Chapter 2
S M O K E
Lacey had gotten finer. That was the first shit that crossed my mind when I saw her standing in Loretta’s yesterday, and the fact that I was still thinking about it the next morning was irritating the fuck out of me.
I’d heard she was coming back to Bellhaven, but hearing that shit and actually seeing her after all this time were two different things.
I knew she was gon’ look good. Lace had always been pretty as fuck. She was just grown woman fine now. Her face was a little fuller, and the rest of her damn sure was too. More ass, more hips, and the same smooth pretty skin I still remembered having my hands all over.
It looked like she hadn’t grown much either.
She was still five-seven, even with the heels giving her a little extra height.
Her hair seemed longer, and everything about her looked expensive as hell.
Her clothes, her bag, the shit on her wrist. Even the way she carried herself let me know she was making good money and had been for a minute.
Lace looked used to having whatever the fuck she wanted, going wherever she wanted, and living a life that didn’t have shit to do with Bellhaven anymore.
Eight years without seeing her, and somehow my dick still knew exactly who the fuck she was before my brain could remind me why I shouldn’t give a damn.
I didn’t know what the fuck I expected to feel when I finally saw her again.
Maybe I thought I’d still be mad. I used to have enough anger behind that shit to last me a lifetime, and it wasn’t because she left.
I always knew Lace was getting the fuck out of Bellhaven.
She’d been talking about leaving since we were kids.
What fucked me up was how she did me once she got gone.
I was thirty-two now, a businessman, a mortgage, employees depending on me, and enough other shit going on that I shouldn’t still give a fuck about a woman who stopped answering my calls eight years ago. That was what I’d been telling myself since yesterday anyway.
“You heard?”
I looked up from the invoice on my laptop and found Darius standing in my office doorway with a sandwich in one hand. From the way this nigga was looking at me, he’d been standing there for a minute. “What?”
He laughed. “Exactly.”
“Fuck you want?”
“I asked if you wanted me to send Terry over to the Dawson job or keep him wit’ me at Loretta’s.”
“Dawson.”
“You sure?”
“The fuck you mean, am I sure?”
“’Cause we ’posed to finish framin’ that back room today.”
“You, Mike, and Shawn can finish that shit.”
“Aight.” He took another bite of his sandwich but stayed his ass right where he was. I looked back at the invoice, then raised my eyes when I realized this nigga still hadn’t moved.
“Nigga, get the fuck on.”
“I ain’t even say nothin’.” The smile spreading across his face told me everything I needed to know.
I pointed toward the door. “Carry yo’ ass on, D.”
“Solace looked good, huh?”
I stared at him, and this muthafucka immediately started laughing. “Man, get the fuck out my office.”
“I’m just sayin’. She look real fuckin’ good.”
“Darius.” I pushed my chair back, and his ass disappeared through the doorway before I could even get all the way up. He was still laughing when I yelled after him, “Don’t forget Dawson, mahfucka!”
“I got it, nigga!”
I sat back down and shook my head before looking at the invoice again. That shit had been sitting on my screen for damn near fifteen minutes, and I still hadn’t made it through the whole thing. I rubbed my hand over my beard and muttered, “Fuck.”
My office sat on the second floor of Cole Hardware, overlooking Main Street.
I’d bought the building six years ago when Mr. Wallace finally decided his old ass was ready to retire.
He’d owned Bellhaven Hardware since before I was born, and I’d been in and out that mahfucka so much growing up that buying it still felt crazy sometimes.
Mr. Wallace knew my mama, so when I was sixteen and started doing little jobs around town for extra money, he’d let me get supplies and pay him when I got paid. As I got older and started taking on bigger shit, he let me run up more than he probably should’ve.
When he finally got ready to sell, he came to me before he put the building on the market. I told him I didn’t know shit about owning no hardware store. He told me I knew more than his son, and that nigga had a business degree.
Six months later, I bought the shit. Damn near wiped out everything I’d spent years stacking from construction work and side jobs to do it too.
Mr. Wallace worked with me on what I still owed instead of making me come up with all that shit at once, so I worked my ass off.
I did construction during the day, ran the store when I wasn’t on a job, and took damn near every side job somebody called me with.
After a while, them side jobs started putting more money in my pocket than working for somebody else.
I already had enough people calling me directly, so I said fuck making another nigga money and started working for myself.
I bought a used work truck and brought on two niggas I trusted from different jobs, then Darius.
I’d known his ass since we were teenagers running around Bellhaven, but knowing a nigga didn’t mean I was about to let him fuck up my business.
I started his ass hauling shit and cleaning job sites until he learned enough for me to give him more to do.
I slapped Cole Construction on the side of that first truck, and we took whatever paid.
Decks, kitchens, roofs, bathrooms, little renovations, whatever somebody needed done.
Bellhaven was small enough that good work got around quick, and before long, people outside town were calling too.
The little shit turned into full remodels, new builds, and contracts big enough to keep my crew working year-round.
None of that shit came easy, but by thirty-one, I had two businesses with my fucking name on them.
The hardware store had opened at ten, but I’d already been there almost two hours.
Mornings were the only time I could get shit done before my phone started ringing every five minutes, somebody needed an estimate, a supplier fucked something up, or half of Bellhaven remembered they had my fucking number.
I headed downstairs, and the smell of lumber, fertilizer, and coffee hit me before I made it off the last step.
I’d changed a lot after buying the place, but I knew better than to fuck with everything and have the old niggas in town coming in complaining about how Mr. Wallace never did shit that way.
I’d put in new floors and better lighting, upgraded the registers, expanded the tool section, and started carrying more contractor shit in the warehouse out back. Mr. Wallace’s old wooden counter was still up front, though, and so was that loud-ass bell over the door he wouldn’t let me get rid of.
Tanya was behind the register getting shit together for the morning, and Bryon was a couple aisles over stocking shelves. I spoke to both of them on my way toward the contractor desk, but the bell over the door went off before I got there.
“Mornin’, Smoke.”
“What’s up, Mr. Parker?”
Mr. Parker was standing by plumbing with two pieces of PVC in his hands. “You got one of them couplings for this?”
“What size?”
“Hell if I know.”
I took one of the pieces from him and checked the marking stamped along the side. “Three-quarter.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You ain’t say shit.” I laughed and walked his ass toward the aisle. That was Bellhaven. Muthafuckas came in expecting me to know what they needed when they didn’t even know what the fuck they needed. Most of the time, I did.
By eleven-thirty, I’d helped Mr. Parker figure out whatever the hell he was doing under his kitchen sink, answered three calls from my crew at the Dawson house, approved a lumber delivery, and told a woman from Bellhaven Baptist for the third fucking time that I wasn’t charging the church for plywood we donated for their Thanksgiving food drive. She still argued with me about it.
My phone rang again while I was standing near the registers. This time, it was my sister.
I answered. “What’s up?”
“You busy?”
“Always. What you need, aggy?”
“Why do I have to need somethin’?”
“‘Cause school ain’t over and you on my line.”
“You’re mean as hell.”
“You lost yo’ house keys?”
She loudly sucked her teeth. “That was one time.”
“Then what? Yo’ lunch break ain’t too long to be botherin’ me, Key.”
Keyana was seventeen, a senior at Bellhaven K-12, and swore that shit made her grown.
I ain’t give a fuck what grade she was in or how old she got.
That was still my baby sister. I’d spent too many years making sure her ass was straight to start looking at her any different suddenly.
She got quiet on the other end, and I already knew what the fuck she was calling about.
“I’m hangin’ up.” Her ass started laughing and I leaned against the counter, shaking my head. “How you even know?”
“We live in Bellhaven. Everybody knows everything.”
Back in the day, Keyana stayed up our ass. If Lacey came over, Keyana was right there trying to sit with us. If we went to grab something to eat, she was begging to come. She was always asking Lace to do her hair, paint her nails, or some other little shit she knew damn well I wasn’t doing.
Lace never cared, though. She fucked with Keyana heavy and always made time for her, even when I was telling my sister to get her little ass out my face and go find something to do.
Lace leaving fucked her up too. She didn’t owe my sister shit, but Keyana loved her.
Far as she knew, Lace was just somebody who was always gon’ be around.
Hell, I thought the same shit until she wasn’t.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and asked, “Who told you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Keyana.”
She laughed. “Don’t use my government name ‘cause you all in yo’ feelings!”
“I ain’t in shit. Fuck off my phone, Key. Get back to lunch.”