her face, noting how she didn’t flinch under his gaze.
“I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy to return a text? Pick up the phone? Check in?” He studied her face again, trying to put his finger on what it was about her.
Maybe he knew but didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Blake needed a life too. He understood that, but she didn’t need to go about it like this.
“You think I ain’t know about Emon? About that night at Point Palace? ”
“Let me guess, I was supposed to clear it with you.” Blake’s tone was even but firm. “I’m an adult. I was going to tell you when I felt the need to tell you. And since folks running their mouth, you didn’t need me to tell you anything.”
Blake wasn’t in the mood. In fact, she was the furthest from in the mood as a person could be.
Things with her and Emon had been going great, and this interference was getting old.
Tonight, she was headed to Emon’s for dinner and potentially being his dinner.
Brooks wasn’t talking about shit, in her opinion.
“You know this ain’t about permission,” Brooks said, his voice softening slightly. “It’s about respect. And about you being safe.”
“I am safe, and I do respect you, but you can’t control who I date, especially not at my big age.
I pay my own bills, so who and what I choose to allow in my space is on me.
” She crossed her legs, adjusting her scrub top.
“I respect you, Brooks. Always have. But you gon’ have to let me be on this one.
I like him and he likes me. I ain’t coming up off of him and he ain’t coming up off me. ”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was probably Emon checking on her. The small smile that crossed her face didn’t go unnoticed by her brother. And her words weren’t lost on him either. He heard her and knew she was telling the truth, but he still didn’t have to like it.
“You feeling him like that?”
“Yeah.” She met his eyes steadily. “I really am, and I got dinner plans with him tonight, so are we finished here?”
“I guess. What do you know about him?”
“What does that matter, Brooks? I’m your baby sister, but your sister ain’t a baby.”
“I don’t know whether to like the new Blake or not. Old Blake listened.”
Old Blake wasn’t getting bent over the arm of her couch getting dicked down or ate like a death row meal, she thought .
She laughed. “Brooks, I have nothing to say. This is happening. Period.”
“I don’t like hearing my baby sister is out here acting brand new, getting gifts every day and running around with a man who—”
“A man who what?” Blake cut him off. This conversation had gone on a lot longer than she wanted it to. “Who owns legitimate businesses? Who gives back to the community? Or are we talking about a man who enjoys my company and actually asks about my day and how school is going?”
“A man who got shot and needed a safe house.” Brooks’s voice was ice cold. “Yeah, I know about that too. What you think Daddy would say about you playing nurse to street—”
“Don’t.” Now it was Brooks that was about to get cussed out and knocked upside the head.
The way this conversation was going had her side-eyeing Brooks.
Brooks was plugged in, but there was some shit he knew because of someone close to her running their mouth and that was suspicious.
“Don’t you dare use Daddy against me, and since you know so much, you know Emon came to my place by accident.
I ain’t sorry it happened. Shout out to the nursing degree. ”
Brooks didn’t like the sound of that or any of what she had going on, but he had to respect it. She was grown. He’d let it rock for now, or maybe he wouldn’t. What he did know was that he wasn’t going to get through to her today. She wasn’t tryna hear it.
“Just be careful, and make sure he treating you how you deserve.”
“I love how the streets or your informants ain’t reported that back. Emon has been nothing good to me.”
Blake stood and so did Brooks. He walked around and hugged his sister. It was just the two of them now that they didn’t have parents. He wasn’t sure how to let her go completely.
“I’m always going to be your big brother, like it or not.”
“I know, but you gotta loosen up. I don’t need a babysitter. I’m good.”
“Ok, I’m taking your word for it, but don’t ignore me. I get worried.”
“Yeah, my bad,” she acknowledged. She knew he was worried, and she knew she shouldn’t have done him like that. It was just that she was in a cloud of love and not ready to come down. Brooks just wouldn’t understand. He’d been all business and no play for a long time.
Blake left and hummed down the hallway as she left.
Her happiness meant a lot to him, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was supposed to do the most, even if it was for his benefit.
Even if it wasn’t needed. He waited until he heard the front door close before pulling out his phone.
He needed to follow up on Emon Dowlen, especially if his sister was going to be seeing him.
“Yo, it’s Brooks,” he said when the line connected. “Need you to run something for me... Yeah, everything on Emon Dowlen.”
He pulled up the photos from Point Palace on his phone while he listened.
His sister, tipsy and happy, dancing with Emon.
It was the way Emon watched her that got under Brooks’s skin.
He was staring at his sister like a man who’d already mapped out their future without anyone’s input, his input in particular.
“What you mean his record clean?” Brooks’s voice rose slightly. “Man ain’t get shot playing checkers.”
“Ain’t nothing there to find,” Rex mentioned.
“ I hear you. What about his businesses? The carwash and that community store?”
The answer made him pause. “Legitimate. All of it. Clean money, proper permits, even paid his taxes. He did have some juvenile shit, but it’s sealed.”
“Bet. Good looking out.” He ended the call. Maybe he couldn’t stop Blake from seeing Emon, but he could damn sure make sure Emon knew what came with dating a Bishop woman.
His fingers hovered over Emon’s number. One call and he could get Emon here for a different kind of conversation, but Blake’s words echoed in his head. I’m your baby sister, but your sister ain’t a baby.
Instead, he typed out a text to his sister.
Brooks: Be safe. Call if you need me.
Sometimes being a big brother meant knowing when to fall back. That was what he was going to do. For now.
She sent a text back.
Blake: Ok, I love you, Brookie. I’m good.