Asao brushed a hand over his head. “Yeah, this was his idea but I didn’t give him grief. I don’t know how much longer I havein me with this music shit, so the label is a way to keep money in our pockets. They trusted me and put up with a lot of shit for us to get where we are. I owe them.”
Asao had been the one to make the decision to step away from the streets. After losing Na’Mya, he had to do something that honored what she’d wanted for him, what he’d promised to grow into, a man who valued the life God had provided him.
Niles and Dom knew why Asao pushed so hard for them to leave the past they’d once honored and lived by and never gave him grief. If he stepped, they stepped. It paid off but he would never forget what it’d cost them. Some days were hard because the money wasn’t there but they never slipped. They’d made it to the other side together, as brothers.
Leedren was quiet for a minute and simply stared at his son. After a long moment he smiled subtly. “I’m proud of you, Sao. I’m proud of the man you are and the man I know you’re going to be.” His expression was hard when he continued. “Being here has cost me so much. I’m torn daily with the decision I made because protecting your mother meant being absent in your life. That’s a fucked up space to exist in because the guilt is heavy.”
“You don’t have anything to feel guilty about, Pops.”
“I do. I carry the guilt of not being there for you.”
“You’ve been there.”
“Not like I should have been. Raising a son behind bars isn’t honorable, Sao. It hurt me in ways I can’t even process, but I also know if I had the chance to do it all over again, I would make the same decision. I love your mother. I can’t and won’t apologize for the decision I made.”
Asao nodded and frowned at his father. They’d never had this conversation before. He understood his father’s struggle with being absent from his life, but today, something felt different.
“You good, Pops?”
“I’m good, son.”
“Then why are we talking about this?”
Leedren smiled and brushed a hand over his head. The move mirrored the action of his son. “Being here was hard. I left my heart on the outside. Youandyour mother but I gave you a choice to stay connected to me. I didn’t give her one because I wouldn’t have survived this time only having a piece of her. I know you may not understand?—"
Asao cut him off. “I get it, Pops.”
Leedren was expressing that he didn’t love Asao any less than he loved his wife, only that the love he had for the two of them was different. When Asao turned eighteen, he was allowed calls and communication from Leedren. Prior to that he’d kept up with the moves his son made through his connections to the streets. But his wife, he didn’t want to know anything other than she was alive and well.
No specifics or details. He couldn’t hear her voice, refused to see her face or read her words on paper. It was selfish, but necessary. He’d written to her once a month, just to remind her of his love, and she’d kept them because not one was marked return to sender. He never knew if she read them because that was the only choice he would allow her to make. Their deal was he would write to her once a month. She loved him enough to give him what he needed to survive the time attached to his name.
“You in love, Sao?” his father asked sternly. The only way his son could understand what he was saying was if a woman owned his heart.
Asao smirked and shook his head. “Nah, but I know what that looks like.”
I loved once but I fucked that up and lost her, Asao thought to himself.
Leedren nodded without asking for clarity.
“I’ll be home in two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” The date was locked in Asao’s memory. He knew the month, day, year, and time. He had been counting down the days until he could hug his father outside of the correctional facility that held him captive. Even with time served there was still six months left on his father’s sentence, so two weeks didn’t align.
“They had a mentorship program the warden agreed to in order to get more state funding. No one wanted to do it so he gave six months off your time to anyone who agreed. I signed up.”
“You’ve been mentoring people in here?” Asao grinned and his father nodded with a cocky smile.
“I know a little something, and even if your hardheaded ass never wants to listen to me, other people do.”
“I listen.”
Leedren glared at his son with a reminder that he’d begged Asao to walk a path other than the one he’d chosen but the streets became his home. Leedren was simply grateful that Asao’s life choices hadn’t landed him a cell next to his.
“I listen when it counts. So two weeks, that’s a done deal?”
“Yeah. Two weeks and I get to come home.”
“You ready for that?” Asao questioned his father with a neutral expression.
