Yayo #3
After everybody filed out of the office, I stayed behind, making myself comfortable in the same chair I’d occupied throughout the meeting.
Truthfully, I had been in no rush to leave in the first place.
Kade’s speech had given me a whole lot more to think about, and judging by the way he’d been looking at me ever since we got back from Vegas, he knew it.
Hell, he should’ve. The night me and Kayla got into it, after I stormed out the room and left her sitting in that big ass suite by herself, I’d ended up calling him.
Out of everybody in my life, Kade was probably the only person I trusted to tell me when I was being a hardheaded nigga without making me feel like he was trying to son me.
Maybe it was because of the way he loved Ice.
Maybe it was because he’d somehow figured out how to balance being a businessman, a husband, and still remain himself.
Either way, he became the sounding board I didn’t know I needed.
I’d told him everything that happened that night, right down to Kayla telling me she loved me and me freezing like a damn fool because I couldn’t force those words out of my mouth.
So when he started talking about legacy, marriage, and learning how to become a husband instead of spending my whole life acting like a soldier, none of that shit came out of nowhere. He wasn’t guessing. He was answering questions I’d been too stubborn to admit I was asking.
“You staying?” Kade asked, straightening the papers on his desk. This nigga's OCD was too real.
“Yeah.”
“What’s on your mind?” I leaned back in the chair and rubbed both hands across my face before finally letting out the breath I’d been holding since we landed back in Memphis.
“Me and Kayla got into it in Vegas.”
“We’ve concluded that Einstein.”
“Yeah but it got worse, I fucked it up.”
“Nah,” he shook his head.
“Y’all just communicating from two different places.”
I frowned.“The hell that supposed to mean?”
Kade came around the desk and leaned against the front of it, folding his arms. “You hearing business. She hearing forever.” He pointed toward the living room. That simple sentence shut me up quicker than anything else he could’ve said.
“I kept trying to explain why I couldn’t just walk away.” I admitted, staring down at the folder in my lap. “She kept hearing that I wasn’t choosing her.”
“Because that’s what it sound like from where she standing.”
I let out a frustrated laugh. “But that ain’t what I meant.”
He nodded. “I know exactly what you meant.”
I allowed the silence to sit between us before I asked the question that’d been bouncing around my head ever since we left Vegas. “So you really think I can walk away?”
Kade didn’t rush to answer. Instead, he looked out the window overlooking the back of the property, taking his time like he wanted to make sure every word landed exactly the way he intended.
“Not today.”
“Thought so.” I dropped my head with a quiet chuckle.
“But one day.” I looked back up at him.
“When you decide you’ve had enough...when you done built the exit instead of just looking for one...” he paused before meeting my eyes again. “I promise you won’t miss it.”
Kade wasn’t speaking from hope. He was speaking from experience. He’d already crossed a bridge I was just now beginning to see existed. We left the office together and walked back toward the living room where the mood had lightened just enough for conversation to find its way back into the house.
My eyes immediately found Kayla sitting beside Ysis on the couch.
Whatever Ice had whispered must’ve been funny because Kayla threw her head back laughing, the sound filling the room in a way I hadn’t heard since before Vegas.
For the first time in what felt like days, the tension had left her shoulders.
She looked...peaceful. I started to walk over before Kade lightly caught my arm.
“Leave it.” I looked at him.
“Sometimes the best thing you can do is let a woman breathe.” I nodded, slipping both hands into my pockets as we stood there watching them a little longer before the women excused themselves upstairs.
Seeing Kayla smile should’ve made me feel better, but instead it left me thinking about everything Kade had just said in his office.
Somewhere between Queen cutting off my expansion, Kayla telling me she loved me, and Kade laying an entirely different future in front of me, I found myself asking questions I’d never cared enough to ask before.
Maybe becoming a husband really was harder than becoming a kingpin, and maybe building a life required more courage than building an empire.
Before I could follow that thought any further, a ringtone cut through the room. Cazmir reached into his pocket and glanced down at the screen.
“What's up Ma?”
The panic in his mother’s voice carried through the phone loud enough for every conversation left in the room to die where it stood.
The color drained from his face so fast, it looked like someone had pulled the blood out of his body.
His hand gripped the edge of the kitchen island as he listened, saying nothing for several long seconds.
“No...” He pulled the phone away from his ear for half a second, like he couldnt believe what he'd just heard before pressing it back to his face. “I'm on my way.”
When the call ended, Cazmir didn't look at any of us, nor did he answer any questions. He dashed out the front door, slamming it hard enough to leave all of us confused. We looked around at each other , waiting for somebody to tell us what the hell had just happened.
Nobody could.