Chapter 24 Kairo
Kairo
By the time we made it home, it was after midnight. Kennedi didn’t even make it out of Khloe’s car awake. I stood in the driveway laughing while Khloe shook her shoulder.
“Baby… we’re home.”
She was snoring so loud. I leaned against the door shaking my head. “I knew somebody was slipping her drinks from that adult bar.”
Khloe laughed. “Stop. She’s just exhausted.”
“Mm-hmm,” I teased. “That’s what they all say.”
Kennedi finally stirred just enough to stumble inside, mumbling goodnight before disappearing toward her room like a zombie.
I followed them home in her car, and honestly… watching my wife drive our daughter home from her Sweet Sixteen felt surreal. I blinked and she was a teenager.
Khloe and I walked into our bedroom. She kicked off her heels with a relieved sigh.
“Lord… my feet.”
I laughed, pulling off my jacket. “You did good tonight.”
She turned toward me, smiling. “No… we did.”
We started undressing and she turned her back to me.
“Can you unzip me?”
I stepped closer, fingers finding the zipper at the base of her back. I moved slowly, letting it slide down inch by inch.
My hands trailed her back once it was exposed. Her skin was warm beneath my palms. I traced my hands down her back, feeling the curve of her waist before leaning forward to press a kiss against her neck.
She laughed, closing her eyes. “Someone isn’t tired.”
“Never for you,” I said.
The dress fell at her feet. All she wore was a simple black thong.
I shook my head. “You trying to kill me tonight?”
I guided her gently onto the bed before placing wet, slow, and soft kisses I kissed along her thighs.
Her fingers slid to my head, her breathing soft and uneven.
Everything about it felt powerful. I moved her thong to the side and moved my tongue in the motion that I knew would drive her crazy before I started to suck on her love button.
“Ouuuu, Kairo. Baby!”
She moaned my name, and hearing it still did something to me after all these years. I stayed there with her, moving slowly, wanting her to feel cared for more than anything else.
When I climbed on top of her so that our eyes could meet. It loved to watch her gasp once my dick stretched her pussy during its first insertion. She looked so beautiful when she was taking dick.
As I stroked, we just looked at each other. She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me closer, and I rested my forehead against hers.
“I love you,” I whispered. “With everything in me.”
“I love you too. More than you know.”
I started to pick up the pace of my strokes the more that she kissed me. Her moans got louder and the louder she got, the more I wanted to fuck the shit out of her.
“It’s so fucking good, baby,” I said, kissing her neck.
“Well nut in me, then.”
She didn’t even get to finish the whole sentence.
Once I heard ‘well nut’, it was already coming.
We laid there after, just holding each other.
I buried my face in her shoulder, breathing her in.
I felt complete. Like no matter how complicated life ever became…
that woman right there was still my home and my safe place to land.
I kissed the top of her head.
“Come on,” I said. “You smell like fireworks, sweat, and tequila.”
“That sounds like a good night.”
“It was,” I said, sliding my arms under her legs and lifting her.
She squealed. “Kairo!”
“I got you.”
Carrying her never got old. She instinctively wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing my jaw as I walked us toward the bathroom. I set her down on the counter, and she pulled me back in before I could move away, kissing me.
I turned the shower on.
“Come on,” I said, guiding her inside.
The warm water hit our bodies as we washed each other. We stood there longer than necessary just holding each other, kissing with our foreheads pressed together.
“I love you.”
I smiled. “I know. I love you more.”
Her eyes grew heavier by the minute, then she yawned.
I laughed. “Yeah… you done.”
She shook her head. “No I’m not.”
I reached behind her and turned the water off. “Let me get sleepy head in the bed.”
She laughed as I wrapped her in a towel, drying her. We walked back into the bedroom, and she climbed straight into bed. I pulled the covers over her just as her phone started ringing beside her.
She blinked slowly, squinting at it. “Oh… it’s Coffee.”
She answered and tapped speaker before laying back down.
“I just made it to my hotel. I could’ve stayed with my mama or daddy, but I needed sleep without somebody waking me up talking every five minutes.”
Khloe hummed sleepily.
Coffee kept going. “And guess who called me trying to see me while I’m in town—”
I looked over and Khloe was sleep with her mouth wide open.
I laughed, reaching over and picking up the phone.
“Coffee, this girl is knocked out.”
“What the fuck? Already?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Well alright. Tell her to call me in the morning.”
“I will.”
We hung up, and I went to set her phone back down beside her pillow…
. when I noticed the screen lit up again.
She had so many missed calls from a name saved as “Stacks”.
I wasn’t the type to go through my wife’s phone.
Never had been, but the calls were back to back while we were at our daughter’s party.
Something about it didn’t sit right. I glanced at Khloe who was still asleep. I told myself to put the phone down, but my hand wouldn’t. The call log opened and the name showed up again.
And again.
And again.
Long calls.
Early morning calls.
Evening calls.
Daily.
Frequent enough that I didn’t need anyone to explain what I was looking at. I scrolled trying to find a text thread, but there was none. Just calls, which somehow made it worse.
My chest felt tight like the air in the room changed. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her phone in my hand, trying not to jump to conclusions… trying to find another explanation.
A client? A coworker? A cousin? But deep down… I already knew what it looked like and what it meant.
I looked back at my wife. The same woman who had just told me she loved me under running water, but all I could see was red.
I reached over, shaking her shoulder.
“Khloe.”
She stirred slightly.
“Khloe.”
Her eyes fluttered open, confused.
“Hmm?”
I held up the phone.
My voice came out louder than I intended. “Who the fuck is Stacks?”
She woke up slow, confused, and disoriented. Her lashes fluttered, but I didn’t give a damn how tired she was.
My chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself. “Khloe.”
She blinked at me. “What are you talking about?”
I held the phone up. “This.”
“Who the fuck is Stacks?”
She sat up quickly, sliding her robe around her shoulders.
“Nobody, baby—”
She reached for the phone. I pulled it back.
“Just lay down.”
I stared at her like she had lost her mind.
“I ain’t laying down,” I said, surprised that she even said that. “And you ain’t either until you give me some fucking answers.”
The room was silent. She grabbed her robe tighter around herself and crossed her arms like she was trying to hold herself together.
“It’s nothing like that.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
I held the phone out again. “Because I don’t have no one calling my phone back-to-back at damn near one in the morning.”
She looked at the floor thinking, searching, and building a response instead of telling the truth. And that… That hurt worse than anything. I felt something crack open inside my chest.
Before I could stop myself, the words came out. “I know like fuck, you ain’t out here cheating on me.”
Her head snapped up immediately. “No!” she yelled. “It’s not like that. We’re friends.”
Friends. The word should’ve made me feel better. Instead it felt like somebody slowly twisting a knife. If it was just friendship… Why was it the first time I’d ever heard his name? Why had I never met him? Why did my wife look terrified standing in front of me?
“Friend, huh?” I said, laughing to myself.
“Yes,” she whispered, tears already forming.
“Well has this friend ever kissed my wife… or seen her naked?”
Her face fell. “Huh?”
“Answer the question.”
“Kairo, why are you doing this?” she cried. “I told you he’s a friend!”
I shook my head slowly. My heart felt like it was bleeding out inside my chest.
“I’m doing this,” I said, voice breaking, “because I know my wife.”
“And the fact that you didn’t immediately deny it…” I laughed bitterly, “…tells me everything.”
“Go ahead,” I said, tossing her phone at her. “Go enjoy your friendship or whatever the fuck you got going on with this Stacks.”
My voice got louder. “And get the fuck out my house!”
Her face crumpled like I’d slapped her. She walked to the dresser slowly, pulling out shorts and a T-shirt with shaking hands.
When she turned back around, her face was full of tears. “You really want me to leave our house?”
I looked at her and I knew she could see it. The hurt. The betrayal. The confusion.
“Ask yourself that,” I said. “And while you doing that… I’m gonna ask myself why I never just fucked all my clients who wanted to.”
She gasped and pure pain flashed across her face. I regretted it the second it left my mouth, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted her to hurt like I was hurting.
“God knows I could’ve,” I continued bitterly. “Probably would’ve had a great time too.”
I hated myself even as I said it, watching tears stream down her face.
“For years,” she shouted, “you neglected me!”
Her words echoed through the room. “You left me with breadcrumbs while everybody else got everything!”
She was shaking. “I spent days depressed about my life, Kairo! All I wanted was my person at the end of the day and my person was always too tired for me!”
Every word landed like a punch.
“You poured into everybody else,” she cried. “Clients. Work. Business. Everybody but me! I kept your house together! I raised our child! I made sure everything around you was perfect and at one hundred percent while I was sitting at fucking zero!”
I couldn’t even speak. I was hurt but I remembered every night she asked me to sit with her, every time she waited up, and every quiet disappointment I ignored because I thought providing was completely loving her.
“You made me feel so low when you said something about a hall pass. Like damn, you’re that exhausted with me that you’d rather I get intimacy from someone outside of our union.”
I closed my eyes.
“I fought it,” she continued. “I waited for you to see me. I waited for you to change. But you kept choosing work… and I was alone.”
Her tears fell harder. “So I talked to a friend.”
The word nearly killed me. “He made me feel good,” she admitted. “I didn’t have to beg for attention.”
“But he wasn’t you,” she said quickly. “He will never be you. Even through it all, I always wanted my husband.”
That sentence nearly broke me in half. “He kept calling my phone because I told him we could no longer be friends. My marriage is important to me and the one thing I didn’t want to lose.”
Relief and devastation collided inside my chest at the same time.
She grabbed her purse. “But I was wrong,” she said, wiping her tears. “So I’ll leave. I’ll go stay with Coffee and give you space.”
She paused at the door. “And thank you,” she added bitterly, “for letting me know that you really did want to fuck those clients.”
The door opened and closed. Suddenly the house felt empty.
I sat there staring at the ceiling trying to understand how our love turned into that.
How two people who worshipped each other ended up strangers fighting in the dark.
Memories hit me all at once. Her begging me to sit down, her asking for dates, her waiting up, her falling asleep alone. My chest tightened painfully.
I covered my face with my hands. I let another man walk into the spaces I abandoned. A sob escaped before I could stop it.
“Fuck…”
I threw the pillow across the room. I regretted telling her to leave the second the words left my mouth.
It hurt me even more knowing that she never stopped loving me. She just got lonely enough to believe someone else saw her better.