Chapter 44 Quest
Quest
Rita was on the dance floor hitting a two-step with Cannon that had absolutely no business looking that smooth for a woman who couldn’t see the man she was dancing with.
Lavender dress, a hat big enough to pick up satellite signals, and moves that told me my grandmother had been somebody’s problem back in the day.
She was having the time of her life and I was watching from the VIP section thinking this is what we almost lost. All of it.
The family, the casino, the music, the laughter.
Niggas tried to take this from us and we’re still standing here pouring Banks Reserve and two-stepping like the world didn’t try to end us six times this year.
Everybody came through. Prime and Zainab with the twins knocked out cold in a double stroller by the bar because those babies could sleep through a hurricane and frequently did.
Justice had Dream by his side and Storie was actually acting like a human being for once, probably because Rita had recently introduced her to a leather belt and the Holy Spirit in that order.
Creed and Riot were posted near the bar with their wives.
Serenity was glowing with her ginger ale, the only sober person in the building and completely at peace with it.
Mehar’s classmates from school were huddled by the champagne table doing what women do at parties, which is take forty-seven pictures before posting the one where everybody’s angles are right.
Mekhi showed up around nine. Didn’t expect that.
He walked in and congratulated me, and posted up at the bar without making shit weird.
I appreciated the gesture even if my gut still had questions about his recent pivot to peace.
But tonight wasn’t about that. Tonight was about the woman in the white dress who had my ring on her finger and my last name on her future.
Bryce caught me near the back bar about an hour in.
Suit on, fresh cut, looking like a kid at a job interview which is basically what this was about to be.
Samaya was nowhere to be found. Apparently she left him after her brother and cousin were murdered in jail.
That wasn’t my call but I really ain’t give a fuck.
They played the game and lost. They shot up my casino and paralyzed Zephyr, so they had it coming.
But Samaya had a problem with it and broke up with Bryce, according to Mehar.
“Can I holla at you for a sec?” he said.
“Talk.”
“I need a job. And I know I got no right asking you for shit after everything I did. The warehouse, the trucks, running with the Vipers. I own all of that. But I got a daughter now and I can’t keep living off what my sister drops off every two weeks. That ain’t the man I’m trying to be.”
“You burned my warehouse down, lil nigga.”
“I know.”
“Robbed my trucks.”
“I know.”
“Ran with the niggas who shot up this very building on opening night and put a man I love in a wheelchair for life.”
“I didn’t pull the trigger on that. I told Key and Jerome not to go. They didn’t listen. But yeah, I was affiliated and I own that too.”
I looked at him for a long time. Mehar loved this kid and that was the only reason this conversation was happening instead of something else.
“Security. Casino floor. Twelve-hour shifts, bottom of the ladder. You show up on time, keep your head down, don’t bring none of your old shit through these doors. If it goes well, you can work your way up. If it don’t, you’re out and we never having this conversation again.”
His whole face changed. “That’s all I need. I won’t let you down.”
“Don’t make promises to me, lil bro. Make them to that baby. She’s the one who needs you to figure it out.”
He shook my hand with the grip of a man who just got thrown a rope he wasn’t expecting and walked back to the floor of the casino. In some ways he reminded me of myself. He was young and hungry. I could respect that. But let’s see how hungry he really was. Was he willing to put in the work?
I was refilling my glass when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Turned around and there was Unc Calvin. I hadn’t seen him since Rita’s birthday dinner and he looked…
different. Clean. Not clean-clean, not like he’d been to rehab or found Jesus or anything miraculous.
But his clothes fit, his eyes were clear-ish, and he’d shaved for the first time in what looked like months.
He was trying. That was more than I’d seen from him in years.
“Congrats, nephew,” he said. “She’s a beautiful woman. You deserve some happiness after all the shit y’all been through.”
“Appreciate you coming, Unc.”
“Of course. I wanted to thank you too.” His voice dropped lower and his hand squeezed my shoulder.
“For handling the nigga who killed my boy. And for the funeral. And for taking care of Kacey and the kids. You didn’t have to do none of that but you did.
My son can rest now because the man who did that to him is in the ground.
” His eyes were glassy and full of something so genuine it made my stomach fold in half.
“That means everything to me, nephew. Everything.”
I nodded because speaking wasn’t an option right now. This man was standing at my engagement party thanking me for avenging his son’s murder. His son whose actual killer was twenty feet away in a white dress laughing with her girlfriends.
“Thad was family, Unc. We take care of our own.”
He squeezed my shoulder one more time and walked off toward Rita on the dance floor and I stood there holding my glass and feeling something heavy settle in my chest that the Banks Reserve couldn’t wash down.
I’d done a lot of shit in my life that tested how much weight a man can carry and keep walking.
Lying to a grieving father at my own engagement party about how his son really died was a new personal record.
“Baby.” Mehar materialized at my side and looped her arm through mine. “Come meet my girls from school. They’re dying to meet you and Shayla actually came out tonight which is a big deal because she never leaves the house.”
She pulled me away from the bar and toward her classmates and I let her because that’s what tonight was.
Switching faces. Going from a conversation that made me feel like shit to a circle of women who were smiling and taking pictures and asking to see the ring.
I shook hands, made small talk, told them I was a lucky man, and meant it.
Shayla was quiet but she was there and she was smiling and Mehar squeezed her hand when she thought I wasn’t looking.
That was my girl. Saving people in the middle of a party. Building something even when she was supposed to be celebrating.
I pulled Mehar close and kissed her temple and looked out across the casino at our family scattered throughout the room.
Rita dancing, Prime holding a baby, Justice chasing Dream, Serenity chatting and looking peaceful, Bryce standing a little taller.
All of them alive. All of them here. All of them mine to protect.
The surface was champagne and music and a woman in white with a diamond on her finger. Underneath it was blood and lies and a dead man’s father who just thanked me for something I didn’t do.
But tonight the surface was winning. And I was gonna let it.