Page 60 of Don Caselli

Holding onto him tighter, he increased speed and took us through traffic with ease. A little girl was in the back of a car waving, and he waved at her, and she got so giddy in the backseat as we flew past her mother’s car. When I opened my eyes again, we were heading toward the Verrazano Bridge into Staten Island.

We pulled into a neighborhood with single-family homes. He pulled into a driveway and turned the bike off. He held my hand and helped me off the bike before he got off. I took the helmet off and listened to the crickets in the distance.

“Where are we?”

“My home.”

I was on a high from being on the back of the bike, and also reminiscing about the old Brooklyn, but I knew damn wellwe didn’t go into Manhattan, and this wasn’t that big ass fancy building that he lived in.

“You got me confused, Landon.”

He took my hand and dug into his pocket and let us into the house. It was weird because the house smelled like home. You know that smell that only you smelled when you entered your home? The smell that you had survived another day and now your home was welcoming you back into your safe space with your own personalized home smell.

The inside of the home was pretty basic when it came to the furniture. Nothing that a billionaire would ever use or live in. I was trying to put the pieces together on how this was home and why we were here. I was quiet because he stood there, and it was like he was trying to remember or feel something that he couldn’t feel.

“You know why I brought you here, Pooh?”

I was assuming my nickname had gone from Bleu to Pooh, because this was the second time he called me it, and I wasn’t mad about it. Hearing this hardened man call mePoohdid something for me.

“I would like to know.”

He went to flip the lights all the way on. “This is the house I grew up in. The house we had to move into after my parents died.”

“Oh.”

He looked at the pictures that sat on the mantel and smiled. “Back before all the money, penthouses, mansions and all that other shit, it was just the six of us under this one roof.”

“Six?”

“Yeah. We had a live-in nanny situation and her daughter. Menace’s assistant, Jeffie.”

I nodded. “Oh, so she’s like family.”

“Jeffieisfamily,” he corrected me.

I’ve met Jeffie a few times when she had driven Greene home before she got her new car. She was super sweet.

“Okay,” I whispered.

Landon turned around and stood in front of me. He held my chin up and kissed my lips before pulling away and looking into my eyes. “Opening up to people is hard for me. I don’t do that shit and avoid anything real because that means I have to be real. Transparent and true with the person I’m letting in. With you, I want to be all of that because your presence makes me want to. Navy, you introduced me to your family, so I felt it was only right to show you a piece of mine.”

“Landon, what if I can’t give you what you require?”

He looked away. “Shit, that’s the same question I’m asking myself.”

I hugged him and then pulled away. “Did you keep this house?”

He pulled my hand and pulled me up the steps. With each step we took, the wooden steps creaked. The air on the second level was warmer, and beads of sweat gathered on my brow. Walking down the slender hall, he continued to pull my hand until we made it to a small bedroom tucked away. If you walked fast, you probably would have missed it.

Landon opened the door and there was a full-size bed, a nightstand, and a dresser. There was a TV mounted on the wall, and a big ass air conditioner hanging out the window. He grabbed a remote and turned the air on, closing the room door behind us.

“My brow is about to sweat off,” I joked.

Landon pulled his shirt off and looked at me. “Wanna take yours off?”

“Bet you would want to see that, huh?”

He paused. “Pooh, I’m seeing that body tonight… and you know that shit, too.”

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