Page 1 of Make Me Forget

PROLOGUE

KENDRALL

PART ONE…

Ihated when I had to go inside the store to get a receipt at the gas station. It had already been a long day. I’d just gotten back to Beaumont from a competition and still had to drive home to Nome. I kept all my receipts for tax purposes. Being that I was self-employed, every little bit helped. Whatever I even thought I could file as a deduction, the receipt got saved. I was pretty sure this machine didn’t just run out of paper though. It had probably been out all day.

The line was long inside, and that shit only caused me to huff loudly. It was five o’clock in the evening, and there was only one cashier at the three-person register station. I slowly shook my head as I got in line. The man in front of me turned to look to see who had gotten in line behind him then nodded. I nodded back, and I supposed that gave him the gumption to think I wanted conversation.

“How you doing?”

“I’m good. Ready to get home.”

“Right. This shit is ridiculous.”

He said something else, but I’d tuned him out that quickly. My phone had chimed, alerting me of a text. I pulled it out of my pocket to see it was from my dad. How did everything go? I hate I had to miss today.

I smiled slightly. Kenny Henderson wasn’t just my father. That was my nigga. We were best friends, and it had been that way since I was a teenager. Despite his life’s challenges when I was young, he was always the person I looked up to. I didn’t have to find a celebrity to idolize when I had a father like Kendrall Henderson, Senior in my life. He took the time to impart his wisdom in my siblings and me every chance he got. Regardless of the fuck shit he endured and engaged in, he was the fucking standard for me.

It's okay. Your life don’t revolve around me. I know you support me 100%. I won first place. You know I don’t fuck around.

I chuckled after I sent it because he always called me cocky when it came to competing. The event I participated in, cutting, wasn’t an event at the regular rodeos and surely not the black ones. What I competed in was called the National Cutting Horse Association, NCHA. It was our own separate competition that operated like a rodeo of sorts, except that was the only event. I’d made a good living out of it, but truth be told, I was getting tired of it.

I was on the road a lot, and I felt like that had been the reason why I hadn’t been able to settle down. I didn’t want to have a woman that I couldn’t spend time with. The pickings weren’t slim by any means. I got my fair share of pussy, maybe more than my fair share, but lately, I wasn’t really feeling that shit. My cousin Christian and I were both interested in settling down, especially after his younger brother, Rylan, got married.

My phone chimed, alerting me of Dad’s response. Congratulations! Cocky ass nigga.

I chuckled, but that shit was cut short when I heard, “Kendrall?”

I frowned slightly as I turned around to see who was speaking to me. The family mostly called me KJ. I didn’t have a problem with the nickname, but I preferred Kendrall. One thing I surely didn’t want to be called was Lil Kenny. Even as a kid, my mama had called me that once, and I had a whole temper tantrum about that shit. She had to get my dad to calm me down and talk to me about it.

I saw a beautiful woman standing there with a huge smile on her face. She was thick as all outdoors, and my dick literally stood at attention at the sight of her, like he knew her. I quickly scanned her from head to toe and back up, and said, “What’s up?”

Her eyebrows lifted, and she shifted the weight of her thick ass hips to one side. “What’s up? After all these years, that’s all you gon’ say to me? KJ, you don’t remember me?”

I frowned slightly while my head fell slightly to the side as I stared at her, trying to catch a clue. I examined everything about her beautiful face, from her perfectly arched eyebrows to her rounded chin. When she frowned, that shit fell on me like a ton of bricks. “Cassie?”

“Well, damn. I don’t know if I should be happy you figured it out or offended that it took you so long.”

“Shit! Get yo’ ass over here.”

I hugged her tightly, and I swore I felt a slight tremble go through her. She backed away slightly, but I didn’t let her go. “Damn, baby girl. You look good as fuck.”

She cleared her throat as her face reddened. “Thank you. So do you, Kendrall.”

I smiled slightly as I just stared at her. Fuck that receipt. I stepped out of line and grabbed her hand. Cassie was far from being the tomboy she was when we were kids. She always wore baggy pants and T-shirts, kept her hair in braids or a ponytail, and never even considered wearing makeup. She kept a pair of fresh Js on her feet, wore glasses, and had braces.

“My bad, Cassie. I didn’t recognize you. It’s been almost twenty years, girl. I could never forget you though. We were close as hell back in the day.”

She slid her hand from mine as she slightly looked away. I swore she was still feeling me by the way she kept blushing. “Yeah, I’m far from the ‘homeboy that was a girl’ that I was back then too.”

She giggled as I scanned her body again. “Shol in the hell is.”

As my eyes traveled over her body, I couldn’t help but see the ring on her finger. She was married. Fuck. When my eyes reached hers again, I asked, “So how’s life treating you? Where you been?”

“Well, after I graduated from high school, I left for college. I went to Syracuse.”

“Damn! You went all the way to New York?”

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