Cade had been with me my entire career like he was with my father during his career. Even after my father retired, he still was able to get him endorsement deals. The Leota family had a royalty bloodline when it came to this MMA thing.
Cade smiled with a titter. “Shit, trust me, you thank me every time I get my thirty percent cut. I feel really appreciated.”
As he should.“So, what’s the next steps since the contracts are all signed? I’m ready to get moving on whatever they have lined up,” Sol let Cade now.
“They will be in touch very soon about photo shoots and commercials. Based on the contract, this is the only brand that you need to be seen drinking publicly. Thank God, you actually like it,” Cade said with a boisterous laugh. “I have a client who doesn’t like the sports drink, so his team fills the bottle with something else.”
Hemi laughed. “That’s cold-blooded. I guess you got to do what you have to for that check.”
“Yeah. If he would have waited like I told him, the brand he wanted would have given him a deal. He wanted the first big check that was offered to him. There are some people who don’t listen to good advice and expertise,” Cade said before he rolled his eyes.
“That shit is crazy. Well, you know I don’t have a problem listening. That was the first thing my dad and uncles told me.Listen to Cade,”Sol responded.
Cade and Hemi nodded to my acknowledgment. Cade shifted in his seat before he looked at his computer, then tapped on the mouse. “Okay, now I’m working on this fight for you.They’re still not talking about the money that makes my insides tingle. I let them know that I wouldn’t even take a meeting of consideration if the ticket price wasn’t at least three million. That’s just a meeting to negotiate more.”
See, that was what the fuck I was talking about. This dude who was ranked number five in my weight class jumped out there and said that he could take my title belt with ease. That shit didn’t make any sense to me. When I was ranked anything lower than number one, I worked my way to the top. I picked those fuckers off one by one until I was number one. It was like everyone wanted the quick come up instead of doing the work to get there. I was taught that slow and steady won the race.
“Yeah, if ‘Crybaby’ Carson wants to be embarrassed in the octagon and waste my time, I’m going to need my money. Oh, and he wants it to be a pay-per-view fight. That tells me that his team isn’t keeping him up on current news. We don’t even fight on there anymore.”
Cade laughed before he stood up. “You’re right. His team is a bunch of amateurs. There was no way I would give the promoters any money for you to fight. When his team said that they would, that told me all that I needed to know.”
We talked a little longer about bullshit before my father and I left. My car was at his house, so that was where we were headed. Ma said that she cooked tacos, and I loved damn tacos.
“I’m so proud of you, Son. You’ve gotten further in your career at twenty-eight than I did my whole career.” My dad’s smile was wide, and his eyes were soft. “That’s what legacy is about. Lifting the ones that come behind you higher.”
It didn’t take us long to get to my parents’ house. They lived in a different house than the house that they lived in when I moved here. This one, ironically, was smaller. I loved that my Ma Prue was a simple kind of girl. She never needed a lot to be happy with life. They could have had a twenty-bedroom mansion if they wanted to, but she wanted this nice five-bedroom home. Although it was a modest home, the land that it sat on and the money they paid for the landscaping cost money.
I walked into the house after my dad. The smell of the tacos made my stomach grumble. I was ready to eat something. My parents still shipped in my favorite guacamole from California once a month. “What’s up, family?”
HJ turned around on his seat at the kitchen island. “What’s up, Bro? Did you earn some extra millions to give me?”
At thirteen, HJ was cool as fuck. One thing that I learned over the years when I looked at my uncles, aunties, and cousins was that Polynesian blood was strong as hell. They were even stronger than my Granny Jamilia’s black blood. Don’t get me wrong; the melanin seeped through. The Leotas were many shades of brown. My brother HJ’s skin was the lighter version of brown.
I laughed. “Oh, I need to give you some of the ten million that I just hooked? That’s crazy, lil bro.”
“Oh my God! That is amazing!” Ma Prue ran out of the kitchen and jumped on me. She was my biggest supporter. She literally had gotten into a few fights behind people talking shit about me.
I laughed at her zealousness. “Thanks, Ma. You know ya boy be on it.”
“Yeah, my boy definitely be on it,” my dad added. “Those tacos smell good, baby. It smells like you made some steak ones too.”
Prue walked over to my father, wrapped her arms around his neck, then kissed his lips. HJ and I groaned at their teenaged level display of affection. I moved to the pots and started to build my tacos. I told HJ to come on. By the time we finished, our parents were gone. I cringed at the thought of it.
“I heard you passed your math test, so Dad is going to let you start training,” I said to HJ. He wanted to train since he was like eight years old. He had a little bit of a discipline problem, so my father made the agreement that if he consistently stayed out of trouble and had good grades, then he could start training.
HJ finished the food that was in his mouth before he responded. “Yeah, I can. I can’t wait.” When his brow arched, I knew he was about to say some smart ass shit to me. “I’m gonna be better than you one day, Bro.”
I wrapped my arm around his neck from where I sat beside him, then put him into a headlock. “Is that so! You’re gonna be better than Warborn. Ain’t shit wrong with that.”
We wrestled for a second with laughter before we went back to eating. I could only hope that he would be better than me some day. That would be the ultimate goal of everyone who had a hand in his training, including me. Afterall, legacy was is about lifting the ones that come behind you higher.
Why Are You Here, Girl . . .
I stayed at my parents’ house for about two hours before I headed to my house. My house was only fifteen minutes away from my parents. I built in the same neighborhood as them. I took a note from my ma and stayed modest with my home. I was a single man, so I didn’t need a bunch of rooms. A four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom house was just enough space for me. When I did find the woman that I would be with forever, it would be up to her whether she wanted something bigger.
I stopped at my door after I walked into my house. The sound of ratchet television annoyed the fuck out of me.Why the hell is this girl here?
I went to my kitchen first to get a bottle of water before I headed into my den. I stopped, rolled my eyes at how comfortable her ass was on my couch, then plopped down on the couch. “Why the hell are you here and not at your place, Michelle?”
