Chapter 1
Over Two Decades Later . . .
“Man, those folks love that monthly dinner cruise. I can’t believe that it’s booked out for three months,” Joshua said from the passenger seat next to me. “That was a smart-ass business move.”
We were on our way back from my family’s Charleston, South Carolina, location of our family restaurant Smoked Soul.
My family were generational farmers. We owned over one hundred acres in Clover, South Carolina.
Some of those acres were dedicated to our cow and pig farm.
My family owned the largest privately Black-owned cow and pig farm in the state. I was proud as hell about that.
Over the years that Smoked Soul had been opened, its success led to expansion.
Now decades later, the family had five locations.
There was the flagship restaurant in Clover, SC, which attracted culinary stars and TikTok influencers on a regular basis.
When that boy Guy came through with his television show, we really got the notoriety that we deserved. It had been up from there.
The next location that was opened was the Lake Wylie location.
This location was special because the backdrop was the lake.
One day, I brought up the idea about doing a dinner boat cruise for Valentine’s Day.
My father wasn’t sure about it, but my mother thought it was an amazing idea.
Needless to say, it was a success. We offered it once a quarter with a boat that we rented.
Eventually, we financed our own boat and offered the dinner cruise once a month.
We followed that model when we opened our Charleston, South Carolina, location where the backdrop was the Cooper River.
One thing about Charlestonians, they loved a good cruise.
Our cruises had live music, a DJ, amazing food from Smoked Soul, and a good time.
The cruise was an all-inclusive price and an all-you-can-eat kind of flow.
The Charleston location included seafood, as well, that we sourced from a local vendor.
Our last two locations were in Columbia, South Carolina, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
My family worked hard on our farms which supplied all the beef and pork for our restaurants.
All of the chicken was supplied by my best friend’s family farm.
Nichols Chicken Farm and Abloy Farm had been partners since before Joshua and I were born.
“Shit, you know how we do. Mama was the real VIP for that shit. She was the one that brought in that romantic aspect. At first, I was like, let’s have a party on a boat,” I said with a chuckle.
Joshua laughed. “Man, that shit was clutched too. That romantic shit is cool, but when we just do the parties, I get some of the best pussy on those waters.”
“Nigga, I told you to stop fucking on my boats,” I jested. I didn’t really give a damn if he did or didn’t. If it was consensual, it was what it was. Now, that only applied to him. Anyone else would be banned from the cruises.
He laughed. “Man, whatever. Speaking of cruises, Kaycee told me that Anna and she are coming on the cruise this weekend. She heard you were gonna be onboard.”
I immediately got annoyed. Normally, I didn’t go on the dinner cruises, but I agreed to cover for my cook, Grif, since it was his anniversary with his wife.
My mom sent them on an all-expense paid trip to Jamaica.
“I don’t know why that girl is willing to pay that much money to be on a dinner cruise to be annoying.
I’ve told her before that all we do is fuck. I have no interest in anything else.”
“Man, I told you when you first fucked that girl that she was gonna get clingy. Bro, I don’t know what the fuck you did to that girl. When you started fuckin’ with her, she was a damn vegan. Now her ass is a damn carnivore. Bitch started eating meat and dairy just to be around you.”
That shit was crazy as fuck, but true. When Anna first approached me about getting the dick, I told her that she was too small for me.
I loved women with meat on their bones. I was a big boy who wanted a thick woman.
Somehow the conversation shifted to her being a vegan.
All I said was that I understood why she was so skinny and that she needed some meat.
Next thing I knew, she was a regular at my restaurant, and the rib plate was her favorite.
“Yeah, I’m about to pull back on her completely.
Matter of fact, let me cancel her and Kaycee’s reservation.
” I gave myself a mental note to do that as soon as I got to my mother’s house.
When I canceled the reservation, it would send an email to let the patron know.
It would also give them a reason. One of the reasons and the one that I would use was at the owner’s instruction.
Joshua sucked his teeth. “Man, why you canceling Kaycee’s reservation? She ain’t got nothing to do with Anna, man. Don’t mess up my pussy because yours is clingy.”
“The cling of the clingy sometimes falls on the friends. The only way Anna would know that I was going to be on the boat was if you told Kaycee,” I pointed out. “You need to stop pillow talking with these hos.”
Joshua snickered. “Nigga, fuck you. I didn’t tell that girl anything about your ass being on the boat. She RSVP’d for that dinner cruise like two weeks ago. You just decided, what, three days ago to cover for Grif. One of your servers must have told her ass.”
He was right, but fuck that. “I don’t give a damn. If Kaycee comes then Anna comes. I’on want neither of their asses there. Anna’s ass is sickenin’ by her damn self. With her sidekick, it’s double that. You know that.”
I took my eyes off the road for a moment to gawk at him.
Kaycee was just as annoying as Anna, but Joshua liked that clingy shit.
He wanted his bitches to be on him. I needed space and loved to be alone to do my own thing.
When I decided that I wanted to be in a relationship with a woman, she would understand that shit.
We talked shit the rest of our way to Columbia where we stopped to check in on that location.
Out of the five locations, I oversaw the Charleston and Columbia locations.
My mother and grandma oversaw the Clover location.
My grandma didn’t like to sit her ass down, so we gave her something to do.
My sister, Bethany, oversaw our Lake Wylie and Charlotte locations.
All our locations had managers, so we weren’t necessarily needed on a daily or even weekly basis. I did check my locations out at least once a week because I wanted fuckers to know that I was around, and at any given time, I could pop the hell up.
“I told Jess to stop hiring these stupid ass girls. She wants to give people chances like it’s her shit and she can’t be fired too. The fuck!” I blew my frustration out with the blunt smoke.
When I made the plan to ride to Charleston today, I had no plans to stop in Columbia.
I had just been there two days prior, so I didn’t feel the need to.
On the way back from Charleston, there was this itch in my ass to stop by.
I knew my ass was clean, so it wasn’t itching because a nigga was dirty.
That meant that it had to be my gut telling me that something was not right.
My gut was always right, and this time was no different.
I got there to find one of my damn servers getting fucked in the bathroom.
In the middle of the damn day with a section of tables that was full.
When I didn’t see a server go into the section for over fifteen minutes and there was prepared food in the window, I knew something was up.
Jess had no idea where the getting fucked in the bathroom fuck girl was.
Took less than two minutes to find her ass.
Jess didn’t want to fire her ass, so I did. When I fired fuck-a-lot, all she wanted me to know was that she wasn’t a ho. She felt the need to stress that it was her boyfriend that was slamming her cakes in the middle of the workday.
“Damn, man, you had Jess in there about to cry. She just knew her ass was fired,” Joshua said with a chuckle. “That’s a damn shame.”
I huffed. “Once I tell my mama and grandma, she still might get fired.” I glanced at him. “Now, you know Sandra might give her grace, but Catherine will say fuck that bitch before I finish the story.”
Joshua burst into laughter. “Bro, Grams knows she doesn’t give a damn about anyone that’s not a Abloy or Nichols.
I died when she asked that lady at Piggly Wiggly if she’d just gotten off from her job as one of the gargoyles that guarded hell.
She told the lady that she had a dog, gorilla, sloth mix kind of face. ”
My laugh found its way into the conversation. If fuck your feelings was a person, it would be Catherine Deers. At seventy-six years old, she was still a firecracker. I loved the hell out of the women in my life, just like my father did. Damn, I miss my dad.
We talked about bullshit for the rest of the ride back to Clover, South Carolina.
I pulled up to Joshua’s house to drop him off.
His house was on land that his family owned and was passed to him when he turned twenty-one.
His father still lived in the house that he grew up in on the opposite end of the land.
“I’aight, bro. Hit me up later if something pops off. I’m gonna be on the farm tomorrow, checking on shit,” he told me.
“I’aight, bro. I’ll holla at you.” We dapped each other before he made his way into his house. It was time to spend time with my ladies.
Mama’s House . . .