Chapter 34
thirty-four
“You a ugly ass nigga, you know that?” Nate chuckled as he leaned on the side of his car watching Cairo walk down the stairs of the Greenwood View Half Recovery House.
Sure to record everything, like Kamilla told him years ago.
“How you feel, Azul? All rehabilitated and shit? Like you want to serve the Lord, start a corner ministry?”
Cairo shook his head, offering Nate a half smile. His eyes were thankful. “Get that shit out my face, man.”
Gently, Cairo knocked the camera away from his face and pulled his best friend into a brotherly embrace.
“Your clothes too tight. Get off me, nigga,” Nate cracked, pushing him away. “How you feel?”
“Like I want to sleep in a bed that ain’t a twin and eat food that niggas ain’t playing with,” Cario commented. “How you feelin’?”
“Like my brother is home. I got a house full of women,” Nate spoke, sure not to bring Kamilla up. Partially because she had no clue he was home, nor did he need to know she’d finally moved on.
Cairo gave Nate a smile before it faded. Nate had a family – he wanted that more than he wanted to make it out the streets. Both had happened. And his heart smiled and broke all at the same time.
“Malayna givin’ you hell, huh?” Cairo asked with laughter, throwing his duffle bag in the backseat.
“Your goddaughter is four going on forty and runnin’ her momma, me, and anybody else she’s around,” Nate stated, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Where to?”
“My fuckin’ house. What you mean, where to?” Cairo frowned, brows connecting again, hair grown out, facial hair unkempt.
Nate laughed to himself and pulled off from the curb after Cairo got in. As the three-hour drive back to Los Oceania was underway, Cairo, who was slouched down in his seat, cut his eye over at Nate. “Why did y’all go through all this trouble for me?”
“‘Cause you would’ve done it for me,” Nate started, leaving out the fact that the money he’d given Kamilla, she’d only taken a fourth, stacked his books, flooded his account, and made sure the lawyers Fahaad hired never ran out of money.
If that wasn’t a testament of love, Nate didn’t know what was.
“It was too much fucking money,” Cairo protested.
“So you want to go back, nigga ‘cause I’ll turn this shit around drop your swole ass off and go film these music videos for these mumble rappers,” Nate joked.
“What happened to working with Ekho?” Cairo quizzed.
“He’s locked in the studio, the producer they got is ass. And before you curl your lip up in detest, it was his label, not him. He’s been holding out giving them a second album until you cooked something up.”
Cairo scoffed. “Hard as hell to produce from a prison phone.”
What he wanted to say was it was hard to create without his magic.
Even when he was able to phase up and get his soundboard, the beats just didn’t feel the same.
Like Nate, he was trying to avoid bringing her up.
Avoid the memories that kept him up at night.
Avoid the thought of her doing what he told her to do – moving on.
Avoid the guilt he held from cutting her access to him.
But when he was staring down the barrel of twenty-five to life, he refused to string her along – refused to rob her of life with prison visits and longing in the darkness of loneliness.
“Well, you home now, call him and tell him to scrap that shit,” Nate urged. “And not off that burner phone. Look in the console.”
Cairo was letting his nervous system regulate.
He needed, for at least a week, to get acclimated with being on his own schedule and someone not barking orders or dictating his every move.
Taking the phone box out of the center console, he powered it on and looked at the home screen.
Then the contacts. Nate, Dania, Fahaad, Fredo, and Ekho.
“Damn,” he muttered, sinking further into the leather seat and closing his eyes.
When he woke up, they were coming down the coast and Nate’s rumble of laughter drew his attention to a set of houses. “The beginning and the end, side by side.”
Cairo’s eyes lifted to the set of mansions. “That nigga still there?”
“Nah, but it does have a state-of-the-art security now. Right after you went up the coast and Tiny went to the mountains, LeFleur switched him out quick,” Nate shared.
“I knew that shit was going to cause problems,” Cairo grumbled. He watched as Nate bypassed the ramp to take them into the hood. “Nigga, take me home.”
“I am,” Nate stated. “Could you sit your ass back and be a little princess for once in your life?”
“Ain’t never been a princess, nigga. Stop playing with me,” Cairo muttered, sitting up. Now vigilant of where Nate was taking him. Another forty-five minutes and he pulled into a neighborhood where people were off in the middle of the day, walking dogs, and drinking matcha.
A few turns down a few streets and Nate parked in front of a wide garage door.
“5063 Wayman Shores Lane is your home now. The only time you should be setting foot in Volts is to get some fried fish. Your granny’s house has a long term tenant.
They pay on time and they don’t bother nobody.
Money is in that account Fahaad set up for you,” Nate informed, killing the engine and stepping out.
“The neighborhood is safe. They’re scared of you more than you should be weary of them.
Housewives, doctors, lawyers type shit. That one next door is feral though, watch out for her. ”
Cairo stepped out, took in the house that was too big for him, and grabbed his duffle bag out of the backseat.
Trailing Nate up the wide sidewalk, he retrieved the key and opened the door to his house.
A house that was meant for a family, not man putting his life back together.
He didn’t get past the foyer before he stopped and inhaled.
Knowing his friend, Nate stopped and said, “Dania made sure the fridge and cabinets were stocked— plates, cups, pots, food. You got a week’s worth of frozen meals in the freezer.
I figured that’s how long you needed to decompress.
I’m giving you exactly a week though; we got moves to make.
Like to a barber and the store to get you some clothes that fit. What you do, eat the iron?”
“It was either that or beat niggas up every day for testing my cred,” Cairo grunted.
“Well, I’m happy you ain’t skip leg day and not tipping over when you walk,” Nate joked. “Seven days, C4.”
Cairo accepted another brotherly embrace before Nate left.
Alone, he roamed around the open space. Only two rooms were furnished – the small room off of the study that held his sound equipment and the primary bedroom.
In the garage, his Camaro sat fully-detailed.
A few hundred more miles on it than when he left.
Sitting inside of it, he let a tearful smile form over his face. The tears fell and he didn’t wipe them. He imagined that she drove it back and forth to campus and when it was time to move on from it and him, she did.
“Pull your shit together, nigga,” he grumbled to himself. “She did what you told her to do.”
Cairo forced himself out of the car and back into the house.
Warming up a frozen meal, showering, and standing at the counter to eat, he landed in the bed, hands tucked behind his head and staring at the ceiling.
For three days he slept, ate, walked around his house, on repeat.
The final four days, he was back in his home studio putting the emptiness he felt into the music.
Day seven was gone. By day eight, Fahaad was at his door alongside Nate. Everyone looked different but the same. It was clear that the work with Ekho changed Fahaad’s trajectory and Cairo was pleased with the outcome.
“Your phone don’t work?” Fahaad asked, walking into Cairo’s unfurnished home and taking his shoes off.
“Been sleeping,” Cairo shared. “Didn’t sleep in five years, figured I needed a couple days.”
Fahaad chuckled. “Could’ve been two if you listened to me in the beginning. Head harder than a dick that ain’t had pussy in a decade.”
Cairo frowned, shook his head, and walked off to the kitchen. “Don’t have no furniture so we standing. What’s up?”
“You a grumpy nigga again, huh? You need me to find you some bitches?”
Cairo’s frowned deepened.
“Nah, that won’t work,” Nate spoke up. “He like his women not ran through.”
“Ah, I see. Anyway, you ready to come back into the world or you want the mystique?” Fahaad asked.
“I don’t like these niggas. Wanna keep this shit low,” Cairo replied. “Get me on Ekho’s album and I’m cool.”
“That’s already in the works, but you gotta find another artist, and I know the best place to do it…” Fahaad shared with an easy smile forming.
“The look on your face tells me it’s exactly what I don’t want to do,” Cairo replied. “Where?”
“La Bega. There’s a festival next week. The biggest labels send their biggest and baddest to the rookie sound stage. There’s an artist there emerging. You land him, you land the label, and it’s up,” Fahaad shared.
“Especially if it’s El Jefe,” Nate added. “Lucci has been aggressively solidifying his roster. You need to be in the mix.”
Cairo groaned. “I can’t just be low?”
Nate answered before Fahaad. “Nah, that ain’t where you shine. Get something on you can go out in, we got to cut the Tarzan shit off.”