Page 114 of Just Like Summer

She laughed dryly. “No, you aren’t.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because I am so angry that you won’t wake up. He’ll be up and ready to go by eight. Sundays are the days him and Malayna hang out. But you’re his daddy, you’ll figure it out.” Kamilla walked past him and turned the lights out. “You can see yourself out quieter than how you came in.”

She left him there and climbed the stairs with her phone in tow. From his cemented spot, he watched as she walked into Kairo’s room, scooped him up and then moved across the hall to her bedroom. When the sound of the lock turned, he let out a long sigh. He’d hurt the one person who loved him more than herself.

forty-six

Driving away from Kamilla’s house was the hardest thing he had to do. However, considering the neighborhood she was in and how he had to do everything but drag the security guard out his hut to get in, crying in her driveway wasn’t an option. Their houses were a twenty-minute drive apart and still, that was too far.

Never in his life did he think he would be at odds with her. With the one he’d cut his heart out of his chest for. There would never be another life he lived where Kamilla wouldn’t be the sun, the moon, and all the stars. The issue was that his cloud obstructed his view from the pain he caused her. He was emotionally obtuse, and that was his mess to fix. All of this was his mess to fix.

When he pulled up to his spot, he noticed Nate’s car. Cairo groaned to himself, got out the car and moved to the porch. “I don’t feel like it, Nate.”

“Well, Dania is at Kamilla’s with Malayna, so you stuck with me. We sparking up out here and scaring your neighbors, or we taking this to the back where you don’t have furniture?” Nate asked.

Cairo huffed, took and seat and palmed his braids. “Fuck these neighbors.”

Nate sparked up a blunt and handed the other to Cario. “How it feel getting’ kicked out your baby momma’s spot after she stunted on you?”

Cairo held up his fingers showing a tiny space. “She had me feeling this big. And I would’ve preferred to live in a world where she was the same girl. That’s not the case. And it’s clear it hasn’t been the case since I left.”

“It’s something about looking at your seed and seeing how much time has really passed. Five years here or in there is a long ass time,” Nate replied. “I know your heart hurts.”

“In the worst way and you could’ve said something to me. Anything,” Cairo stated.

“I said, ‘ay, you need to unblock her and tap in’ about four hundred times and you said, ‘nah, she can’t live her life with me in here’,” Nate replied. “You got locked up, she carried that weight and locked herself up too. Going to the valley instead of OSU was the first sign.”

Cairo blew the smoke out and groaned. “I need my baby back.”

“How you gonna do that? You can’t kidnap her. Not now. She got a gang of niggas that will fight you for her peace. And she talks back now. That’s your fault.”

“Fight me for her, yeah aight,” Cairo scoffed, but he saw the effect she had on people. He’d air it out, but they would indeed fight for her peace. “I gotta play this shit smooth, a dash of crazy. Let her think she’s dictating how this is going to go. Then before she knows it, she’s in my house and never leaving again.”

Nate chuckled before sighing.

“Thank you for looking out for them,” Cairo shared, looking over at Nate. “I’m mad as fuck you didn’t say shit, but I get it.”

“I wish it was my secret to tell. Holding that from you, man. You my brother, and that’s my sis. I watched her navigate and take on the world without you. Sometimes, she flew and sometimes she wanted to drown, but she didn’t stop. I’ve never seen anyone love someone that fucking much. I’ll never forget her telling me that she just wanted you home, even if you weren’t coming home to her.”

Cairo snarled, nipping the inside of his lip and letting a couple tears fall. “Fuck.”

“Ay, bro. Look at it like this. Time unused is time wasted. There’s still time on the clock, Azul. I don’t think you should play by her rules. I think you need to get your family under one roof and expand that shit. Sit her down for another summer. Give her back everything she gave you, one hundred times over. You gotta show her. She’s made the ultimate sacrifice for you and when you came home, she was still yours. Yeah, go get your family, my boy. Chin up, chest out. Start with an apology. And check your ego.”

“Oh, that’s what being married taught you?” Cairo asked before chuckling. “How you get her to go for a courthouse wedding?”

“It wasn’t my idea. You know I like when she tells me what to do. I love that shit. She woke me up in labor and said when I push your big head baby out, you’re marrying me,” Nate said with laughter. “And I watched my babygirl come out and married her momma a week later. Ain’t nobody else for me and it was crazy to act like there was. Can’t nobody temper me like her. Don’t nobody know my fears and demons as well as she does. I joke a lot. But those two, man, I’ll burn the earth for them.”

Cairo smiled. “I love that for you, man.”

“Love it for yourself. Y’all gon’ get back on track. I know it. Just love on her. That tenderness is still there, it just wasn’t safe without you.”

“Yeah, that’s the part the hurts me. Not just my heart but my fuckin’ ego. Start to finish. I’m going to get back though. Promise you that.”

“Good. You know this ain’t the house she spotted for you right?”

Cairo frowned. “What you sayin’?”