Page 26 of Certified Pressure 3
“I bet you do.”
She sipped her drink. “So if you move out, you tryna get a spot by yourself?”
I looked at her over the rim of my glass. “I’m tryna get a spot with you.”
She blinked. “With me?”
“Yeah… Eventually. I’m talkin’ about somethin’ nice that will be our space and peace.”
Her face broke into a slow grin. “You tryna make me blush in public.”
“I ain’t tryna. I’m doin’ it.”
She laughed, and leaned forward on her elbows. “Well, we might as well start lookin’ now, cause I’m with it.”
I smiled. “Say less.”
We sat at the table a while longer, talkin’ about what kind of house we wanted. She said she needed a big kitchen, and I said I needed a view. She wanted plants everywhere. I said she could fill it with all the flowers she wanted, long as she kept that smile around too.
When brunch wrapped up, I helped her up and walked her back to the car. I kissed her cheek before she could open the door, then smacked her ass again just ‘cause I liked the sound she made after.
“Kay’Lo,” she laughed, coverin’ her mouth.
“What?”
“You don’t act right in public.”
“I act how I feel.”
She was still laughin’ when I closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side. Once we pulled off, the music filled the silence, some slow Key Glock track that set the vibe. She sat angled toward me, her hand restin’ on my arm.
As we drove, I thought about my parents. My pop, Kwame Mensah, was the middle child in the Mensah line, right between my uncle Kojo and Uncle Asa. He was the one who built TrillNet. It was the crypto backbone that powered the country’s entire digital system. The man was a genius, a quiet one too. He handled the kind of data most nations couldn’t even access, and he had his own deals runnin’ under the surface, selling limited access to global surveillance streams. It made him rich beyond measure, but he never moved loud. He carried his power with a calmness, and that’s where I got that same vibe from.
My mother, Treasure Mensah, was the opposite kind of powerful. She was soft-spoken, spiritual, one of the most sought-after doulas in Trill-Land. She helped deliver celebrity babies, guided women through motherhood, and still managed to make a home for all of us. Pops and Ma was bougie, yeah, but they was real. They loved me hard and proud, and I knew they would love Toni too.
I glanced at her while she looked out the window, the wind catchin’ her hair.
“You good?” I asked.
She looked over and smiled. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Good, ‘cause you don’t got nothin’ to worry about. My folks gon’ love you just like I do.”
She reached for my hand and held it in her lap. I brought it to my lips, kissed it, and kept drivin’.
The closer we got to the estate, the calmer she got. Her smile stayed steady, and I felt it in my heart that this was right.
By the time we hit the long road toward my folks’ mansion, everything felt like it was fallin’ into place.
‘Cause far as I was concerned, Toni already belonged in my world.
Meridian Estates in Nzuri Hall
While Kay’Lo was drivin’ us to his people house, I stared out the window, thinkin’ about how wild life had been lately. Everything looked different out here. The streets was cleaner, the air was fresh and even the houses was sittin’ big as hell like they was watchin’ you ride past. My stomach was tight, but I wasn’t necessarily scared. I was just tryna wrap my head around the fact that this man I been layin’ next to for weeks really wanted me to meet his family. That shit wasn’t small to me.
I glanced over at him while he drove. He had one hand on the wheel, the other restin’ on my thigh, his thumb movin’ slowagainst my skin. He always did that when he wanted me calm, and it worked every time.
“Stop worryin’, baby,” he said, his eyes still on the road. “They gon’ love you like I do.”
