Nathaniel #2
Doc nodded because I was sure he was trying to get away from my dad. My mother, Maureen, had my father on Doc’s back since he was old as Moses and refused to slow down despite being in his eighties.
“Noah’s been getting on my nerves like your mama ain’t my niece and I’m her elder.”
“She’s only doing it ‘cause she cares, Doc.” I don’t know why Sampson bothered to point out the obvious. Doc wouldn’t give a fuck if the good Lord told him to chill.
“Well, I don’t want to be sitting up in the house wasting away. I got another twenty good years left in me. I’m not trying to be a bachelor this whole time. Maybe I’ll go out with Nate and find me a lady friend. I’m sure he got his hoin’ gene from me because he certainly didn’t get it from you.”
I’d picked the worst time to take a drink of water because now I was choking on it to keep from laughing at the two of them going back and forth.
“Hoin’ gene? Doc, you gone call me a ho?”
Doc shot me an annoyed look, like my being offended at being called a ho was unnecessary. “I done called you worse, boy, stop actin’ brand new.”
He wasn’t wrong, but damn.
“Nate ain’t a ho’, he’s playing around until he finds the girl that won’t let him play with her.
It’s like that for a lot of men so I’m not worried about him.
Cupid is going to humble his ass something serious when it’s his turn.
” My daddy had the nerve to be grinning and I needed him to get on back to his ranch talking like this.
“See, Noah, I was gonna say thank you for defending me but you over here trying to curse me.”
“I got your Noah, boy. And how am I cursing you? I’m wishing for you a love that will fulfill you. That ain’t a curse, that’s a blessin’, witcho simple ass.”
My daddy walked down the remaining steps of the bleachers with Doc following behind him. Doc might have slowed down but he hadn’t missed a step. I could see why my mama’s concern would irritate him but he knew better than to think she was going to stop.
“Like I said. All that you just uttered sounded like something I don’t need.
You see all the work that is going on here?
That’s months and years of building that need to happen.
I haven’t even moved into the house yet.
A woman won’t understand my having to put her on hold because I have to practice or because I need to repair fences. ”
“All depends on the woman you choose, Nate. I’m sure Sampson didn’t think a woman who understood the way he cares for our animals would ever exist. And yet his wife walked onto the ranch with a head full of knowledge but more room to learn.
The woman you choose can either extract resources or impart them.
Having a woman isn’t the problem, Bucky, choosing the right one is. Think on that.”
My daddy had the nerve to pat my shoulder and Samp stood there with his brows raised like nigga, he told you without opening his mouth.
That feeling was back, the warmth that was present without warning.
My daddy might be right, but there was so much other shit going on that he didn’t know about.
A woman would only impede promises I’d already made.
And I was always a man of my word.
I dropped my body in my boy Terrence’s barber chair exhausted from the day already.
This business shit wasn’t for the faint of heart.
I’d run so much of it loosely because my focus had been on winning another belt.
I’d tried to get better about processes and appointments but that wasn’t my thing.
I would scribble some shit down on paper and figure it out when the time came.
As long as people paid me and my people got paid, I tried not to worry too much.
I was a good businessman, had no choice to be with a brother and father like mine, but I was never a stickler.
But with the influx in business we’d had and the amount of scheduling that needed to be done, I was going to need additional help. And soon.
“You good?” I looked up and Terrence’s eyes were watching me like he thought I might fall out on his floor. His mobile barber shop truck was parked in the middle of downtown Black Gold Valley since he was taking walk-ins.
I nodded before sitting up like I had some sense. Best friend or not I was not having this nigga think I couldn’t handle shit. He was depending on me and I wouldn’t let him down. “Just business.”
“I feel you. Folks are always pressing me to expand and get a building but that’s far more than I want to do with my time. I ain’t in this shit to run myself into the ground. If I wanted to do that I could absolutely make a mint but who the fuck would want to be around me?”
“You right. You fairly insufferable as it is.”
He popped me in the back of my head for talking shit and I laughed feeling lighter than I had in the last few hours. My daddy’s words were haunting me but at least the warm feeling was there and not the drums trying to warn me of impending doom.
“Here you go with this shit. Where your book at, Buck?” I flipped his ass off because I wasn’t bothered by his teasing me back.
I’d been known to carry a book around ever since my mama and Samp taught me to read.
My big brother was doing it so of course I wanted to.
Books made you step into an entirely different world or helped you expand your perspective on everything.
I might be jovial but I wasn’t a simpleminded muthafucka who abhorred growth.
“Haven’t gotten to it yet. You heading out tonight?” My tone shifted as my thoughts went to the reason I’d stepped into his mobile barbershop. He was family so naturally when he said he was getting up to some shit, I was going to be right by his side to watch his back.
“I might stay in.” He draped his cape around my neck so he could shape up my facial hair.
Despite being a barber who worked with fades and waves all day, Terrence was the only person besides me that I let trim my hair.
But today was a day to discuss business, not make me an even more sexy muthafucka than I already was.
“Stay in? You okay?” I wasn’t about to move my head to look at him since he had a razor to the side of my neck but I knew he could hear my concern.
His sigh revealed the weight he was carrying and despite it being heavy I was thankful he trusted me to share the burden.
“I’m good. Getting discouraged that I ain’t found shit out about the muthafuckas I can use, you know?”
“Take the break if you need it. I got you.” It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d been out late attempting to help him fix this problem before it got started and it wouldn’t be the last.
He chuckled from the left side of my face and I could see the top of his head out of my peripheral vision. “You just like playing the superhero shit.”
“Honestly, I like knowing what the fuck is going on around our town. Besides, with the way they throwing up them fucking data centers and shit, I need to make sure that everyone who hasn’t already gotten fucked over ain’t about to get fucked over.”
One thing we were fighting against was the encroachment of our land by those monstrosities.
We’d had our ears to the ground trying to ensure that the local governments didn’t get their palms greased so they would sell us out.
They’d held fast so far but that was something that could always change on a dime.
Terrence had a personal vendetta against the thieves because they’d attempted to target his family.
Between the harassment and the issues his father had faced with finding squatters on their property attempting to claim it, they’d stressed him into having to take blood pressure meds.
Our families were close and even though they didn’t have as much land as we did, we used our resources to get them the legal protections they needed.
After that shit happened last year, Terrence had been on a mission to find out every player in the game who was trying to snatch up farmland.
We didn’t have unlimited resources, but our families were working to make a farmland trust for all of Black Gold Valley and the surrounding areas that way the natural spring that fed our land and made this place such a valuable place to settle generations ago wasn’t polluted.
We’d made the right friends at the right time because they were more than willing to help.
But we still needed to do the legwork on the ground since none of them were local.
“I got a tip that a bar on the outskirts is just a front for selling ass. If that’s true you know plenty of people are going there to see what they can get into. I’d planned to check it out in the next few days.”
“Bet, I’ll handle that shit for you. Someone new coming in and buying a random bar in the middle of the country doesn’t sit right. Might need to check it out.”
“You just want another reason to run around in your shiesty, Bucky.”