Page 108 of Lau Ahi
“Zhere’s a few where he’s doing what I can only assume is meant to be a smile. And guess who you’re looking at in everyone?” He was grinning like a cat and I wasn’t going to leave this room without having to hear everybody’s shit.
“Again, carrying tales.”
“I figured you would say zhat. I have access to zee proof right here.” I wanted to toss Xerx out his cousin’s window and into the Charlotte traffic below when he whipped out his phone. When he started scrolling through pictures I wondered if this muthafucka had a folder just filled with pictures of my ass looking at Asha.
And why did I suddenly want to see and possess them?
“Damn, that is a smile, O.” Yacouba was grinning as he looked at the pictures as my brothers crowded around Xerxes like some tweens reading a damnBOPmagazine.
“What the fuck are we doing? I thought we were here to talk about family business. Not sit and look at Xerxes’ wedding photos and shit.”
“This is family business. We’re discussing your happiness. Your future. All of which is going to affect us.”
“You’re talking about the woman I’m going to marry.”
“Did I stutter? That’s exactly what I just said.” Jahmir was looking at me like he wanted to craft a new weapon to torture me with. I understood his desire because if no one else believed in love this man did. And he came from a childhood that was even more fucked up than mine. His parents had used him as a pawn but whereas I was spared the constant feuding eventually since my father died and Faith left, his kept him in the middle of their toxicity, using him as their weapon of choice. His father tried to turn him into a monster and his mother wanted him as her yes man. And despite how badly they’d fucked him up, he still recognized love the second it walked into his life and did everything he could to honor it. Jahmir was probably the bravest person I knew and even if I never said those words to him, I understood how much courage it took for him to let his wife in.
And look how happy he is now.
I was thankfully spared from having to focus too much on my thoughts since Couba jumped back into the fray.
“This is family business. The business of our family remaining tight. Of our generation remaining tight so that we don’t have the same fractures that the generation before ours did. As much as I hate to say it your parents messed up. More your dad than your mom but still. Between you, Mir and Jem losing her folks, we’ve had a lot of shit that could’ve changed howthis organization moved. We don’t want that. We want to keep cementing the bond that we’ve forged and that includes the one we have to build with your wife. Each of us has had blips along the way. Problems we’ve encountered that we came together to conquer the way we were supposed to. We're trying to ensure that this shit stays solid.”
“Of course God would leave the two hardest tasks for the end.”
I turned and looked at Jahmir almost insulted at his words. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“You and Jemma Marie, nigga. She gotta be re-acclimated into society before we can even start to move power back into her hands.”
“She was there against her will, Yacouba!” I was trying not to laugh but he really seemed to think that Jemma-Marie had been in a padded room for the last decade. We’d all talked to her since she’d been released but we were trying to give her time before we put too much on her plate. She seemed fine at the wedding and I knew she and Asha had been conversing since. I was happy neither of them would feel alone coming into this the way they were. I felt out of the loop at times but I knew it would be harder for the two of them. And now they had each other.
“Why are we not inviting her to these?” They knew I had other obligations previously that would limit my ability to get away. But Jem didn’t.
“What do yoo mean?” Liam looked annoyed at my question but I wasn’t tossing it out there just to take the heat off myself. At least not entirely.
“We keep saying we've gotta get her back but she ain’t never here. We’re so used to it just being us and doing dirt with Smoke, Bhal and even Angel’s ass but it’s never her and that ain’t fair. We link and she’s never involved. How is that going to fix anything?”
“We thought she might need more time.” Yacouba was rubbing the back of his head as he realized that we’d messed up. I wasn’t letting any of us off the hook that easily.
“Without asking her?”
They all looked thoughtful and even slightly guilty, since none of us had done the right thing. Having Asha in my life made me see that despite how much I thought I treated women fairly, I was infantilizing one of the most capable women I knew. And that shit wasn’t okay.
“We’ll do better but it’s natural for us to look out. I thought y’all would’ve eventually merged families and shit.” Couba said what had been on people’s minds for years about me and Jemma since we hung out often.
“It was never that type of time with us. We understood one another on a level that y’all couldn’t. Parental loss. Feeling abandoned. The only other person who could touch that was ‘Mir but he was hoping them muthafuckas that birthed him would disappear.”
“He made sure zhey did, eventually.” Xerx’s comment had us all cracking up remembering how Priest handled his enemies with precision.
“And they earned it. Cardinal’s ass was so busy trying to turn him into a weapon he flung his ass around to random corners of the earth trying to fuck up his mental so we never got to talk that often about how he was feeling.”
Priest glared at Yacouba so calmly I knew he was about to flip. He was leaning forward, perched on the edge of his seat. “You talking cash shit like I’m not sitting right here.”
“Priest, I got two eyes and perfect vision. I see you, nigga. But the fact remains that your stepdaddy/uncle was trying to have you out here on someWinter Soldiersecret password shit. Besides you see I’m happy to say it to your face so I wouldn’t bother saying it behind your back.” Yacouba kept his posturerelaxed not because he didn’t think Priest could hurt him but more he didn’t want to set him off.
“So what’s good with y’all?” Midas was staring at me with the weight of his wife’s expectations and his own that I not do Asha wrong.
“She’s good. What more needs to be said?” I was looking between them not understanding the question.
