Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
“By the time you fully grasp the mistake you just made, Andy, it’ll be too late,” I say and I hang up the phone.
“We still gathering intel on CFE?” I ask Bolt, who sits on the couch in the front room, arms spread behind him.
“Of course. We don’t have much useful info yet,” he says. “But we’ll keep digging.”
I glance at my phone and note a missed call from Hendrix. “Get an update for me while I call my girl back?”
“You got it.” He stands, straightening his ever-present bow tie, black and yellow today. “I’m sure she has questions.”
Questions. Concerns. Second thoughts?
I go to the bedroom to listen to her voice mail. Frustration and doubt seem to thread between her words. It took long enough to get her to trust me, to choose me, and now this bullshit happens. I think through what I’ll say while I wait for her to pick up when I call.
“Mav, hey.” The wall isn’t completely back up, but the open honesty, the hard-earned intimacy has been replaced by wariness. I feel it right away.
“Do you trust me?” I ask instead of trying to convince her I didn’t know about this, but will do everything in my power to protect her.
Her pause, the hesitation before she answers, enrages me. Not anger at her, but at Andy Jr. and his bully buddies for putting me in such a position when things were just going right with Hendrix.
“I don’t know what to think, Mav,” she finally says. “Not that you have anything to do with it or that you were hiding it, but you’re in business with one of the men trying to destroy something I care so much about.”
“More than I care about you, is what you mean, right?”
“Well, we haven’t been together long and you’ve been pursuing this team literally for years. I’ve met your father. I know what he was denied his entire career. I know he’s still grieving your mom and the impact you’re hoping acquiring this team will have on him. I’m taking all of that into account.”
“And what I feel for you? Do you take that into account?”
“Look, I wouldn’t blame you for choosing the team. It wouldn’t surprise me. Hell, on some level maybe I’d even understand.”
“It wouldn’t surprise you?” I give my irritation free rein. “Setting aside the fact that you think I would choose a business venture over you—”
“A business venture,” she scoffs. “Don’t reduce it to that. We both know to you it’s more than that.”
“Setting that aside,” I persist. “I’m offended that you think I’d endorse or enable something that could have such egregious consequences for Black people, for equity.”
“Seriously?” She sucks her teeth. “Rich Black folks choose their own interests over the community’s all the time.”
“I’m just some rich dude to you?” I ask softly. “Just like every other man who has looked out for his needs and forgotten his girl’s?”
“You said it. I didn’t.”
“Hendrix, baby.”
She lets out a long frustrated breath. “Look, I know you’re in a difficult position.”
Is she really not going to ask me to choose her? My resolve strengthens, but all the words I had prepared to convince her recede.
“I’ll be in touch,” I tell her instead. “The next time we talk, this will be settled.”
“You’re not going to… well, tell me what you plan to do?” she asks, allowing a rare vulnerability in her voice.
“I’ll show you.”
“Goodbye, Mav.” The joy and eagerness usually in her voice when we speak is noticeably absent, flattened by worry and frustration.
“Goodbye, Gorgeous.”
I hang up, take a deep breath, and process what I’m about to do. It goes against every business instinct I have. The Vipers are an excellent investment. It’s an industry I know inside and out and what I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember. And I truly believe it would invigorate my father in his grief like nothing else could, but this conundrum is not really a conundrum at all because of what I know in my heart. Something I haven’t voiced to Hendrix yet, but will not miss the chance to show her.
“Let me guess,” Bolt says. “We’re heading home.”
“You know me well.” I sigh and scrub rough hands over my face. “But first I gotta make a call.”
CHAPTER 51
HENDRIX
So you’re dating Maverick Bell?” Chapel asks, confusion and some displeasure in her tone. “I saw the pics of you and him all hugged up outside the courthouse. And now you tell me you’re no longer producing my show. This sucks, Hen.”
Who you telling?
I want to say it so badly, but show restraint and comport myself like the good professional I am.
“My first concern is as your manager,” I reply, tilting Daddy’s rickety chair back and trying to maintain my Zen. “And ensuring that the best opportunities are available to you so we can grow your brand. That’s my priority and my commitment.”