Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
BILLION
By the time I pulled through the gates at my parents’ house, I had already ignored three calls from my father.
It aint like I didn’t want to talk to him. I just knew what the conversation was about, and once that man got started on family, business, or the Stylez name, there wasn’t no such thing as a quick conversation.
I parked behind his truck and looked toward the house.
And to be honest calling it a house was disrespectful as hell.
My parents had been living there for almost fifteen year, and sometimes I still looked at the place and remembered when my father used to drive us through neighborhoods like this just to show me what was possible.
Back then, we ain’t have no gates or six-car garage. And definitely no long ass driveway wrapping around a fountain. We had a three-bedroom house with one bathroom, and if you stayed in the shower too long, somebody was beating on the door telling you to hurry the fuck up.
My father never acted ashamed of where we came from, though. If anything, he made sure I remembered it. Every building we bought. Every hotel we opened. Every piece of land we owned.
He always found some way to remind me that somebody with the last name Stylez had to keep that shit going after us.
I got out and headed inside.
I didn't bother knocking.
"Mama?"
"In the kitchen!"
Of course she was.
I followed her voice and found her standing over the island cutting strawberries like they didn't have somebody who came in three times a week specifically to help around the house.
"You know you pay people to do that, right?"
She looked up.
"And you know I got two hands, right?"
"I see."
"Then why you bothering me?"
I walked around the island and kissed her cheek.
"Love you too."
"Mhm. Your daddy in his office."
"I ain't ask for him."
"You ain't have to. He been asking for you."
I opened the refrigerator.
"That's why I'm here."
"Don't touch that."
My hand stopped.
"What?"
"That plate."
I looked down.
It was covered in foil.
"Why?"
"That's your father's."
I stared at her.
"This man got a whole refrigerator full of food and one plate belong specifically to him?"
"Yes."
"That's selfish."
"Close my refrigerator."
I grabbed a bottle of water instead.
"You always choose him."
"I've been choosing him since before you were born."
"Damn."
"And I'll choose him after you leave. Now go."
I laughed and headed toward Daddy's office.
His door was open, but I knocked against the frame anyway. He didn't look up from his laptop.
"You remember where I live."
Here we go.
"I been working."
"So have I."
"I got a wife."
"So do I."
I walked inside and dropped into the chair across from his desk.
"You got an answer for everything?"
"Most things."
He finally looked at me.
My father was pushing sixty-five and still carried himself like somebody might challenge him for something if he got too comfortable. Watch on his wrist, fresh cut, button-down shirt even though he wasn't going nowhere.
I used to wonder why he dressed like that around the house.
Then I realized Daddy could get a phone call at two in the afternoon and be sitting across from somebody discussing a few million dollars by three.
"You talked to Kaizleigh?" he asked.
"Every day. That's usually how marriage works."
"Don't be smart."
"You asked."
"You know what I'm asking about."
I twisted the cap off my water.
"We talked."
"And?"
"And we found somebody we're considering."
That got his attention.
"Through the agency?"
"No."
His eyebrows pulled together.
"Then where?"
"It's somebody Kaizleigh met."
"Who?"
"A woman named Nyrobi."
"Nyrobi what?"
I laughed.
"You running a background check?"
"If she's carrying my grandchild, hell yeah."
"She ain't carrying shit yet."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because you called me three times."
"I called you because your mama told me Kaizleigh was looking into surrogacy."
I leaned back.
"She told Mama?"
"Apparently."
"And Mama told you."
"We married. We talk."
"Clearly."
Daddy closed his laptop.
"Tell me about the girl."
"There ain't much to tell."
"Then you shouldn't be considering her."
I looked at him.
"Kaizleigh likes her."
"I didn't ask what Kaizleigh likes."
"And that's my wife, so what she likes matters."
"I didn't say it didn't."
"Sounded like it."
Daddy leaned back in his chair.
"You always this damn defensive?"
"When you start questioning my wife, yeah."
"Ain't nobody questioning your wife."
"Good."
He stared at me for a second before shaking his head.
"Boy, you a overly grown ass man and still get on my damn nerves."
"You called me over here."
"And I'm already regretting it."
I smiled and took a drink of water.
Daddy wasn't smiling.
"How much do you know about this woman?"
"Not enough."
"Finally, something sensible."
"But that's what screenings are for."
"Medical screening ain't character."
"I know."
"You talking about putting your child inside somebody. You better know more than whether her uterus works."
I rubbed my jaw.
That was damn near the same concern I'd had with Kaizleigh.
"I told Kaizleigh that."
"What she say?"
"She feels good about her."
"And you?"
I thought about it. Truthfully, I didn't have a problem with Nyrobi.
She seemed cool. Funny without trying too hard.
And from what Kaizleigh told me, she'd found one of our guest's Rolexes underneath a bed and turned it in instead of pocketing something that could've changed her situation overnight.
That told me something. Still, carrying my child was different.
"I ain't against it."
"That ain't what I asked."
"I don't know the woman."
"Exactly."
"But if she agrees, we'll know more before anything happens."
Daddy nodded.
"That's better."
"You approving this now?"
"I ain't gotta approve shit. You grown."
"Could've fooled me."
He ignored that.
"How's Kaizleigh?"
The question changed the whole conversation.
I looked down at the bottle in my hand.
"She's alright."
"That's what people say when somebody ain't alright."
I sighed.
"She's trying."
Daddy nodded slowly. He liked Kaizleigh. Always had.
She could walk into one of his businesses and tell him something he didn't want to hear, and instead of getting mad, he'd sit there and listen.
Half the time, I told him the same shit and he'd tell me to shut the fuck up.
"Your mama worries about her."
"I know."
"She been through a lot."
"I know that too."
"You been through it with her."
I looked up.
That surprised me. Most people didn't say that part.
Everything that happened with the pregnancies always became about Kaizleigh.
As it should've. Her body went through it.
But every time we walked into a doctor's office excited, I was excited too.
Every time somebody told us there was no heartbeat, I heard that shit too.
Every time I watched my wife cry, there wasn't a damn thing I could do except hold her and pretend I knew what to say.
"You still want this?" Daddy asked.
"What kind of question is that?"
"A real one."
"Of course I do…Why?"
I frowned.
"Why what?"
"Why you want a child?"
I laughed.
"What the fuck are we doing right now?"
"Answer me."
"Because I want one."
"That ain't an answer."
I sat back and looked at him.
"I want a family."
"You got a family."
"You know what I mean."
"Then say what you mean."
I rubbed my hand across my beard.
"I want to be somebody's daddy."
There. Simple as that.
Daddy's face softened, but only a little.
"I want to watch my kid grow up. I want to teach them shit. I want to give them what y'all gave me and more. I want to see Kaizleigh be a mama because I know how bad she wants it."
"And the Stylez name?"
I should've known that shit was coming.
"What about it?"
"You don't care about continuing what we built?"
"I care."
"Don't sound like it."
"Because having a baby ain't a fucking business move to me."
His jaw tightened.
"I didn't say it was."
"You always make it one."
"Because you have the luxury of looking at it differently."
I frowned.
"What that's supposed to mean?"
Daddy stood and walked toward the window behind his desk.
"Everything you walked into was already moving."
"I worked for what I got."
"I didn't say you didn't."
"Then don't make it sound like you handed me some shit."
"I handed you a name that meant something before you were old enough to understand what it meant."
I went quiet.
He turned around.
"You think Stylez Grand Stay came from nowhere?"
"No."
"You think these properties came from nowhere?"
"No."
"You think the companies, the land, the investments, any of this shit happened because I wanted to look rich?"
"I never said that."
"I built because I wanted something that lasted longer than me."
His voice never got loud.
It didn't have to.
"When I'm dead, I want everything I spent my life building to still belong to this family. When you're dead, I want the same thing."
"Damn, we both dying today?"
"Stop playing."
I smiled.
"I'm listening."
"Then listen."
He walked back toward the desk.
"You my son. Everything I have will eventually become yours. And one day, everything you have needs somewhere to go."
"It can go to charity."
Daddy stared at me.
I couldn't hold the laugh.
"I'm fucking with you."
"You better be."
"See? This what I'm talking about."
He sat down.
"I don't give a damn how that baby gets here."
Something about the way he said it made me look at him.
He continued.
"Kaizleigh carry it, somebody else carry it, science build the little motherfucker in a jar if that's what it take. I don't care."
I laughed.
"Science build it in a jar is crazy."
"You know what the hell I mean."
"I do."
"What matters is that's your child."
"My and Kaizleigh's child."
Daddy nodded.
"Your and Kaizleigh's child."
I noticed the slight pause, but I didn't think much of it.
He liked my wife. There wasn't no question about that. But Daddy had always been different when it came to blood. Family was family to him. Marriage made Kaizleigh a Stylez.
A child from me would be born one. There was a difference in his mind whether I agreed with it or not.
"Your child will never start from zero," he continued. "That's what legacy means. You ain't supposed to work your whole life just so the next generation can start exactly where you did."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Because sometimes I don't think you understand how much is already waiting on a child you ain't even made yet."
I laughed.
"What you done bought my imaginary baby?"
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
Daddy opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a folder and slid it across the desk. I looked at it but didn't touch it.
"What is this?"
"Something I've been working on."
"Daddy."
"Open it."
I picked up the folder.
There were documents inside. Trust information. Property. Numbers that would've made most people sit down if they weren't already sitting.
I looked back at him.
"You serious?"
"Very."
"The baby don't even exist."
"Yet."
"You already setting up trusts?"
"I'm preparing."
"For a hypothetical person?"
"For my grandchild."
I shook my head.
"You need a hobby."
"I got one."
"What's that?"
"Making sure my family never gotta ask nobody for shit."
I couldn't even argue with that.
I looked through another page before closing the folder.
"And if surrogacy doesn't work?"
"Then you and your wife figure out what's next."
"You make that sound easy."
"I didn't say it was easy."
He leaned forward.
"But you don't stop because something is hard."
I thought about Kaizleigh. How many times had I watched her say she was done? How many times had she cried and told me she couldn't go through another loss? Then months later, we'd be sitting across from another doctor talking about another option.
She wanted this…Bad. Maybe too bad sometimes. But I couldn't judge her because I wanted it too.
Daddy tapped the folder.
"Leave that here."
"Why you show it to me then?"
"So you understand I'm not talking just to hear myself."
"I never thought you were."
"You act like it."
"I act like you be doing too much."
"That's why you got what you got."
I laughed and stood.
"You always gotta take credit for everything."
"Not everything."
He looked me up and down.
"Your mama made you handsome."
I shook my head.
"You weird," I laughed.
"And you're welcome."
I headed toward the door.
"Billion."
I stopped.
When I turned around, his face was serious again.
"Make sure this woman understands what she's agreeing to."
"She will."
"And make sure Kaizleigh ain't making this decision from desperation."
That bothered me.
"She ain't desperate."
"Wanting something badly enough can make anybody desperate."
I stared at him. For once, I didn't have some slick shit to say back.
Because that was exactly what had been bothering me.
I trusted my wife. I knew she wasn't stupid.
But I also knew what happened every time she saw a baby.
Every time somebody announced a pregnancy.
Every time another due date passed for a child we never got to meet.
"I got her," I finally said.
Daddy nodded.
"I know you do."
I walked out of his office and headed back toward the kitchen.
Mama was still at the island, except now she was eating the strawberries she'd been cutting.
"Y'all argue?"
"We don't argue."
She laughed.
"Boy, please."
"He gave my unborn child property."
Mama didn't even look surprised.
"Sounds like your daddy."
"There's no child."
"Yet."
I stopped walking.
"Why the fuck everybody keep saying yet?"
Mama smiled.
"Because that's what faith sounds like."
I looked at her for a second before shaking my head.
"Both of y'all crazy."
"Probably."
She held a strawberry toward me.
"You want one?"
"I thought I couldn't touch shit."
"These mine."
I took one.
"See, you do love me."
"Don't push it."
I kissed her cheek and headed for the front door.
By the time I got back in my truck, my phone had a text from Kaizleigh waiting.
Kaizleigh: Still nothing.
I already knew what she meant.
Nyrobi hadn't called.
I typed back.
Me: Give her time.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Kaizleigh: I am.
Then another message.
Kaizleigh: I just really want her to say yes.
I stared at that one a little longer and my father's words came back to me.
Wanting something badly enough can make anybody desperate.
I hated even putting that word anywhere near my wife. Kaizleigh wasn't desperate. She was tired. There was a difference. At least I hoped there was.
I started the truck and pulled away from my parents' house, leaving that folder sitting on Daddy's desk exactly where he'd told me to.
Trusts. Property. Businesses.
A whole future already being prepared for a baby that didn't even exist yet. My father saw a Stylez heir. Kaizleigh saw the baby she'd been praying for.
And me? I just wanted to see my wife hold our child without having to give it back to a nurse. And if Nyrobi was the woman who could finally make that happen, then I prayed like hell we weren't asking the wrong person.