Chapter 13 #3
I bit down on a laugh because Lance had clearly come over here this morning with a full agenda and bothering our baby sister was at the top.
Mom and Dad would’ve fucked up the vibe, and Landon didn’t go anywhere his wife didn’t allow him to.
Lance knew Layla avoided our parents after Kylo was arrested, but was just being messy.
"You know," he said, glancing toward the stove, "you could just buy regular sausages. They sell them at every grocery store in this city. It’s not a rare item."
Layla rolled her eyes without turning around. "Don't be telling me what to do in my own kitchen."
"Well hell, somebody has to," Lance said, holding his glass up. "No offense, Kylo."
Kylo crossed the kitchen, and kissed Layla on the side of her head.
"She knows what it is," he said, going to his seat.
Lance and I looked at each other.
"Oooo wee," I said.
"Do we need to leave the room?" Lance asked, already grinning.
"Honey," I said, "we might need to."
Layla turned around fighting a smile, and slid my plate in front of me.
I looked down at the sausage.
It looked a little burnt, and possibly bulletproof.
I avoided Lance's eyes completely, trying not to be messy with him.
"Thank you for cooking, Layla," I said.
She beamed, wiping her hands on the towel over her shoulder. "You're welcome. Anytime."
I picked up my fork and didn’t look at my sausage again. I could feel Lance staring at the side of my face, waiting for me to crack.
Everyone went back to their plates, and I reached for my wine.
Layla said something to Lance about the weekend traffic on 285 and he started responding and I was half listening, half watching the light come through the kitchen window, feeling more relaxed than I had felt in longer than I wanted to count.
The doorbell rang and my appetite disappeared. Kylo went to the door, came back into the kitchen doorway and he had a look on his face that I clocked immediately.
Big Bane walked in behind him.
My heart did something I wasn’t going to describe out loud to another living person. He was wearing a pink button up with his sleeves rolled to the elbows and some dark slacks. This sudden urge to bite him came up.
He scanned the kitchen and then his eyes found me. That big grin started showing out, and I fought to look away.
Lance set his fork down slowly, trying to catch his own jaw before it hit the counter.
Layla looked up from the stove and broke into this wide toothy smile, clearly delighted by exactly how much chaos she had just unleashed on the room. Everybody in that kitchen recalibrated at the exact same time.
Bane didn't miss a step. He came straight to me, and kissed me on the lips as if my family wasn't standing there watching it happen.
"I'm glad you saved me a seat," he said, gazing into my eyes. "I told you I was coming to get you," he said.
"Bane —"
"What the fuck is going on around here," Lance said as his eyes moved between me and the man who had just walked into our sister's kitchen.
"Language," Kylo said automatically, then leaned forward. "But for real, who the hell is this?"
"I'm sorry," Layla said. "Is this mister man?"
"Don’t even start," I said.
"Girl, who is mister man?" Lance asked.
"Oh," Layla said casually. "This is our sister's husband."
I closed my eyes for a second.
When I opened them, Kylo, Bakari, and Lance had all stopped what they were doing and mirrored the same exact expression on their faces. Bakari was looking back and forth between the grown folks trying to figure out what was happening.
“Tee tee got a man?”
Layla smirked, “Oop, mind ya’ business.”
“Sorry mommy.”
I stood up from my seat, smoothed my shirt down, and said, "You guys, this is Bane. Bane, this is my family." I gestured around the table. "That's my brother Lance, my brother-in-law Kylo, that’s Layla, that's Bakari, and that's Nina."
Bane moved through the room with ease, taking the time to greet everybody personally.
He shook Lance's hand and Lance pulled him into a quick hug instead, dapping him up and using the motion as cover to look him over from behind, then pulled back and shot me a look of full approval before catching himself and frowning at Bane.
"Mm," Lance said, clearing his throat. "Welcome, Bane."
Bane crouched down and gave Bakari a dap and told Nina her hair bows looked so pretty and he might to borrow them.
“Thank you sir, but this is Chanel.” The compliment made her sit up straighter, but that was it. The only man that ever impressed my niece was her father.
Bane hugged Layla, who hugged him right back and looked at me over his arm with an expression that held an entire paragraph in it.
"Welcome to the family, man," Kylo said, trying to recover from shock. Then he paused. "Wait — Bane? Big Bane? You the one who did that custom restoration on the '69 Eldorado for the governor of Tennessee? The pearl white one?"
Bane smiled. "Yeah, man. That was me."
"Bruh." Kylo shook his head. "That car was clean. The way you brought that interior back, that chrome work — I watched the whole video five times."
“I appreciate that. Old cars just need somebody willing to take the time. Everything in there wants to come back to life, you just gotta listen to it.”
“I love that,” Kylo said, nodding.
“I just came by to pick up my wife,” Bane said.
Lance sipped his wine “I know good and damn well you did not go and get married without us.”
“It wasn’t recent,” I said. “And my business is my business.”
Lance pinched his fingers together and pointed them at me. “Noted. You just clocked the absolute fuck out of me.”
“Language,” Layla said.
“You heard what I said,” Lance said, without looking at her.
“Lauren.” Bane looked at me with that quiet finality I knew better than to negotiate with. “Time to go, babygirl.”
“You can go get my things from the guest room,” I said, picking my wine glass back up, “and then we can go.”
He looked at me for a second and then turned and went to get them. He wasn’t finna punk me in front of my people.
Layla appeared at my elbow. “So you’re just leaving me like that.”
I looked at her. “I’ll be around. We’ll meet up later.”
She stared at me.
Then something in her face opened up, but, she rolled her eyes to cover it. “Fine,” she muttered. “That’s fine.”
“I promise.”
“I hear you, Laurie.”
Lance started laughing at Layla. “You really about to cry ‘cus she leaving you for that man. Hell, I would too.”
Layla rolled her eyes. “Shut the hell up.”
Lance said, “Oop. Language.”
Bane came back through with my bag, dapped Kylo up one more time, let Layla hug him again, and shook Lance’s hand a second time while Lance studied him. He was reserving his full verdict but leaning in a particular direction.
“Take care of my sister, bruh,” Lance said.
“Always,” Bane said simply.
Lance nodded and let him go.
We got to the truck after he loaded my bag into the back. We slowly pulled out of the driveway into the quiet street. I watched Layla’s house get smaller in the side mirror and let the silence take over.
Then I turned and looked at him.
“You fucked up his shop,” I said. “And you damn near killed him.”
He put his hand on my thigh without looking away from the road and left it there.
“The first thing you wanna talk about is Shitters?” He shook his head. “You lucky I didn’t kill him,” he said.
“You know I don’t play about you.” He glanced over, then back to the road. “Now buckle up, buttercup.”
I buckled my seatbelt.
He moved his hand back to the steering wheel and navigated us onto the main road.
I looked out the window.
He glanced over at me.
Neither one of us said anything.
But the silence was doing all kinds of talking on its own.
He said it so casually I almost missed it.
"My shit been throbbing all day." He didn't look up from the road. "I'm finna take care of that when we get inside."
I turned and looked at him. "Come again?"
"I need that. And I'm going to need you to give it to me, so I hope you're not planning on trying that bratty shit because I'm ready and I'm not stopping until I'm done. So you better go ahead and give me what's mine."
I faced forward.
"I'll think about it," I said, looking away.
He chuckled. "Yeah, aight."
***
He pulled off the main road and into a quiet street that curved into a cul-de-sac tucked behind rows of mature pines.
The lots were generous, set back from the road, with actual land between houses, not the compressed subdivision spacing where you could hear your neighbor's conversations through the wall.
His house sat at the back of the curve.
My jaw dropped as he slowed down.
It was a Craftsman style home with deep charcoal exterior and warm stone accents along the base. A garden ran along the left side of the property, and raised beds seemed to be tended to very often. Behind the house the property opened up into more land.
He had another truck in the driveway, but the dirt covered the wheels.
Oh, he been puttin’ in some work.
I got out and just stood there for a second.
He grabbed my bags before I followed him up the porch steps.
Inside was somehow worse.
It was organized, lived-in, but with intention behind every arrangement.
Open concept, high ceilings, dark wood floors ran the length of his space.
The kitchen sat to the right, clean counters, a real double stove, things hung on the wall that told me someone actually cooked here on a regular basis.
The living room opened wide to the left, furniture chosen to complement the room.
Then I saw the wall.
I stopped walking and let myself take it in.
It was a family wall with matching frames and candid prints bought for the look of it. This was a record of a life truly lived. Photos were arranged without overthinking it, placed where they made sense, telling a story.
I slowly moved down the timeline of a man I thought I had memorized a long time ago.