Page 7 of Make Me Forget

I slid my phone back in my pocket as Christian and Mya approached me with their baby girl. Cadence was so damn cute. All these babies around here were fucking with my ego. I should have had a couple by now. I was almost thirty-five, and my only prospect was giving me the runaround. Uncle Marcus and Aunt Syn’s son, Hendrix, was cute as hell too. I went to their house to see him yesterday. Aunt Syn hadn’t been feeling that well, so I knew they wouldn’t be out and about today.

“Hey, KJ!” Mya said.

“What’s up? Congratulations, y’all.”

I slapped Christian’s hand as he stared at me for a second. Karima was right. I wasn’t hiding shit from nobody. “We wanted to ask you about being Cadence’s godfather,” Mya said, breaking me from my thoughts.

“Really? I fully expected you to ask one of your brothers,” I said as I looked over at Christian.

“They got their hands full right now. Yendi and Jakari are trying to get pregnant again and bring another terror into the world.”

I slowly shook my head. “I’d be honored, y’all.”

Mya smiled big and hugged me. When she walked off, Christian shook my hand and asked, “What’s wit’chu?”

“Naw, nothing. It’s your day. We’ll talk another time. I’m really happy for you, man.”

“Mm hmm. I know you are. Cassie belongs to somebody else. You have to accept that and let go.”

I slowly shook my head. “She gon’ come to Nome tomorrow so we can talk.”

“You should have never slept with her. She was drunk and heartbroken. That emotional shit grabbed ahold of you, and now look at’chu.”

I nodded then just walked off. I really didn’t want to talk about that shit. Before I could get to the door, my dad was right behind me. I hadn’t told him about Cassie because I didn’t want him trying to talk me out of it. I could tune Christian out but not him. Plus, he knew Cassie, along with her parents and her twin siblings. He would eventually tell Mr. Price what was going on. I didn’t want that kind of attention.

Once we walked out the door, he asked, “You okay?”

“Naw, but I will be.”

“If you feel like she’s the one, don’t give up. Only a woman can have you like this. I know the look all too well. Loving a woman will have you stepping out of character. I can’t believe half the shit I did when your mom and I were working through our issues. Not to mention years later.”

I knew he was talking about killing that cop. I remember him giving the family a hard time. Plus, Reggie’s name had resurfaced when his cousin or uncle, or whoever that nigga was, was trying to go after Decaurey and Tyeis. Dad had fed that nigga’s remains to the wild hogs then buried his teeth. The only thing hogs didn’t eat was hair and teeth.

I glanced at him, knowing I needed to tell him what had been going on for almost the past year. If anyone could give me good advice, it was him. I knew Karima would give good advice as well but having it from the male perspective was essential for me. I knew he could drive his point home a little better than Rima.

I stopped walking and turned to him. His hair was flying in the breeze, and it caused me to smile. My brother that got killed loved when he let his hair loose. Whenever I saw it flying that way, I thought about Kendrick. He would have been around twenty-two or twenty-three years old by now. My dad smiled, too, and I believed he knew why I was smiling.

“I miss that lil boy something serious,” he said.

I nodded. Kendrick was his angel… the baby that kept him sane until he could get us back to Nome. It was like that was Kendrick’s entire purpose. His mama killed him not long after we got back to Nome. She suffered the same fate through lethal injection. There weren’t but a couple of people I’d wished death on, and she was one of them.

“You remember Cassie?”

“Of course. Price and I talk at least twice a week, especially since he’s been working for the family. Why? You and her link back up?”

I lowered my head for a moment. “About ten months ago, I saw her up close and personal for the first time in like eighteen years. We traded numbers and were keeping up with each other.”

“You fell for her.”

“She fell for me first… when we were teenagers, and I friend zoned her. That was why she stopped coming around. When I saw her, those old feelings surfaced… mine and hers. Well… ummm, Mister Daniels doesn’t know this.”

“I’ll keep it to myself, son.”

I sat on the bed of Jakari’s truck, since he had the gate down, and Dad did the same. He was watching me closely, and I knew he probably already knew what I was about to say, but he remained quiet and patiently waited for me to get it out. Patience was definitely a virtue he possessed. I inherited that from him, but mine was running on fumes right now.

“One day, she got off early, and we met up and went shopping for your birthday gift. We enjoyed each other, but there was a moment where we somewhat got caught up. I stared into her eyes for what had to be an entire two minutes. Had she not snapped out of it and looked away, the people in that store would have gotten an eyeful. Later that night, she called me. I could tell she was drunk. She sounded way more relaxed than normal, and she called me baby. She was way too flirty.”

He nodded. He knew where this was headed, but still, he remained quiet as I continued. “When I got to her, sure enough, she could barely walk straight. When we got in my truck, she told me she walked in on her fiancé fucking another woman. She almost cracked that nigga skull with a vase. We ended up back at my place, and I took advantage of her drunken state.”

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