“You need to go home. You don’t need to be stressing yourself out. Go play with your lil Legos or something,” Bali said.
Maui rolled her eyes as Ashanni chuckled. “Come on, Maui. I’ll go with you and keep you company while Mythic is working.”
“Okay. Let me know if y’all come up with anything,” Maui said.
She and Ashanni wobbled out of the door, and I flopped to the couch. I felt horrible, and I couldn’t even call him to tell him because I wasn’t supposed to know. I knew he could still go to nationals whether he had a sponsor or not, but if the board disqualified him from competing, it seemed there was nothingthat we could do about that. Money wasn’t an issue for Red. His dad was a millionaire.
Sponsorship was mainly for the brand to get exposure because the competitor wore their logo. In exchange, they paid the athlete’s entry fees and whatnot for competitions. Red’s biggest sponsor was Budweiser. Sponsorship also spoke to the success of the competitor. He was an amazing bulldogger, and I fucked that shit up.
I could hear Bali on the phone, but I didn’t even have the strength to eavesdrop. I didn’t know who she was talking to, and I didn’t care, especially if it wasn’t Red. No matter how much of a success story I was, none of that shit mattered if I could let my actions fuck up someone else’s story.
When the doorbell rang, I rolled my eyes. Hopefully, it was my daddy. Everybody knew how I felt about fucking pop-ups. Bali went to the door and when she came back, she had Uncle Philly with her. I frowned, trying to figure out what he was doing here. He was the last person I was expecting.
He sat next to me, and said, “They know you know. Carter told them that he told you, because you wouldn’t let him keep it to himself. Red asked me to talk to you. Squared still isn’t ready to talk to anybody. He has to get his emotions in check so he don’t go off on nobody undeservingly.”
I swallowed hard as I stared at him, wondering what he could actually say that would make me feel any better.
“When Kema and I got married, she was on Tiff’s relay team and was a hell of a barrel racer. Baby girl was predicted to go to nationals and sweep shit up. Behind her back, I was still running the drug game. When she found out, she left me. I ended up getting her back as I was leaving the game. I got shot in the shoulder, and her sensitivity towards the situation had her coming back to me. She loved me so much. She didn’t know if Iwould make it out of that shit alive, so she chose to be with me, not knowing how much time I would have left on this earth.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I knew he was getting somewhere. When he finished, if I didn’t see the point, I would let him know that shit.
“Well, muthafuckas didn’t want to let me out unscathed. I fucked some people over, and to get back at me, they went after Kema. They almost killed her. While in the vehicle with them, she ended up firing her weapon, shooting one of those muthafuckas in the head, killing him, and injuring another. There was no evidence of them kidnapping her. It looked like she went willingly. They couldn’t see his gun from the footage. Because of the accident when she shot him, it fucked her leg up.”
He slid his hand down his face. This was painful for him to talk about. This had to happen before PJ and Lema were born. For it to still bother him like this, over twenty years later, spoke to how bad it was.
“The main thing, though, was that they were charging her with murder. Her sponsors dropped her. She didn’t have the money to continue a career without a sponsor. She sure in the hell didn’t want my money or anything to do with me after that. I fucked up. My actions ruined her career. She loved rodeoing, and because of my bullshit, she could no longer do what she loved.”
I lowered my head, realizing why he was here. He knew exactly what I was feeling. Grabbing my hand, he said, “I outted my entire operation to keep Kema from going to prison. I had to so they would know she killed him in self-defense. I did a year behind bars to somewhat rectify what happened. There was nothing I could do to make up for her losing her career. That’s something I had to live with. I’m just grateful that she still wanted me when I got out.”
“Uncle Philly, I don’t know what to do.”
“When the time comes, let him know how down for him you still are. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have given a fuck about him fucking up his career. You would probably say it was good for his ass. Sidney is working to prove discrimination with the board disqualifying him. Niggas compete with charges against them all the time. They pay to compete, not the other way around.”
I leaned against him, and he put his arm around me. His presence made me feel so much better. Our situation wasn’t nearly as bad as theirs was. I’d heard stories about Aunt Kema being on Aunt Tiff’s history-making rodeo team back in the day. Whenever Aunt Tiff decided to step out and compete again, Aunt Kema would join them. I never knew the details of why she had completely stopped. I heard about the accident, but not what caused it.
After kissing my head, he said, “Everything gon’ be okay, Lil Storm. By tomorrow, you should be able to talk to Squared.”
The doorbell rang again, and I huffed. Bali walked away to answer it. Her face was so red. I knew Uncle Philly’s story had gotten to her as it had gotten to me. When she came back, she had a bouquet of flowers. That could only be from Red Squared. He’d sent a bouquet Monday that I left at work, situated on my desk. The tears were cascading down my cheeks now. He loved me even more than I had ever realized. I supposed it took me breaking up with him for him to realize I needed more.
However, he realized his error long before I realized mine. I was toxic. I wouldn’t express myself to him and had the audacity to demand more of him. I didn’t have a problem expressing when I was angry, but expressing how much I loved him had been a problem for me. Now that I felt guilty about him losing his sponsorship, I wanted to express all the things I should have expressed a long time ago.
I stood from the couch and went to the bouquet and pulled the card from the stem. He probably had scheduled this deliverybefore he found out he’d been dropped by his sponsor and disqualified by the NFR board. He probably hated me now. I rolled my eyes at my own thoughts. Red was incapable of hating me. I knew how much he loved me. He was probably blaming himself.
I opened the card and saw there was more than his typical ‘Love, Red’ on it.
You are my only love. I plan to show you how much you mean to me. I want to be deserving of your love and devotion. Without you, life won’t be the same, so I am doing my best to work on myself and be more understanding of who you are without trying to make you who I think I want you to be. I love you so much. ~Red Squared
I wiped the tears that escaped me. All this crying was wearing me thin. I hated it. Maybe I was changing after all. If his expression of love and the way I felt about him had me crying in front of everybody, then I knew this breakup was pointless. We were made for each other.
“I’m going to him now. I can’t hang around here and leave him alone to drown in depression.”
I quickly grabbed my keys as Uncle Philly smiled and headed out behind me. I didn’t care if he tried to turn me away. He needed me, and I needed him. Truth was, we were both responsible for this shit. If he was going to go down, we would go down together.
I sped out of the driveway, through the other neighborhoods, to get to him. I didn’t want anyone to see me had I hit the main highways. My heart was bleeding, so I knew his was, too. When I turned into his driveway, the house was dark, like no one was home. Going around to the back of the house, I saw him seated on the patio furniture, smoking a blunt, staring out towards his barn.
He turned and saw me, then stood and set his blunt on the end table. I cautiously made my way to him. “Noni, what are you doing here?”
“I needed to be here for you.”
