Chapter 47
forty-seven
“Mommy,” Kairo whispered loudly, sitting on her chest with that morning breath on one hundred. Kamilla had never been a heavy drinker but after the emotional rollercoaster of battling Cairo’s ego and her guilt, drowning her sorrows in bottle seemed to be a balm.
“Yes, baby?” she groaned through her curls.
“Daddy’s back,” Kairo announced. “He’s making pancakes.”
Kamilla popped an eye open and frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Are you listening to me?” he asked, holding her face. “Daddy is making us pancakes. You want some? I told him you love pancakes.”
Moving him off of her chest, Kamilla sat up and grabbed her phone.
She navigated through the texts of Haddon saying legal had everything and to take a week off.
Dania letting her know they were home safely.
Once she got out the clutter of the text messages, she pulled up the cameras.
Cairo was without question in her house making pancakes.
With his shirt off at that. How was she going to stay mad if he was half-dressed.
“See, I told you,” Kairo stated, like he won one of their one-sided arguments. “Come on. You need to eat.”
“Kairo, I’m the mommy,” she said, trying to cement the fact that she was in control.
“I’m KP,” he stated, looking at her like what was the problem. “You know what, I’ll go get him.”
“No,” Kamilla huffed. “I’m up. I’m up, and I’m coming.”
That seemed to send her son out of the room and back down the stairs to announce she was awake and was coming down. And for added effect he said, “Mommy looks like a bush.”
Kamilla scoffed and didn’t bother pulling herself together. She wanted him out of her space. Wild hair, wine still on her breath and an oversized RVCC t-shirt she wore the majority of her pregnancy, she came down the stairs.
Once within earshot, she looked at the dips in his back and rolled her eyes.
“Breaking and entering still at the top of your list and now you’re bringing your son in on it?” she sassed, arms over her chest and squinted eyes on him.
Cairo turned, around pancakes in hand, basketball shorts hanging off his waist. She didn’t allow her eyes to travel any lower. Instead, she looked at Kairo jump on the couch to his cartoon’s theme song.
“You didn’t hear anything I said yesterday?” she asked, stomach growling.
“Nah, actually, I heard everything you said. And just so you know, you’re the only person in this world to build me up and then make me feel like I’m nothing,” he shared. “I didn’t say that to make you feel bad either.”
“So what was the point?” she quipped.
“To tell you I heard you and felt that shit in my chest. Talk about an ego killer,” he stated, putting a few pancakes and pieces of bacon on her plate and directing. “Eat. I know you didn’t eat after I left, that’s how them bottles of wine took your little ass out.”
“I’m not hungry. I’m nauseous,” she huffed. “Dania thinks we’re still on 50th, with that cheap ass wine.”
“More reasons for you to eat,” he pressed, motioning her to the bar stool.
“You trying to kill me because I cussed you out?” she quirked a brow.
Cairo laughed, “Love you too much to kill you. Thought won’t ever cross my mind.”
She hummed, using the back of her fork to cut into the pancake. “So what’s the point of all of this? You look too comfortable.”
Heat flooded over her. A sign that Cairo was taking her in the way only he could. No one looked at her like this, and no one could. Longing, passionate, and unwavering love that showed up in a crazy type of fire.
“Stop staring at me,” she muttered, her mouth full.
“I won’t. I miss this.”
“My hair all over the place? Cairo, please,” she grumbled. “I’m serious, I want to stay mad.”
“Why?” he asked, moving closer to her.
“Because if I stay mad, I won’t let my feet slip from under me again and go through another five years or however long without you.
Protection. Which sucks because you were the last person I thought I needed to protect myself from,” Kamilla admitted, sniffling before her voice broke. “And I hate it.”
Cairo hooked her chin and moved her hair out of her face.
“I hate that we’re here. I hate you missed five years.
I hate I didn’t listen. I hate that you missed something so beautiful coming into the world.
I hate it, Cairo. I hate I love you so much that I can’t hate you,” she softly cried.
“I hate I didn’t fight to tell you about him. Or that I was so afraid to tell you.”
Cairo thumbed her tears away. “I hate I left you. On my life, I hate it. I hate you had to fight for the both of us. On Azul. I hate you raised that amazing kid this far without me and are doing such a fuckin’ good job. I hate I came in here with my ego out and not my heart and hurt you more.”
“You called me a liar,” she stated, sniffling.
“I was wrong for that. I was wrong for blocking you. I’ve done a lot of shit in my life I regret and that’s at the top.
But you got to know, you out here breathing free and clear is the only thing that kept me in there.
It’s the only thing that made me go along with appealing.
Why do you love me like that?” he asked, tears of his own forming.
A show of his heart so he could break through the walls she had to build to survive.
Kamilla shrugged, still sniffling. “‘Cause I’m supposed to. Because you did it first.”
“You right,” he smirked. “I did do that shit. Had you out there saying, on Azul.”
Kamilla kissed her teeth and gently pushed his hand away. “Talkin’ about you did that shit. Knocked me up my first time, yeah that too. Now look.”
Cairo looked at his son in a superman cape fully enthralled with the tv. “Carbon copy.”
“Mmhmm,” she buzzed. He took possession of her face again, wiped the snot and kissed her lips. “Soooo… you’re not leaving? Just break in and make us pancakes in your shorts and shit?”
He kissed her again. “Who taught you how to cuss?”
“You. ‘Cause you kept kissin’ and touchin’ on me,” she quipped, earning her another kiss. “I’m too easy for you. Just folded like a weak ass bitch, ugh. I should make you beg.”
“I told you once, I’ll go in the desert wearing leather and sing for your forgiveness.”
“Yeah, that was cute when you said it back then, but we just left the desert, and you didn’t pack leather or dance or sing for my love. You just came with dick and chest out, all in my space.”
“Why are you kissin’ on my mommy?” Kairo questioned, standing right behind his dad. “She can kiss me.”
“If he didn’t look like you, he definitely acts just like you. That possessive nonsense all day,” Kamilla grumbled, leaving the Hendrix boys to battle it out.
“She’s mine. I can kiss her,” Cairo fake argued with his son.
“Nah ah, she’s mine. I kissed her first, since a baby,” the mini-me fired back, climbing up on Kamilla’s lap and peppering her face with kisses.
She giggled and was spun around while Cairo playfully mushed his son to kiss Kamilla’s face. “Okay! Okay! Okay. Everyone needs to brush their teeth.”
“Yeah!” Kairo said. “Even you.”
She gave her son a flat expression. “It’s always your own kid. Race you?”
“Y’all just gonna leave me to clean up?” Cairo asked.
“Yeah, when you break in and make a mess, you clean it up,” she quipped, making him raise a brow.
“On Azul?”
“Stop it,” she huffed, rolling her eyes and letting Kairo get his fake head start. The doorbell rang. “And since you wanna be the big man in the house, get that too.”