“When is she getting back to Coupeville?”
“A few days. She’s wrapping up some stuff in Colorado first.” Giovanni stood, signaling the meeting was over. “This is gonna be big for us, man. The right storyteller can change everything. The more funding, the better.”
“Yeah,” Rolani said, standing too. “I’m already knowing.”
“Hit me when you get back in town.”
“Bet.”
He left Giovanni's office and walked to his car, his mind doing what it always did when her name came up—replaying the film. Rehashing the moments to make sure he wasn't tripping.
He checked the time. Monroe would be getting out of practice in an hour, and he still had to stop by the house before picking her up and taking her to Georgie's.
Having Monroe full-time had changed everything. The late nights, the spontaneity, the freedom to move however he wanted — all of that took a backseat the day Monshay left and didn't come back. He'd stepped up on the strength of his brother. Hadto. And in a lot of ways, Monroe had grounded him in ways he didn’t know he needed.
But that didn’t mean he’d forgotten about Kennedi Walters.
In the driver's seat, his phone was already in his hand. Scrolled to her name. The last text in the thread was the one from the airport. Nothing after that. Rolani glowered at her name on his screen, thumb hovering over the keyboard. The urge to text her, welcome her back was on his mind.
But nah.
He tossed the phone into the cupholder and started the engine. The silence had given him clarity. She’d run. He’d spent four months figuring out why. Somewhere around the halfway point, he’d stopped being angry and started being ready — ready for the conversation she owed him, ready to show her that the man she’d left was not the man she was coming back to. He had more to prove now. More to protect. And a whole lot less patience for games.
Rolani pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward his house. He grabbed his phone at a red light and texted Giovanni.
Rolani: Hit me the minute she touches down.
She could run. But not in his city.
Chapter Ten
A WEEK LATER
Kennedi satacross from Giovanni in his office, one hand resting protectively over her stomach beneath the table where he couldn’t see. Just into her fifth month. The blazer was working overtime, and she swore her stomach had grown in the last week alone. Secrets this big didn’t stay hidden forever, and her body reminded her of that daily.
“Good lookin’ for coming through,” Giovanni said, leaning back in his chair. “Welcome back. How was Colorado?”
“It was good. Productive. I’m glad to be home, though. There’s nothing like it.”
“I feel you. Paige ain’t stopped going on about how she can’t wait to see you. She missed you. They all did.”
She smiled. She couldn’t wait to catch up. She had so much to tell them.
“And my bad about the delay in thanking you face to face for the work you did on the premiere. Shit has been crazy since we got back.”
“No thanks needed. That premiere gave me the blueprint for what I want TKL to become. So really, I should be thanking you.”
She meant every word. The premiere had launched her into a room she’d been trying to get into for years. But it had alsolaunched her into Rolani Pracher’s arms, and that part she kept to herself.
“That Beyond the Game special was crazy, Ken. For real. You made them look like real people. That ain’t easy to do with niggas at that level.”
“I work hard to get to the core of people. Most journalists want the headline. I want the thing behind the thing. DaVinci and Halo trusted me to see what others wouldn’t, and that’s why the piece worked.”
Giovanni nodded, sliding a folder across the desk. “With that said, this is the contract. I want you to produce a docu-series on us. The whole story — the shop, the culture, Idle Hands. Giovanni got his premiere. Now I want the world to see the rest of it. You’d have full creative control. Your vision, your direction, your project. We’re funding it and giving you access.”
She pulled the folder toward her, flipping through the pages even though her mind barely processed the words. This was everything she’d been chasing. Creative freedom. A docu-series she could build from the ground up. The storytelling she’d dreamed about since journalism school, before newsrooms boxed her into segments and soundbites and decided Black stories only mattered when they were tragic. This was the opposite of that.
“The premiere showed the world, Giovanni. But Ro is the other half of this thing, and nobody’s heard his side yet. The paint work, the clients, making Idle Hands his focus, and how he operates. That’s the story people don’t know. And that’s the one I need you to tell.”
