Page 82 of Just Like Summer

Kamilla pulled in a deep breath and pushed it out. “Too late for me to run now.”

“Indeed. Haddon has given his stamp of approval, also called the teachers and told them to take care of his nephew. You’re locked in now. Come on, I want you to meet the team. Welcome to El Jefe Records.”

thirty-four

“You a ugly ass nigga, you know that?” Nate chuckled as he leaned on the side of his car watching Cairo walk down the stairs of the Greenwood View Half Recovery House. Sure to record everything, like Kamilla told him years ago. “How you feel, Azul? All rehabilitated and shit? Like you want to serve the Lord, start a corner ministry?”

Cairo shook his head, offering Nate a half smile. His eyes were thankful. “Get that shit out my face, man.”

Gently, Cairo knocked the camera away from his face and pulled his best friend into a brotherly embrace.

“Your clothes too tight. Get off me, nigga,” Nate cracked, pushing him away. “How you feel?”

“Like I want to sleep in a bed that ain’t a twin and eat food that niggas ain’t playing with,” Cario commented. “How you feelin’?”

“Like my brother is home. I got a house full of women,” Nate spoke, sure not to bring Kamilla up. Partially because she had no clue he was home, nor did he need to know she’d finally moved on.

Cairo gave Nate a smile before it faded. Nate had a family – he wanted that more than he wanted to make it out the streets. Both had happened. And his heart smiled and broke all at the same time.

“Malayna givin’ you hell, huh?” Cairo asked with laughter, throwing his duffle bag in the backseat.

“Your goddaughter is four going on forty and runnin’ her momma, me, and anybody else she’s around,” Nate stated, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Where to?”

“My fuckin’ house. What you mean, where to?” Cairo frowned, brows connecting again, hair grown out, facial hair unkempt.

Nate laughed to himself and pulled off from the curb after Cairo got in. As the three-hour drive back to Los Oceania was underway, Cairo, who was slouched down in his seat, cut his eye over at Nate. “Why did y’all go through all this trouble for me?”

“‘Cause you would’ve done it for me,” Nate started, leaving out the fact that the money he’d given Kamilla, she’d only taken a fourth, stacked his books, flooded his account, and made sure the lawyers Fahaad hired never ran out of money. If that wasn’t a testament of love, Nate didn’t know what was.

“It was too much fucking money,” Cairo protested.

“So you want to go back, nigga ‘cause I’ll turn this shit around drop your swole ass off and go film these music videos for these mumble rappers,” Nate joked.

“What happened to working with Ekho?” Cairo quizzed.

“He’s locked in the studio, the producer they got is ass. And before you curl your lip up in detest, it was his label, not him. He’s been holding out giving them a second album until you cooked something up.”

Cairo scoffed. “Hard as hell to produce from a prison phone.”

What he wanted to say was it was hard to create without his magic. Even when he was able to phase up and get his soundboard, the beats just didn’t feel the same. Like Nate, he was trying to avoid bringing her up. Avoid the memories that kept him up at night. Avoid the thought of her doing what he told her to do – moving on. Avoid the guilt he held from cutting her access to him. But when he was staring down the barrel of twenty-five to life, he refused to string her along – refused to rob her of life with prison visits and longing in the darkness of loneliness.

“Well, you home now, call him and tell him to scrap that shit,” Nate urged. “And not off that burner phone. Look in the console.”

Cairo was letting his nervous system regulate. He needed, for at least a week, to get acclimated with being on his own schedule and someone not barking orders or dictating his every move. Taking the phone box out of the center console, he powered it on and looked at the home screen. Then the contacts. Nate, Dania, Fahaad, Fredo, and Ekho.

“Damn,” he muttered, sinking further into the leather seat and closing his eyes.

When he woke up, they were coming down the coast and Nate’s rumble of laughter drew his attention to a set of houses. “The beginning and the end, side by side.”

Cairo’s eyes lifted to the set of mansions. “That nigga still there?”

“Nah, but it does have a state-of-the-art security now. Right after you went up the coast and Tiny went to the mountains, LeFleur switched him out quick,” Nate shared.

“I knew that shit was going to cause problems,” Cairo grumbled. He watched as Nate bypassed the ramp to take them into the hood. “Nigga, take me home.”

“I am,” Nate stated. “Could you sit your ass back and be a little princess for once in your life?”

“Ain’t never been a princess, nigga. Stop playing with me,” Cairo muttered, sitting up. Now vigilant of where Nate was taking him. Another forty-five minutes and he pulled into a neighborhood where people were off in the middle of the day, walking dogs, and drinking matcha.