Page 55 of Another Constant

“Aight, man. I’ll talk to her.”

I laughed at the stress he displayed. This was good for him.

My brother and I talked for a while longer, him talking shit and being funny as always before he had to leave to take care of something. I had a few more hours at the shop, then I headed home. I didn’t know if Kinga and Aja would be over but I knew what I had planned. I was going home, devouring that last piece of cake in my fridge, and dealing with the pups. Sis was exhausted…sis was me.

After making it home, I settled into my living room, deciding to lounge for the rest of the evening. I wasn’t surprised when about an hour in I received a call from none other than Kinga. I half expected that much.

“Yo, you ain’t sleep, is you?” he asked.

“No, I’m relaxing. Pups are fed and the dogs are asleep. Peaceful bliss. Why, where are you?”

“Leaving Sora’s spot. Aja stayed, as expected. I’m tryna come and be a part of that peace you talking about.”

I smiled. “You’re welcome. As long as you’re coming through to spread peace and not be on that brute shit.”

He chuckled. “I’m going to spread a lot more than peace but we can align that shit when I walk in the door. Until then just talk to me on this drive though.”

I smiled at the request. “I can do that. How was your day?”

“Long but short at the same time. I’m working on a seventy-one Chevy convertible. Shit was smooth but ol’ boy went the cheap way rather than coming to me when he first needed the work done.”

While he talked about the car, I googled it so I’d at least have some sort of idea. “What do you mean?”

“He needed his steering column replaced. I gave him a price and I guess that price was too high for him, so he went elsewhere. Now that has him back in my shop with more problems than he started with.”

“Dang. You sound like you enjoyed it though.”

“I did, sit that’s my dream car lowkey. Hell yeah I’m up for working on it.”

“Then why not buy yourself one?”

“Because I wanna build it from scratch. That way I’ll know what’s under my hood rather than assuming and being clueless about what I have like some of these other fools.”

I nodded. I actually enjoyed hearing him go on and on about his cars and working on them because they were what made him happy.

Chapter13

Kinga

Days later…

My eyes devoured the lilac, two-door, nineteen seventy Chevelle sitting in the middle of my garage. The owner was an older man who came to me every spring to get his check and make sure it was ready for the summertime cruises. He was like clockwork, getting his fabrication done during the winter and having the vehicle ready to speed through the streets before Easter. It wasn’t a Chicago summer if the old schools didn’t bring folks together with loud ass music and random meetups. When I was out in these streets crazy, I lived for a good meetup, but then motherfuckers brought the guns and it wasn’t the same. The last thing I needed was to catch a bullet in my oldie. Then I’d have to get it cleaned, fix the hole, and get my damn self-stitched up. It wasn’t worth it, not in my eyes. That was why I never kept the same car and made sure to keep what I was gonna drive on the low. I didn’t trust niggas, that crab in the barrel mentality was real in the streets. Nobody ever wanted the next to do better than them.

“What are you gonna do with it, boss?” Ayden asked from the side of me.

“Tune it up, make sure everything is working. Also make sure the air system I installed last summer is still working.”

“You think it ain’t.”

“Nah, not that all. You know how these old motherfuckers are though. They ain’t made for the AC anyway. We forced it in there. I make it a habit of keeping that up to date.”

Ayden nodded. “You’re a genius with this shit.”

I was about to respond to him but a knock at the door made me turn around. Upon doing so I saw a ghost, or maybe my brain was thinking too far in advance. He’d be a ghost at some point because in my life I was giving him an out.

“The fuck you doing here?” Deadly eyes sat on the aged fifty-year old. If I didn’t think this was a way to bait me, he’d be in the trunk of something. I threw my head to the side, telling Ayden to give me a minute.

He walked past my father, leaving the garage space and closing the door behind him.

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