Page 12 of Just Like Summer

“Your money ain’t good here, Kamilla. It will never be. Keep your shit and stack it.”

“I was raised to never owe a man so… I’ll be paying you back,” Kamilla fired back, the fear of ending up like her mother laced through her words.

Cairo peered over her. “You gon’ tell me more than that or nah?”

“No,” she said before sighing. “I don’t know you like that.”

“Don’t worry, you will. Small shit. Might as well get to sharing,” Cairo pressed, just enough to make her huff and roll her eyes. “Let me hear this reasoning.”

“If I owe you, I’m indebted to you. I heard men tend to exploit that. I don’t want to experience that,” she shared.

“What have you experienced?” Cairo asked, maneuvering the car off the highway.

She sighed, embarrassed to admit that at eighteen, her only experience with the opposite sex was Tony Hardmen forcing a kiss on her in the second grade. A kiss she didn’t want, that she got in trouble for, and her parents showed up as a joint force at the school to go off on the teacher, principal, and his parents. The result was her infraction went away and her father was permanently banned from the school for teaching Tony’s father a lesson about raising sons who couldn’t comprehend that no meant no.

“Outside of being kissed by a nasty boy in the second grade, not much. But I’ve watched my mother and my aunt. That’s enough experience for me,” she shared.

Cairo’s thick brows knitted as he looked at her. “You don’t have no heartbroken country bumpkin back in Greenwood crying over your photo or nothing like that?”

“No. If you’re the lone wolf, I guess I’m a sheep without a herd,” she softly shared.

“Hm,” he buzzed, parking the car, killing the engine and getting out.

He opened her door and led her inside the barred restaurant. “Ay yo, Ray.”

A heavy-set man with a Los Oceania Royals baseball cap popped his head up from the kitchen. “C4, what’s up? Who you got with you?”

The shock in Ray’s voice was apparent.

Cairo threw his arm over Kamilla’s shoulder and guided her to the counter. There were a few patrons enjoying a meal and he wanted the message to be crystal clear that she was off limits. Any violation to her would be violating him, and no one wanted that type of trouble on their hands.

“This is my friend, Kamilla,” Cairo shared.

Ray observed them both. Cairo possessive. Kamilla, subconsciously finding comfort. “Friends, huh? She knows y’all friends?”

Kamilla wiggled herself out of his hold. “I’ve determined he might be a little…out of sorts, so I’m going along with it.”

Ray let a hearty laugh fill the small restaurant. “A little? Oh, babygirl, you’re in for something with this one here. If he gets to acting up, you come find me, I’ll handle it.”

“Man, Ray, come on. I’m no-”

Ray rose his brows. “Nigga, I know you’re not about to tell me you ain’t out to space.”

Even Kamilla looked at him with concern. “Um, Cairo…are you a liar?”

He offered her a lopsided smirk, prompting the appearance of a tiny smile to fuse over her full lips. The wider his smirk spread, the more she mirrored until she realized she was smiling and let it drop.

“Nah, I’m not a liar,” Cairo shared. “I was gonna say I’m not gon’ do nothing to make you find Ray. We good.”

“Oh,” Ray and Kamilla hummed in tandem, each with a different meaning.

Ray chuckled, his soul was delighted when the young men who’d dedicated their lives to gang life found something more to live for. “What y’all getting? I don’t have salads here.”

Kamilla softly chuckled. “I’m from Greenwood, I wasn’t expecting a salad.”

“Mm, Greenwood. Who your people?” Ray asked.

Kamilla shook her head. “No roots.”