Chapter 13
thirteen
The repetitive drum woke her up out of her sleep.
Thinking she fell asleep with her headphones in again, she patted the bed, finding her phone on the charger on the nightstand.
A tired smile wiggled over her lips. She scratched her coils, in desperate need of a bonnet she didn’t have, and she swung her legs off of the bed.
A slow trek to the bathroom to relieve herself and then attempt to braid her bush down.
The drums kept playing. Cairo was up. Back to his mulling.
Being sure not to startle him, she softly walked out of the bathroom to the bedroom he converted to his studio. Kamilla stood at the ajar door and spotted him on the floor under the blue lights, drumming his fingers over his chest.
“Keys,” she spoke loud enough to announce herself. “It needs keys.”
Cairo kept drumming. “Come here. Lay by me. You gotta feel it.”
She moved deeper into the room and laid by him.
“You got to close your eyes and feel it,” he muttered softly.
Kamilla pulled in a deep breath, settled, and closed her eyes.
The snare in rhythm with the kick drum held her to the floor, her mind filled in the gaps with a series of keys that was more rhythm and blues than the hip hop sound she expected from him.
She turned to her side, eyes still closed not knowing that Cairo had repositioned himself.
It wasn’t until she felt the soft touch of his fingers traced over the bridge of her nose, outlining her lips to her chin, she opened her eyes.
She didn’t move, just laid in the moment, locking in what being adored felt like.
Cairo withdrew, making her eyes flutter open, finding his pools studying her.
His top lip twitched. Kamilla’s hand reached out to return the gesture.
She outlined what was his chiseled face underneath the hair.
Cairo was hiding himself. One day she’d get down to the bottom of it, for now, she let her fingers dance over his face while watching how his eyes flutter close and his body relaxed.
Cairo’s free hand grabbed the side of the oversized t-shirt she wore and pulled her into him. “You want me to kiss you, K? Say it.”
Kamilla rolled her lips over one another. “Kiss me, Cairo.”
He gripped her chin, let his lips smirk against hers. “Whatever you want, say it. I’ll do it.”
Kamilla leaned further in to kiss his face.
Cairo caught her bottom lip between his.
Soft pecks and nose nuzzles turning into lessons in tongues dancing over one another.
He controlled the exchange, kept his hands in neutral zones.
Kamilla’s tiny hands roamed from his chest to his shoulders.
Her back meeting the floor again as he boxed her in.
She could feel heat flood parts of her she’d never experienced before.
She only daydreamed about moments like this.
She eavesdropped on the girls she went to school with who overshared how moments like this went. Good, bad, or indifferent.
Unvoluntary, soft, intoxicating moans flowed from her throat into his mouth.
Cairo pulled away, stood, and reached for her hands.
The dizzying kiss left her ready to fall into the abyss of him.
In the bedroom she’d previously left, Cairo returned to kissing her.
His erection evident, coaxed alive from the aroma of Kamilla’s heat.
Exiting the neutral zones, his large hands cupped her breasts.
It was Kamilla’s nip to his lip the sobered him.
He groaned so sexily, she felt a foreign flood between her thighs. “Nah, K. You not ready for that.”
The closeness between them now zapped, the heat replacing it with the coolness of the room. Her brows dipped and before she could protest and convince them both, he shook his head.
“Look at me, K.”
She looked over at him, eyes landing on the erection pressing against the fabric of his basketball shorts. Her eyes blinked, thighs clenched, teeth bit her lip.
“You’re not ready for what this comes with. You can’t even say you are. Not yet. When you’re ready, you’ll know. Get some rest. Aight?”
She blinked away the rejection and nodded.
He felt that shift, the building of a wall he’d gotten down earlier in the day.
Turning to his dresser he pulled out a durag he hadn’t wore in months.
He moved back to her and tied her hair up with it then turned her around to face him.
Cairo held her face in his hands and kissed the top of her head.
Then craned his neck to butt his forehead against hers.
“I’m not rejecting you. This ain’t what this is. I’m respecting your right to choose what you want. Fully aware of what it comes with. Once you welcome me inside of you, you’re mine. That shit is dangerous.”
“How?” she quizzed.
“Because I’ll fuck around and let you in to parts of me I closed off.” Cairo placed a final kiss to her lips. “Goodnight, K.”
She inhaled his scent before replying. “Goodnight, Cai.”
He groaned, releasing her. He stepped back and looked at her nipples pressed against the Greenwood High graduation tee she wore. “I don’t want to be your friend.”
“I know,” she breathed but didn’t give him the response she wanted to.
He nodded. “When you’re ready, aight?”
“Okay.”
He took one final look at her and pulled himself out the room, closing the door.
Kamilla stood there for a minute before placing her hand against the apex of her thighs.
The heat had swelled her to the point it throbbed.
Pulling in a deep breath, she pushed it out and climbed back into bed, grabbing the pillow that held his scent and rolled to her side.
Kamilla’s ear listened to the breaths Cairo took on the other side of the door as if he wanted to barge back in and take back his declaration. He didn’t. He respected her space and stood on business. When she heard him moved away from the door, she bit a smile into the pillow.
The moment played on a loop in her mind until she drifted to sleep.
When morning came she unfurled her body and checked her phone.
It was past eleven and she groaned. For a second, she forgot about the fight with QaMeesha, the crying rock, and the impromptu meeting of Cairo’s friends.
She didn’t forget the intensity of that midnight kiss or the heaviness of his erection pressed against her.
Before she walked out of the room, she pulled a pair of sweats over her legs. She was expecting Cairo but found Dania on the couch scrolling away on her phone.
“Morning,” Kamilla muttered.
Dania looked up and greeted her with a smile. “Morning. They had to go handle some business. Cairo asked me to come over so you wouldn’t be alone.”
Kamilla raised a brow. “Did he or did you tell him you would?”
Dania giggled. “I might’ve volunteered my services. You can’t sit in here alone or move around the neighborhood alone. I heard your sense of direction is terrible.”
Kamilla laughed. “It actually is really bad but I’d never admit that to him. Too stubborn to admit defeat.”
“Go get cute and I’ll show you around. I have to go to the clinic and I want some company. Plus it looks like we’re going to be together, might as well get used to each other,” Dania said.
“Cute is…leggings and a t-shit and my mess of hair,” Kamilla admitted.
“I can braid it. I might be something like a stylist.”
Kamilla frowned. “So why aren’t you doing that?”
“I’ll tell you my story once you get dressed,” Dania said with a slight frown of her own.
Kamilla got dressed, grabbed her phone and the spare key Cairo left near it. She checked her text from him like it was second nature.
C-Ro: Morning, K. Check top drawer. Don’t buy supplies. I got it.
Kamilla opened the top drawer of the dresser find a few stacks of money. “What the hell.”
It was too much money to have on her so, she peeled off eighty dollars and stuffed it into the inside pocket of her leggings and walked out of the room. Dania stood and smirked, “Yeah we’re stopping by the hair store to get you right.”
Kamilla followed her out of the house, securing the house behind her and getting into Dania’s car. A C-Class Mercedes Benz a few years old.
“What’s at the clinic?” Kamilla asked, curious of how this day was going to unfold for her.
“I’m pregnant. So I have to get another test before they schedule me,” Dania shared.
“Oh, congratulations,” Kamilla said. “Are you excited?”
“I have mixed emotions. My father used to be the pastor of the hood before he went down on fed charges. I just don’t want to be end up like my momma trying to figure out how she’s going to feed her kids if something happens to Nate,” Dania shared.
Kamilla related to that fear of ending up like her mother. “I can get that. I don’t want to end up like my mom either.”
“Where is she?” Dania asked not knowing the details.
“In a pine box at my aunt’s. Died of a broken heart,” Kamilla shared because Dania seemed safe.
“Damn…I’m sorry. I-”
“It’s okay. It’s the reality. I have to accept it.”
Dania nodded. “Sooo you and Cairo.”
Kamilla shook her head. “We’re just friends. I swear.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Y-yeah,” Kamilla stuttered.
“Y’all haven’t kissed, haven’t fucked, nothing?”
“I’ve never had sex,” Kamilla openly shared.
“Girl what?” Dania asked looking at her like she was unicorn. “Have you ever had a boyfriend?”
Kamilla shook her head. “Wasn’t really sought after in Greenwood. Odd girl out. Too busy working with my mom or being the mom to my mother to think about it.”
“Shit, Mila,” Dania huffed. “You know Cairo is going to be your first.”
Kamilla whined. “I don’t think so. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this…he’s a gentleman and I don’t know what I’m doing so while the idea might be nice, I don’t think so.”
Dania chuckled. “I’ve seen you two together. Start planning your life girl. He ain’t coming off you. Guess it’s a good thing you’re coming with me. Get on the pill. So you’re not choosing between having a baby and going to OSU. But knowing Cairo he won’t even put you in a position to choose.”
“You talk highly of him. How long have y’all been friends?” Kamilla asked changing the subject.
“Ever since my father was dragged out the church by the Feds. Cairo and Nate were hustling then, they made sure we had groceries every week. My mom still was trying to hold on to her position and couldn’t take groceries bought with drug money, forgetting the drug money had kept us so high and mighty for so long.
Hated Cairo, but she really hated Nate because he wouldn’t leave me alone.
Unlike you, I didn’t wait,” Dania paused to laugh dryly.
“She found out somehow that we were having sex and kicked me out. With everything my daddy bought me, this car included. I’ve been with Nate ever since.
I used to work in her salon but when I was kicked out, that went out the window too.
She dared the other shops to hire me so, my license lapsed.
I did hair in our apartment but bitches want your position not knowing how it came about, so I just stopped everything.
Now I need to stack money in the event street life takes my baby daddy from me before I’m ready to let him go. ”
“So can I be your client? I’ll pay you,” Kamilla offered.
“Nah, you won’t, Cairo won’t let you spend a dime. But sure. Even when you go to OSU I got you.”
“I’d like that.”
At the clinic, Kamilla waited in the examination room with Dania. Dania flipped through a pamphlet on family planning while Kamilla looked at the posters on the wall.
“Too late for this,” Dania muttered.
“Did you think about it? Getting rid of it?”
Dania nodded. “Yeah, I was going to go through with it actually. This appointment was supposed to be for that but…I had a change of heart. I don’t want to live my life in fear of what ifs.”
Kamilla took her words in. “I understand that.”
The nurse practitioner came back in. “Well, you are indeed pregnant. According to your last menstrual cycle, you’re about six weeks. Are we planning to-”
“Keep it. I’m keeping it,” Dania spoke confidentially.
The nurse practitioner nodded. “I’ll get you in the system and schedule your next appointment. Here’s some information for assistance and classes.”
Dania took them and offered the woman a smile. “Thanks for this. She needs birth control. She’s going to OSU for the fall semester.”
“Oh,” the woman crooned. “I graduated from OSU. What are you studying?”
“Music history and business management,” Kamilla quietly answered.
“Campus is definitely tempting. It’s best to get a leg up,” the woman replied. “Have you ever taken birth control?”
“I’ve…never had sex.”
The nurse nodded. “You don’t want to keep it that way?”
Kamilla cleared her throat. “Mm mm, no. I want experiences, I just want to be proactive.”
The nurse nodded. “Remember condoms along with the pill will help prevent from STIs, STDs and HIV.”
Kamilla adhered. “Yeah, so I’ve heard.”
“It’s the best practice. Sit tight, I’ll grab your medical history and get you two on your way,” the nurse stated, turning around to her computer.
After the questionnaire and finding the best option for Kamilla, the two were out of the clinic with prenatal vitamins and birth control. They grabbed lunch and then roamed through the small hair supply shop.
“You want to keep your curls?” Dania asked, looking at products.
Being that Kamilla’s curls were as wild and flourishing as her fathers were, she wanted to keep that.
“Yeah. Half braided, half opened?”
“I got you.”
Kamilla offer her a soft expression. “Thanks, D.”
Dania shrugged happily. “I’m just happy to have a friend that’s not Cairo’s mean ass.”