Page 29 of The Love Audit
“For now,” Roger murmured under his breath, and it made my stomach flip and my neck grow hot.
“No.” Eric banged his fist on the table. “It will always be ours, and I don’t give a damn what I have to do to keep it ours.”
“Eric, sit your drunken ass down, so I can take more of your money,” a man named Geoffrey called from across the table.
“I’m serious; we need to fight for what’s ours.” He poked his finger on the table’s surface, almost spilling his drink.
“What do you plan to fight with? A well-designed spreadsheet, Malcolm Excel?” Roger quipped, and the table erupted with laughter.
“Have you ever been in a fight, Psych Tyson?” David said to more laughter.
“Man, forget y’all,” Eric scoffed, but his mouth curled into a smile. “Deal the cards.”
David shuffled the deck and dealt the next hand. We tossed in our opening bids.
“So, which founder are you related to, Eric?”
“The man himself, John William Pike.”
“But your last name is Everett?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’re cousins,” David chimed in, before trading two of his cards and reorganizing his hand. “My grandmother is his great-aunt.”
“Is everybody here descended from the three founders?” I asked. “How does that work?”
“Everybody at this table is either a Pike or a Hodge. Most of everyone who lives here is a descendant but not everybody. Most of us met our wives in college.”
“Except for Roger,” Geoffrey interjected.
“Freaknik 1988,” Roger answered with a nostalgic grin.
“So no one here is descended from a Walker?” I asked before sliding a card to David to swap. The table got quiet. “What? What did I say?”
“The Walkers are a complicated subject,” David said in a low voice. “And Wednesdays are supposed to be simple.” He slid me a new card before taking a puff on his cigar.
“So can I ask a simple question?” I placed the new card into a hand that I already knew was garbage but began to rearrange in the hopes of bluffing my way into another win.
“Shoot.” David didn’t look up from his hand.
“What would make three of the richest Black men in the country move to the middle of nowhere and start a town?”
“That your idea of a simple question?” David chuckled, and I nodded. “Well, here’s my simple answer: if you can’t find it—”
“—make it!” The rest of the table joined in, voices overlapping as they raised their glasses and cigars in a celebratory toast. I took a moment to look around, wondering how many times these men had shared this same story—a blend of pride, humor, and solemnity stitched into the fabric of their community.
David leaned back in his chair, his face illuminated by the warm glow of the overhead light. “The short version? Racism, plain and simple. But these weren’t the type of men to just sit around and take it. No, sir. They’d been run out of one town too many, told they weren’t welcome, no matter how much money they had or how much they contributed.”
Roger tapped ash off his cigar. “And it wasn’t just them. It was their families, their friends. It’s one thing to be a target yourself, but to see the people you love treated like dirt?” He shook his head, his jaw tightening. “That’ll light a fire under you real quick.”
Eric picked up where Roger left off. “So, they started looking for land. Cheap land. Somewhere nobody else wanted. Found this swamp and said, ‘We’ll take it.’ Turned it into Miller’s Cove. Built homes, schools, businesses. They didn’t just make a town. They made a legacy.”
“That’s incredible.” I was genuinely impressed. I’d heard of Black Wall Street in Tulsa and other Black-founded towns, butthis was the first time I’d had the chance to sit in one. “And it’s still all Black-owned?”
David’s expression darkened slightly. “For now. But it’s a constant fight. Developers are always sniffing around, making offers, but some things simply aren’t for sale. It’s not just land. It’s history.” He shot me a glance, making my stomach feel like it was filled with lead. “You know what I’m saying?”
Before I could answer, Roger nodded. “People see the beach, the charm, and they want to turn it into a resort town. But they don’t see the blood, sweat, and tears that went into this place.” I felt my face swarm with heat, and my heart began to race.
“They don’t care,” Eric added bitterly. “To them, it’s just a good investment.”
