Chapter 12
Dinner with Chello always made Nyla feel like they were teens again, she sometimes needed her time with her brother.
So much was going on with her, more good than bad though.
She wanted to tell Chello about Kyst so bad, but she knew that wouldn’t sit well with him.
At her big age, she was still scared to even have a conversation about a man with her brother.
To the outside world, her brother was like a celebrity, but he was just her brother to her.
Power followed Chello naturally like his shadow and that night was no different.
People shook his hand and acknowledged him even at an expensive restaurant.
Chello bumped shoulders with people of all walks of life and it showed through their respect for him.
“You clean up nice, Brother.”
“Thank you. You already know you’re beautiful, looking more and more like Momma every day,” he replied, pulling her chair out before taking his own to sit across from her.
Sundays were their catch-up day, but they hadn’t linked up for the last couple weeks. Women stared at him from afar, some even walked past the table trying to be noticed. He paid them no mind, but Nyla caught it all, she always did. She was her brother’s keeper for sure.
“You hungry or came here to judge people?” he asked while looking over the menu.
“Both,” Nyla giggled and picked her menu up.
After placing their orders, Nyla stared at Chello, “You look tired.”
“Shit, I am.”
“Why? Working too much? Orrr…”
“Or what?”
Nyla sipped her wine and sat the glass back down. Though she had her own shit going on, she couldn’t help but to think about how Londa was playing him. She hadn’t spoken a word about the shit because she didn’t want to overstep her boundaries, but what were boundaries between her and Chello?
“Or is that bitch stressing you out?” she got straight to the point.
“Nah, she’s cool,” he replied, continuing to cut his steak that was placed in front of him.
“You know she came in the shop and called herself checking me,” that made him look up.
“You let her?”
“Come on now, you know how that went. I’m sure she told you.”
“Not a word. You need me to address it?”
Nyla instantly thought about Londa’s dry threat and decided to leave well enough alone.
“Nah, I’m not trying to cause no confusion with y’all, I know you love her.”
“How you know that?”
Nyla shifted in her seat, “You’re different with her.”
Chello sat his fork down and wiped his mouth with a napkin. Nyla knew a serious conversation was brewing.
“I like her strongly, but love is a stretch.”
“I’m glad you said it because I know her being out with another nigga showed you the real.”
Chello shrugged once, “She grown and make her own choices.”
Nyla was in disbelief; she didn’t know the man sitting across from her. He was too calm with her disrespect, there had to be a motive. Chello didn’t allow bitches to play with him and Londa was playing point guard and center at the same damn time.
“Chello, what’s really good? Is the bitch blackmailing you or something? Since when you let a bitch play with you like this?”
“She’s grown, sis.”
And suddenly, Nyla understood something she hadn’t before, Londa might’ve been right. Not about controlling Chello, but about him knowing exactly who she was.
“You don’t care?” Nyla asked one last time.
Chello finally leaned back in his seat and looked his sister in the eyes.
“Nyla.”
“What?”
“You think relationships work the same in my world?”
She frowned slightly and tilted her head to the side, she was confused. She knew her brother was a different breed, but damn.
“I know who Londa is. I fuck her, feed her, and make her do whatever I need her to do. Nothing more nothing less. You think I’m stupid?” he continued.
Silence stretched between them, that was her brother, that was what she needed to hear. Chello knew what he was doing and that was all she needed to know.
“No, but I think you deserve better.”
“Better like who?”
Nyla smiled because the first person that came to mind was her bestie and she had never told Chello how Jada felt about him because she would kill her, but fuck it.
“Better like Jada.”
“Jada? Man, gone.”
Nyla giggled, but she was dead ass serious, “I’m for real, she really likes you, in fact, it might be a little deeper than that.”
“Jada ain’t built for a nigga like me.”
“Brother, don’t let that good girl image fool you, Jada is everything you need her to be and some. I think she will balance you.”
Chello laughed, “Enough about my business.”
“Soooo, Jada is your business, ahh,” Nyla smiled, she wanted nothing more than to have her two favorite people together.
“Gone head on, man. What’s going on with you?”
Nyla’s heart nearly dropped because she couldn’t read her brother; she didn’t know if he asking what he already knew or what he wanted to know.
“Work…work…work,” she lied; Nyla had been out the shop more than she ever had since Kyst had been back in town.
She was barely at her house because she was at that nice ass house laid up with Kyst. He was her person and she felt it more and more every day, but not enough to tell Chello that shit to his face. Not yet anyway, she wasn’t that damn bold.
“Who you seeing?”
She stayed smooth, “Nobody.”
Chello stared at her for a long second, “You lying?”
“No.”
“Yes you are.”
Nyla laughed nervously and shifted in her seat.
“I’m literally not.”
Chello tilted his head slightly, “Is that new?”
“What?” She looked over at the new purse sitting on the table.
“You getting nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“Bullshit, what’s up?”
His eyes narrowed slightly; he sipped his drink.
Nyla was damn near on the verge of dying, Chello’s pressure was one she was sure to crack under.
Lying to him felt impossible, that’s why she avoided doing it.
Nyla grabbed her drink casually to buy herself a second to think.
Kyst instantly flashed through her mind.
She dropped her head; she couldn’t lie anymore.
“I am seeing someone.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know him, but he’s a nice guy.”
“I didn’t ask if I knew him, I asked who.”
Nyla almost choked; she was scared to speak. It was now or never.
“You talking to a New York nigga?” He came right back.
“What?!” She wasn’t expecting that.
Chello smirked immediately, “There it go again, a nervous reaction.”
Her heart pounded out her chest, her shit was literally on the table. He was throwing her for a loop because she had no clue how close he was to the truth.
“Ok, fuck it. Yes, I am. His name is Kyst, he’s from Harlem. I like him a lot, he’s a nice guy.”
He looked at her and there it was, the father energy, the brother energy, the same energy Chello had carried since she was sixteen years old and their mother died.
He protected her like he needed air to breath, controlling things around her carefully, and for the first time, Chello wasn’t in control.
She had no idea how he was going to react to what she said, but she wished he would hurry the fuck up so she could exhale before she fell the fuck out.
“So when I asked you before, you lied?”
She dropped her head because there it was, that disappointing look in his eyes that she never wanted to cause. Every lie, fake girl’s night, every hidden smile when Kyst texted her was about to surface and she was sick to her stomach.
“I did and I’m sorry. I was scared of your reaction.”
“So, this same ‘good guy’ had you in the streets of Harlem fighting?” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
Nyla frowned her face because that was a real lie, she wasn’t fighting over him at all.
“No, I was fighting because the bitch singled me out and came fuckin’ with me. I swear I wasn’t fighting over no nigga, I’m not stupid, Chello.”
He just stared at her, which scared her shitless, more than his yelling ever could.
“I know you’re not stupid, I never thought that, but I also never thought you were a liar. What have I always told you about lying?”
“It gets you killed.”
“You willing to die behind this nigga?”
She paused and stared at him like he was crazy.
“Chello.”
“What you know about him?”
“I know he likes me and I like him.”
“Sound like a dumb bitch.”
That shit cut her deep, to the core, it felt like he put his gun to her head and pulled the trigger. She felt tears welling up in her eyes, her feelings were truly hurt.
“Really?”
His tongue dragged the inside of his jaw like he was on the verge of exploding, but he was calmer than she expected.
“Kyst Lucas, twenty-eight, youngest brother of the infamous Lucas brothers, knee deep in the drug game out in Harlem, looking to expand to Chicago and get killed in the process.”
His words felt like they shook the entire building.
“I love him,” the words slipped out before she could stop them.
Everything froze, Nyla’s chest rose hard as tears started falling from her eyes.
“You love him, but you don’t know shit about him.”
“I love you and don’t know everything you do, Chello.”
That hurt on his face came and went so fast, most people would’ve missed it if they blinked, but Nyla saw it.
“You lied to my face for this nigga.”
“Only because I knew you would react this way.”
“And what the fuck do you think I’m about to do now?”
She didn’t answer, she couldn’t. Because they both knew, it was about to be some smoke in the city.