Page 51 of Just Like Summer

“I am and he won’t let me leave,” she gushed. “So, Fahaad is kind of a big deal…what are we doing with the hair?”

“I don’t have time to get a haircut and be wrapped up in you,” Cairo joked. “My arm damn near fell off.”

“I do recall rolling over and being pulled back and kissed on,” she said with a giggle. “That’s not a complaint, I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, I hear you talking.” Cairo felt the joy. It’d been foreign for years. While the very thing tied to the darkness he locked himself in was the thing to pull him out.

“Back to this hair, I think I can wrangle it,” Kamilla shared. “Detangle, deep condition, moisturize.”

“Don’t work too hard on it if I’m cutting it all off.”

“Don’t do that. Hair holds power. At least that’s what my dad used to say. Him and my mom got into an argument about her wanting to perm my hair and he wasn’t having it.”

“Yours pops might’ve been on to something, that shit is fire.”

Kamilla blushed. “Get up before I distracted again.”

An hour and a half later of fighting with his dehydrated coils, Kamilla had it pulled into a low bun. His hair slicked back like this reminded him of the days he’d let his mother do his hair. Those days were rare. Peace in their home was rare. He trekked back to the living room where Kamilla was cleaning up and pulled her into his embrace.

“What you doing to me, K?” he muttered in her ear the same words she moaned hours prior.

Kamilla shrugged. “Reciprocating. Same thing you’re doing to me – making sure you’re safe here.”

He groaned, lifted his head and kissed her forehead, then the bridge of her nose then her lips. A slow, intentional kiss to her lips before lifting her off of her feet. Her back pressed against the wall, hands gripping his shoulder, the release of endorphins buzzing from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.

Cairo pulled back and mumbled against her lips. “Mariposa.”

Kamilla, nipping her lip asked, “How’d you figure out my middle name?”

“Might’ve studied your license a while ago. But…you got my thuggin’ ass feeling butterflies. Can’t seem to take the Vato out of me. Makes sense that’d be your middle name, though.”

“Regardless of how you feel about it, it’s a part of your makeup. The intensity of who you are,” Kamilla spoke, giving him a final kiss. “Put me down before I ignore how sore I am.”

“We got shit to do, too. Being inside you makes me forget there’s a world outside of here,” he admitted, gently placing her to her feet. “Get dressed so I can feed you before we hit the studio.”

“Oh, so bossy,” Kamilla joked, wiggling away from him. “At least say please.”

“You gon’ make me beg?”

She shook her head. “I’m going to make you just a little bit polite. For me, though.”

Cairo nipped his lip and stepped back so the temptation of making her his dinner could settle. “See, that’s that shit, Mariposa.”

Kamilla flashed him a look. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

“Nahhh, talk yo’ shit, baby.”

In the clean studio with Kamilla in the corner lowly recording him enter his zone, Fahaad to his right, and a guy from Port East that went by Ekho, Cairo did what he’d dreamt of on the nights he was alone. There was something magical about the way Kamilla encouraged him that lent him the power to create without constraints.

Ekho was an Azul with an R&B edge to him. That alone made him an instant hit with the ladies. Producing this could set him up to prepare not just his exit but Nate’s too. Every build of the beat, every tweak of the lyrics, everything was going to lead to a brighter tomorrow.

“How long you been doing this?” Ekho asked between breaks of listening back to the track.

“For a minute. Shit keeps my mind occupied,” Cairo replied. “You?”

“Been a singing ass nigga but you know how that shit goes when you got this flag. Ain’t nobody trying to hear a singing ass Azul,” Ekho joked. “But now…I got this itch for something more. Get my momma out the 6th. So I’m using what God gave me.”

“Tell him how I met you,” Fahaad spoke up, placing his phone down.