Epilogue
Rico Briggs
“What’s up? How you doing?” I casually asked, walking over to Kalani. This was my first time seeing her in person, but she’d texted me, telling me exactly where she would be, so when I approached, I knew that it was her.
Kalani went through Dionne, who then told Tank, who reached out to me, getting the message to me.
She told Dionne how Bash really wanted to see me because he had been in his head for months, feeling like I was angry with him, and that I hated him for the shit that he’d told to the detectives.
I didn’t have any malice in my heart when it came to him.
I’m sure he did what Toby told him to do before he took his last breath.
Besides, he was a kid, and I would have been crazy to be beefing with a young child.
When Tank got the message to me, I knew that I wanted to get to Bash, but I’ve been in extensive training in Massachusetts, which was my new home for now, gearing up with the Patriots. I couldn’t just pull up on Bash so quickly, but here I was, doing it today, before I flew back in a few hours.
I was only in Miami because yesterday was Tank’s and Dionne’s wedding, so I’d come down for that. Their wedding was so fuckin beautiful. No lie, I wanted that for myself. Not right now because I was married to football right now, but in the future, I wouldn’t mind having it.
With the free time that I had for the next few hours, I chose to come out to the park, where I learned from Kalani that Bash would be training. I had Dionne give her my number, so that’s how we’ve been in communication.
“I’m doing good. Wow. I can’t believe you came. He’s going to be so happy,” she let me know. She was smiling, and taking her in, she was a beautiful woman. I could see why Toby had been dealing with her.
“I’m a man of my word. I wouldn’t tell you that I was going to pull up, and I don’t do it,” I let her know, and she smiled, nodding again.
I took my eyes off her, so that I could look over at the field.
The field is where Bash was. He was so locked in to what was going on with the trainer that he had, that he didn’t even know that I was out here.
I stood on the side, watching him with his mom, and we made small talk here and there.
I was asking her questions, wanting to know how he was doing in school, and with football, and she bragged on her boy, letting me know that he was excelling in both.
I thought that she would bring up Toby, wanting to know if it was really me that killed him, but she never brought that nigga up, and I was glad.
Ten minutes into me standing here, Bash took a water break.
He looked in our direction, squinted his eyes, really trying to see if it was me, and once he saw that it was, he took off running.
He damn near broke his neck getting to me, and when he did, his arms instantly wrapped around me, so he could hug me.
“What’s up, man? How you doing?” I asked, hugging him back.
Young boys had this reaction when they would see me out all the time. So many of them looked up to me. I could tell that it meant a little bit more to Bash though because lil man had really convinced himself that I hated him.
“Man, I thought you hated me,” his voice cracked a little bit, and when he pulled away, his eyes were watery.
Tears fell from his eyes, and he used his hands to wipe them away. He was such a handsome kid. All that hair he had was pulled back into a ponytail, and his white shirt, and black gym shorts were dirty from the work that he was putting in.
“I don’t hate you, man. I never did. We ain’t gotta talk about that though. That’s behind us. Don’t even bring it up. How you been doing?” I asked. He nodded eagerly, letting me know that he wouldn’t talk about it anymore.
“I been good, man. Football season starting next month. The man that’s training me, he got a crush on my mama, so he been letting me work with him for free.
My mama got a new job now. We moved into a nice townhouse.
Man, I got my own room, and everything. My grades been good in school too,” he shared, telling me all his business.
His mama business too. She stood off to the side laughing, while shaking her head.
“If I’m in town next month, Ima get your schedule from your mama. I gotta watch you play. You say I’m your favorite football player. I gotta see if you can play like me,” I let him know.
“I’m nice, Rico. I know you probably gotta get back but come on the field with me. Watch my foot work. The NFL going to need me one day,” he had a cockiness to him that I fucked with.
I was the same way when I was his age. You couldn’t tell me shit! I knew I would go off one day and be in the NFL.
“Come on. I gotta see what you looking like,” I let him know, and he grabbed his water bottle that was on the grass, drank a lot of it, and he led the way onto the field, so that he could show me what all he had.
This was my life these days. I was out here just trying to be a better person. I wasn’t running with the wrong crowd, and I wasn’t apart of nothing that I didn’t have any business being a part of.
I took some tough hits this past year. Got caught up in the wrong shit with the wrong nigga, and I almost lost everything behind it.
I never wanted to experience what it felt like again to let someone have one up on me and try to dictate my entire life.
All that time, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
The biggest scare of my life was thinking that I was going to do down for Toby’s murder. Yeah, I did that shit, but I didn’t want to go down for it. I was blessed by an angel, and I wasn’t going to do anything to mess up the second chance that was given to me.
Toby was dead. Jax was dead. I didn’t have to worry about either one of them niggas. I loved Miami, but I was grateful for this move, and this new change. Of course, I would always come back to visit because my baby, and my family was here.
Me and Promise were still doing good. I don’t know what’s in the water, but lately, everyone has been trying to get me to get back with my baby mama, but that’s just not the time that either one of us were on right now.
I liked the space that we were in. I didn’t want to complicate that, and neither did she.
If something came later in the future for us, I would be willing, but right now, I had too much going on in my life to commit to a relationship.
When I signed my contract with the Patriots, and they gave me a few million, first thing I did was pay off my fine.
That big ass $250,000 fine that was given to me at the disciplinary hearing.
I was still completing the gambling courses, showing up for the youth outreach like they required, and everything else that was apart of my consequences.
I did that shit with a smile on my face because I would rather this be the consequences.
I can’t tell you where I would be if they had took football away from me.
When I was a kid, just like Bash, I made a promise to myself that the name Rico Briggs would someday ring bells, and look at it, ringing bells like a motha fucka.
There was still people out there that hated me because of the shit that happened this past here but fuck em’. They were going to hate my black ass even more next month when I got on that field, and I showed the world how them niggas from Dade County ball out.
Dionte Henry
“Come here. Why you went over by the railing? I thought we was laying up,” I said to Nette, as I was chilling on one of the lounge chairs on the main deck of the yacht that I’d rented for us for a few hours.
We’ve been on grandparent duty heavy, soaking up all these beautiful moments with lil Tank, so tonight, I’d planned a date night for us.
I wanted to do something special. 37 years of my life was spent in prison, so there was so much that I never got the chance to experience.
I’ve never been on a yacht before. This was Miami, and I knew that people loved to go out on yachts, be on the water, and have a good time, so that’s the vibes that we were on tonight.
Antoinette played crazy for the first few months of me coming home.
No lie, she shocked me because I had confidence that she was going to be the first one breaking her neck to jump on this dick.
She didn’t though. She had it made up in her mind that I was going to do her like some young nigga that didn’t know what he wanted and was going to fuck around on her.
That’s not even the kind of person that I was these days.
In prison, I had visions of what my life would look like on the outside.
I pictured a life where I was the best father to my daughter, and a life where me, and Nette could get it right this time, since it was cut short the first time.
Ever since that day I came over to her house to paint, and she fixed me that bomb dinner, followed by her telling me to get my sweaty ass in the shower, so that I could wash this dick off, I’ve been beating her walls in ever since, and we’ve been working on us.
I never thought that at my old age, I could be in love like this. Had me feeling like that seventeen-year-old all over again whenever I was with her. That part of me was taken, so in a sense, it’s like it had picked back up, and we were finishing it off.
“I want to be closer to the sunset,” she turned her head around to look at me.
From where I was lying, I had the perfect view of her, and nobody in the world had a better view than me right now.
That body on her was perfect. Still couldn’t believe that it carried four children, either.
She was proud of her body, which is why she could boldly stand there in a gold, two-piece swimsuit, that looked perfect on her chocolate skin.
That pixie cut that I loved on her was styled perfectly.
She didn’t have any sandals on because she left them over here by the lounge chairs.