Chapter 22
twenty-two
He watched her ignore another call from her aunt and caught the shift of her demeanor. One hand on the steering wheel, the other clasped around her hand. Cairo balanced his attention between the road and his shotgun rider.
“Any idea what she wants?” he posed.
“I thought we said we weren’t getting into it,” Kamilla muttered, looking out the window.
“You said that but it’s effecting your mood. I can feel the shift,” he noted.
Kamilla shifted in her seat pulling in a deep breath. “The only reason I’m here is because she wanted to play superhero after my mom died. The only reason she wants to talk to me is to dictate what I do and I don’t. You included. Your reputation proceeds you.”
Cairo stroked the hairs of his freshly-manicured beard. “You can’t fault her for wanting something different for you.”
“Would be appreciated if she actually cared to know me. She goes off of whatever Martez tells her. So there’s that. I’m just not in the mood to subject myself to it. Plus, I’d rather focus on you. Can I do that?”
He groaned. “Don’t focus so much on me where you forget you got shit to feel and sort through, too.
This shit we got has to be healthy and whole.
It can’t be something we use to distract us from the bullshit.
It can be healing and all that shit, but it can’t be used as a temporary fix. We’ll fuck this up if we do.”
“Alright,” she softly replied. Cairo took her silence and let it match his.
He’d ran over how to rip the band aid off.
How to tell her that KP died in his arms. That that night haunted him.
That loving her came with a weight. A responsibility.
An oath paid in blood. A debt bestowed on him when KP’s last breath was “Carry this shit on, nigga”.
Arriving to the park where Pepe was parked, Cairo moved his gun from the center console and put it into the back of his shorts as he stepped out. He scanned the area. Once he deemed it was clear, he rounded the hood and opened her door.
“Find a seat,” he directed, a low tap to her hip.
“You don’t even know what I want to eat,” she teased.
Cairo offered her a low smirk. “C4 special. You smashed that shit last time. Unless you switching up on me.”
“Never switching up, on Azul,” she muttered with a smile.
“See you trying to see how I’ll fold for you in public.”
“No, I’m not,” she teased before walking away.
Cairo groaned to himself and watched her find a spot at a table. The moment Kamilla sat down, she began to fidget with her phone. Keeping half his attention on Kamilla, he moved to the window and looked up at Pepe. “Everything cool?”
“Shit quiet…too quiet,” Pepe stated, looking down at him. “Tres got everything?”
Cairo bobbed his head. “I’ll let you know when we back online. We got to maneuver through this Tiny shit. He singing. I know he is. It’s so fucking loud it’s deafening.”
“Nigga big and soft,” Pepe spoke, kissing his teeth. “What you getting your girl tonight?”
“You already know we getting that C4 special,” Cairo spoke.
A car blasting RowdyRedd pulled his attention from Pepe and Kamilla to the direction.
The moment he spotted Martez, Hype and Chuckee, he grimaced.
On all the nights to be having static with him, this wasn’t the night.
Not with his lady here and all these bystanders.
“I’m strapped,” Pepe announced, earning a nod of appreciation from Cairo.
Cairo positioned his body to see Martez, his group of idiots, and Kamilla. She was distracted on her phone, more than likely texting Dania. Head down and unaware that she could be in danger. That was his fault. He created a veil of safety for her.
Martez and Chuckee approached while Hype remembered the ass whopping he got. Chuckee, not so much. Cairo was convinced that he was slow. No way could someone beat Cairo’s ass constantly and walk around being untouched.
“Look at that. It’s true,” Martez blew. “Posting up with my little cousin to clear your bitch ass conscience.”
Cairo winced. “You can try me anywhere and I’ll take you up on the challenge. You know that. Anywhere but nowhere she is. I’ve only kept you out the Gardens because of her but that’s a ticking bomb I wouldn’t fuck with.”
“Nigga, you like talking. You been talking every fuckin’ day since. I’m right here. Said when you seen me it was going to be my blood on the pavement. Ain’t none of my blood on the pavement yet,” Martez pressed.
Cairo itched with irritation. Any other time he would’ve put a bullet between his eyes and moved on.
Regardless if Kamilla couldn’t stand the nigga, the family was grieving and unlike Martez and the set he claimed, he was an Azul with a set of morals.
That, and he knew that Martez was only playing gangsta.
Ducking and dodging real time, running when shit got heavy, the time for that was coming to an end.
Cairo removed the space between them. “I’m with my lady.
I know you sweet on these niggas and I’ll hate for them to watch their favorite bitch get what he’s asking for.
I owe you a punched ticket. I’m exhibiting self-control because your fake ass daddy’s niece got enough scars of trauma. But stop fuckin’ pushing me, nigga.”
Martez smirked, shoved him and threw a punch that Cairo dodged because he anticipated Martez attempting to keep the little bit of credit he had. Cairo’s long arms delivered a series of punches that made Martez stumble back. A fight his homies couldn’t even help him with. They knew better.
Spitting blood on the concrete Martez shouted. “Ay, little Mila you putting that little pussy on a pussy ass nigga!”
Pepe whistled and swayed his head. “C4, don’t get his blood on my shit.”
Martez knew what he was doing, he only expected that Cairo would keep going back and forth with him. Those were two places that Cairo hated going. The mere mention of Kamilla in any way that didn’t honor who she was would forever be a problem.
Without Nate to pull him back from fully spilling into the dark, Cairo blacked out, beating Martez through the park. He forgot about people’s businesses, customers, even children. All he saw was Martez running from the scene of the crime with a gun and a chip on his shoulder.
“Cairo!” Kamilla screamed, abandoning her spot to run toward the chaos. The chaos didn’t matter to her, he did. “Cairo!”
Her scream sounded like it was in a vacuum.
“Cairo!” her shouts closer. Then she touched him. In the middle of the mayhem, the parents calling the cops, the kids and innocent bystanders rushing away. “Cairo, stop!”
She yanked him off of Martez. “We got to go!”
Martez staggered to his feet. “That’s what you want? A bitch ass nigga like that?”
“Don’t fuckin’ talk to her, muhfucka. I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off!” Cairo shouted pointing at him as Kamilla shoved him back to the car.
“Cairo! We got go,” Kamilla urged, fear rattling her words.
So deep in the anger and frustration he held when it came to Martez, Cairo didn’t even realize that Kamilla had pushed him into the passenger seat. By the time he realized she was speeding away from the aftermath of his blackout, she was blocks in the opposite direction.
“Take the next left,” he grumbled. “Circle the block, park at the abandoned shopping center.”
Kamilla didn’t say a word only followed his directions until she parked the car in what used to be a shopping center.
The building was boarded up, tagged by various gangs.
Cairo got out, trying to pull himself together.
He needed to scream, he needed to fight the urge of taking her back to the house and driving down every block of Mecca and spraying it so the message was clear – Martez was a dead man walking.
He’d loaned him enough grace. He’d kept himself out of real trouble enough.
Cairo sparked a blunt, hearing the driver’s side door open. “Not right now, K.”
“Then when? Huh?” Kamilla asked. “What was that?”
He gritted his teeth and turned to look at her.
“Street shit. Nigga shit. Rivalry. Deep-seeded hate I got for that nigga. Fighting for control knowing that me killing that nigga is far overdue. And I can’t fuckin’ do it!
That’s what that was. That’s what it will always be until the nigga is food for worms.”
“Why?” she pressed.
“Because of you!” he bellowed. “Because of what you are attached to. Because what you fucking mean to me. I kill him, I can’t have you. That’s what it comes down to. I cut his water off and I’m locked up for the rest of my fuckin’ life and this is a fever dream. I told you…”
He swiped his hand down his face. “I told you. It’s all about you since it became about you. It’ll kill me to give you any more trauma to hold. You get that?”
Kamilla stood there, quietly, watching him put himself together piece by piece.
Cairo breathed, let the weed soothe the nerves he wouldn’t let her close enough to offer relief for. “These streets are either going to kill me or take me from you. This shit has to work otherwise all I’m going to have with you is summer, you deserve more than that.”
“You do too,” she spoke softly against the wind. “You deserve this too.”
Cairo clenched his jaw and looked away.
“Don’t say you don’t. Don’t tell me that. I’m looking at you, Cai. I see you. You deserve this. To dream with your eyes open. To feel something other than the world snatching your innocence and giving you shit in return. Look at me.”
His eyes snapped back to her. Tears sitting at the brim.
“You deserve to be here. To be with me. Hell, even if it’s not with me.
You deserve to soar without the chains of this place holding you down.
Your heart is pure even if it’s been tattered.
I see you and you deserve to make it out of here,” Kamilla spoke.
“You deserve the exit. If not for you…for KP. That’s what he would want for you right? To get the fuck out here?”
The tension was erased between them now. Kamilla’s tiny hands clutched his shirt. “I got you. Just like you got me.”
He blinked, letting the tears drop ,and she swiped them away. The longer he stood in her hold, the calmer his nerves became. “This your chance to run from me. While I’m weak.”
Kamilla’s arms wrapped around his neck and inhaled his weed-tainted exhale. “This is the strongest I’ve seen you yet. I’m not running. Even if I did, you’d find me.”
“Damn right. Thank you…for bringing me back,” Cairo grumbled, before chuckling. “And getting me the fuck up out of there.”
“You owe me,” Kamilla buzzed.
“Whatever you want.”
“After the session, sunrise on the beach. And front row seat to your soar. We got forty minutes before we gotta be at the studio. Walk the rest of that off.” Kamilla released him after a kiss to his cheek and gently pushed him away. “Go center, you got to make magic.”
Kamilla hopped on the trunk and watched Cairo take a lap around the parking lot. When he returned, he asked, “You hungry?”
“I was really looking forward to my C4 special,” she announced.
“I know. Best I can do right now is Ray’s.”
Kamilla playfully rolled her eyes. “I guess.”
“Ay, who taught you how to get away like that?” Cairo asked.
“Who you think?”
“Make sense. Didn’t know where the hell you were going, though, but you got us up out of there.”
“I’d do it again but I’d prefer not to ever go through that again,” Kamilla stated. “Whatever you and Martez got going on, you gotta figure out a way to dead it without being snatched away from me.”
“There’s only one way to settle this shit between us.”