“Hey, Champ,” I greeted, when he was strapped behind his seatbelt.
“Hey, Dario. I didn’t know you were coming today. I’ve been over there,” he said, pointing to an area several yards away, near the front of the school. “We got out of class early, so I was just hanging out.”
“Yeah, your mom went shopping to get her outfit for the engagement party, so I figured this could be guy time for us.”
“Cool. I’m glad you came,” he said, while reaching in the back to pat Lennox.
I don’t know how it happened, but before long, Lennox was back up front with us. Thank God the truck was big enough, because I might’ve had to pull off the road to let him release some energy . . . or let Rai in the back with him.
“What’s up with you?” I asked Rai, as we were driving along. “You haven’t had a chance to hang out with me, one-on-one, in a while.”
“Oh, boy. Now, you’re gonna say the same thing that Mom said.”
“Hmm.” I looked over at him. “What’d your mom say?”
He started to laugh, heartily. “She said that I’m at my grandma’s house so much she barely sees me.”
“Uhhh, and that’s not the truth?”
“I guess. Kinda,” he confessed. “You guys’ll survive.”
“Aww! That hurts!”
“You’ll get over it,” he, playfully, commented.
“Wow, man, you’re hardcore!”
“I’m jokin’, I’m jokin’! I know I need to spend some time with y’all, too.”
“Okay, cool. Now, we’re talkin’. And since we got that established, how’s everything else?”
“Everything is good.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. How are you?” he asked me in return.
“Oh, I couldn’t be happier.”
“Why? Because you don’t have to do all that training and stuff for boxing anymore?”
“Some of that; and some of just being happy about having time to do other things. Life isn’t meant to be spent doing the same thing the whole time.” I glanced over at Rai to make sure he was tuning in. “Make sure you remember that, okay? Try to do a little something in every area that you have a passion for, so you don’t rob yourself of seeing who all you have inside of you. It won’t make much sense now, while you’re still a kid, but—”
“It makes sense. It’s like, if I like doing other stuff, then don’t just get comfortable because I’m already doing one of them, right?”
“Right,” I said, smiling at how smart he was.
I was impressed at the fact that he was really listening, too. Most teenagers tuned adults out, not wanting to hear much of what we had to say. I knew because I’d been there myself a few times growing up.
“I think it’s cool that you boxed for so long, but then you went and got a gym. People probably come in there all the time just to meet you, huh?”
“Not as much as you think. But they do sometimes. I guess I’m not friendly enough for all of that.” When Rai began laughing, I reached over and nudged his shoulder. “What you laughing at?”
“You’re sprung. That’s why you’re not friendly.”
“Sprung? What’s that?” I asked, curiously. “Some teenage slang or something?”
“It’s not slang. Older people know what it is too. Maybe because you’re . . .” He paused.
“Because I’m what? White?”
“Yeah, that!” Rai said, bursting into hysterical laughter.
“Ohhh… so we got jokes today, right? Well, you’re part white, soooo . . .”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he contemplated. “So, then I guess I’ll help you out this one time,” he said, playfully. “‘Sprung’ just means that you’re in love and all that stuff.”
“Okay?” I said, gesturing with my hand for him to give me more.
“So, you said that you’re not friendly enough and I said it’s because you’re . . . in love. So, the girls probably don’t come around a lot because you curve them if they do.” He tilted his head and looked upward. “Okay, so curve just means that if they do try to get at you, you swerve away from them. That you don’t really trip.” He tilted his head, again, and shook it slightly.
“I know what trip is, smart aleck.”
“Okay, because I was about to say!”
We both started cracking up at that point.
I loved being around Rai. Not only because he was a great kid, not because his mother was the love of my life, but also because he was Lucas’s kid. It was like having a huge chunk of Lucas with me at all times. He was for sure the gift that kept on giving, for me.
When our laughter died down, I dove back into our conversation. There really were things I wanted to check with him on. Not that I didn’t already have his blessing, but I felt the need to make sure that he was still on board. After all, it had been just him and his mom, for the most part.
“Who’s that? Freddie?” I asked, when out the corner of my eye, I saw him checking his phone.
“Yep. How’d you know?” he asked, while typing out a reply text.
“A wild guess,” I responded. But the guess wasn’t a wild one at all. The two were inseparable, so it was a no-brainer. After Rai pocketed his cell, I asked, “How are you feeling about me and your mom?”
He darted his head toward me and released a light cackle. “Are you serious?” he asked me.
“Yeah.”
“Why would you ask me that? You mean, how do I feel about you guys getting married?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Dario, come on now. I’m the one that told her that it was okay to sit on your lap that day and be your girlfriend,” he kidded, catching me by surprise.
“Uhh, okay. Yeah . . . there was that. But—”
“Ain’t no ‘but’. You’re like the best . . .” He paused for a few seconds. “I mean . . .” He stalled, again. “You’re like, my soon-to-be stepdad, my cousin, and the coolest dude ever, all wrapped in one! I mean, the whole cousin thing is a bit different, but… yeah!”
I felt like the softest of human beings in that moment, hearing how Rai felt . . . how much he approved of me in his life—in all my apparent roles.
“I’m psyched about it!” he continued. “I think it’s awesome! All I really want is for my mom to be happy, and she is.”
“I plan to spend my life making her happy—and you too.”
“I already know what you can do to make me happy . . . happier, I mean.”
“Really? What’s that?”
“Convince her that we need to move to your house. I thought we were gonna be moving as soon as you guys got engaged, but nooo we’re still at our house.”
“Serious, man? You’re ready for you and your mom to move in?”
“Like, yesterday!” he responded.
“You don’t even know how good that makes me feel.”
And it did. I didn’t push Chanel when she insisted that we keep our own places. I didn’t need to because we saw each other all the time and had keys to each other’s homes. But, a part of me wondered if it was something that Rai wasn’t ready for. That maybe Chanel was just trying to honor his feelings until we got married. However, hearing that Rai wanted us all under the same roof, made my day. I wanted nothing more than to wake up in the same house as him and his mother—every day.
“So, can you do that?” he probed, after a few moments.
“You got it. I would love for that to happen; so, as soon as I see her, I’ll make sure to bring that topic right up.”
“Cool!” he exclaimed.
“Anything else?”
“Hmmm, not that I can think of. Unless Dodge Chargers are on the table.”
“Pshhh, right! You have a few more years for that. But no worries, you’ll have something nice when the time comes. But it’s never too early to start hitting up empty parking lots, and some unincorporated parts of town. Get you some driving lessons in. And then when the time comes—”
“Dario . . . I’m sor
ry to cut you off, but can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Are you ever gonna fight again? Or are you really done? Because people retire all the time, Michael Jordan, Floyd Mayweather, Jay Z . . . and then they end up going right back.”
“Nah, I’m done. Not a chance. All the way done.”
“So, what’s Hit Man’s problem, then? I heard that he said—”
“He’s an attention seeker. He’ll get tired of talking to himself in a few. Notice he wasn’t talking any of that stuff when I was still booking fights, right?”
“That’s so true,” Rai acknowledged. “Ugh. Makes him look like a punk.”
“Yeah, so I’ll just leave him to it. Boxing had me long enough. I was fresh out of my teens when I started training. That’s a long time. I paid my dues. There’s a whole other world out there to see. Besides that, I have to build a few empires for you to take over when you grow up.”
“I can get with that,” he said, right as we pulled up to our destination. “I think one of the empires should be a strip club.”
“A what?!” I yelled, almost choking from being so caught off guard! “A strip club, did you say?!”
“Yeah. Me and Freddie talk about it all the time. It’ll make us millions.”
I shook my head, literally wanting to laugh out loud. But I couldn’t let him know that I was amused by any of his stripper talk. I couldn’t let him know that his father had said the very same thing at a point when we were kids. I couldn’t laugh out loud, but I was smiling on the inside, knowing that him and Freddie were going to be me and Lucas 2.0.
“We never had this conversation, Rai,” I said, pulling into a prime spot right in between the temporary doggy daycare and the mall entrance.
“Aww! Why not, Dar—”
“Conversation over,” I stated, firmly.
“Okay,” he moped.
I felt badly, but I had to stick to my guns. There was no way my woman was going to get in my ass about her kid wanting to have his own strip club. I wasn’t even going to put myself in the position to be able to say I entertained that talk. Nope. Not in a million years.
“So, you ready to go in here and pick out something GQ for the engagement party?” He looked over at me, with a smirk on his face, and then smiled wide. “Well?” I pressed, right as Lennox popped his head up from his short nap.
“Yep, yep. I’m ready. Let’s do this!” he chuckled, running his hand along an imaginary beard. “I need to get clean for this thing.”
CHAPTER 22
Tracie
Tracie held onto her blushing smile, as she and Chanel headed in opposite directions. Talking about Quinton always made her giddy; she couldn’t lie. He was fine as hell! And not just that; she had, had the pleasure of him—a few times—so she knew what he felt like. And it was good! So, just thinking about him was enough to get her going. The fact that Chanel felt there was some kind of potential between the two of them gave Tracie renewed hope. She didn’t know if she was brave enough to admit it out loud, but Tracie’s feelings for Quinton had never left. Now, here they were, again, in each other’s space and keeping things strictly platonic. Flirty, but platonic. Tracie wanted more—a lot more. The more she was around him, the more her feelings grew. This time, she would move a little differently. She would move in a way that he knew, he wasn’t optional for her . . . that he meant more than that. She was going to take Chanel’s advice and play her cards better than she had the first time.
Thank God for Chanel!
Tracie had come to appreciate having Chanel in her life. She was good people . . . and real, with a genuine heart. In just the short time that they’d known each other, Tracie had come to consider Chanel a friend. Up until that friendship, Tracie had only really been close to her best friend, Alika. While she had told each woman about the other, they had yet to meet, but Tracie was determined to make it happen sooner than later.
As she got closer to her car, Tracie couldn’t believe just how quiet it was inside the parking garage. San Francisco seemed like a place that never had a dull moment—let alone moments of pure silence. Yet, right then and there, the only sounds were the clickity-clack of her heels kissing the pavement.
But the calm that Tracie thought was in the air had greatly deceived her. Due to the exciting chitter-chatter and the jovial tone of their conversation, both Tracie and Chanel were oblivious to the black SUV that had been doing a slow crawl, anticipating the end of their conversation. Unbeknownst to them, the truck had been surveilling for the past few hours, with its occupants on the lookout and waiting for the perfect opportunity. So, moments later when Tracie turned around at the sound of Chanel’s desperate screams, yelling for “Helllp!” she was caught completely off guard.
Tracie’s eyes bucked in horror. Her heart skipped several beats, and her body filled with hot air that felt like it was rushing from the top of her head, and down to her chest. She had never seen something like this play out anywhere but on television. She tried prying open her mouth to make a sound—any sound—but was unsuccessful.
Mooove! she inwardly coached herself.
Help her!
Do something!
But Tracie could do nothing. The shock had rendered her motionless. She was frozen in place, as she watched her friend kick, scream and desperately claw at a man double her size.
“Oh m-m-mmm-yy god . . .” Tracie gasped, her eyes widening in horror. She was trying her best to find the necessary strength in her shaky voice to come to her friend’s aid.
“Help meee! Pleeease, help!” were the sounds of Chanel’s terrifying pleas as her BCBG items scattered around her, and her body was lifted by the man, before disappearing into the back of a black-tinted Escalade.
Once the shock slowly began to wear off, without thought or further hesitation, Tracie took off running behind the speeding truck. She ran as fast as she could in heels much too high. She took a mental note of the vehicle’s make and model, her phone in hand, frantically dialing 9-1-1. When the call picked up on the first ring, Tracie felt hopeful. However, that was short-lived when her call fell into queue, behind no telling how many others.
“Fuck!” she screamed into the phone. Instinct told her to throw the damn thing to the ground and stomp it, but she quickly dismissed that. As more of the recording played in her ear, Tracie cried out, “Nooo! Nooo! Chanellll! Stop! Stop!”
Tracie had no idea what she’d do if she caught up to them, but she ran anyway—as fast as her shoes would allow. “Somebody, help me, please!” she screamed.
Black. Suburban. No plates. Tinted windows. Black. Suburban . . . wait. Escalade. Tinted. Missing plates. Guy tall. Black. Brown-skinned. Tracie desperately repeated the details of what she remembered over and over. She wanted to be able to tell the police as much as she could.
When the truck hit the direction of the exit, on two wheels, and disappeared from sight, Tracie’s eyes filled with so many tears that everything around her became blurred.
“Ohhh… no, no, no. Please, no,” she whispered to herself, her heart shattering more by the second. “Nooo!”
Loss and defeat tapped Tracie on both shoulders. Held onto her in a tight grip. She stopped in her tracks and held both hands against her pounding chest, panting, as she tried to catch her breath. Tears streamed down her brown face. She couldn’t believe what she’d just witnessed. It only happened in movies, not in her own life, and not to someone she cared about. She looked around, frantically, for anybody, while waiting for 9-1-1 to come on the line.
“Ma’am! What’s wrong?!” Tracie heard. She turned around to see several concerned people running toward her.
Exhausted from the trauma, and barely able to breathe, Tracie managed, through heartbreaking sobs, to point in the direction of the now-gone vehicle. “I need help . . . they took . . . her. They . . . took . . . my friend.”
CHAPTER 23
Dario
“See, I told you we coulda taken Lennox in with us!” Rai exc
laimed, when we all got back into the car. “Did you see that one lady with her dog in there?”
“Yeah, I saw it. But that dog was small, Rai.” I laughed. He wanted Lennox everywhere he went. “Lennox has a look that not everybody will see as warm, though. And he’s big. That lady’s dog might’ve weighed 25 pounds, Lennox is—”
“Awww, I don’t think it would’ve been a problem . . . huh, boy?” he asked, rubbing Lennox’s head. “And he coulda helped me pick out my lit fit!”
I shook my head and laughed. His energy was way up there. Meanwhile, I felt like I’d just been on a field trip to a place with way too much going on. Never knew what people saw in going to the mall. Well, except when we were young, and we went to pick up girls. But shopping? Nah. Too much in one place. Thank God for stylists.
“Your ‘lit fit’, huh?”
“Yep!”
The lit fit ended up being a pair of grey slacks with a straight leg. Rai chose a tighter fit, which I didn’t particularly care for. I had already made a mental note to steer him away from making that ‘style’ a habit. That whole nut-hugger phase that so many men had signed on for, needed to die—a painful death—and soon.
He chose a white button-down, and a pair of two-toned, black on grey oxfords. He was definitely going to make a statement. I was 200 percent sure that once Freddie saw what Rai had to wear, his outfit wouldn’t be too far from the same. That’s how they did everything these days. It was an awesome sight to see them so in sync.
While an outfit was the only thing we were supposed to be going for, we left with much more. By the time we exited Stoneridge Mall, I had Rai’s garment bag slung over one shoulder, and his bags of shoes (one for the party, and a pair of Jordan’s that I got him just because) in the other hand. But his hands were full of video games, a pair of Beats by Dre, and a new iPod.
“You know your mom is gonna kill us when she sees those extra amenities you got,” I joked.
“She’ll get over it,” Rai said, before bursting out laughing.
In the Ring 2 Page 10
