Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
But if Journey wanted to introduce herself by running, who was I to complain? Would I let her disappear?
Nah. Not Big Country.
She was hotter than fried chicken and Auntie Peaches’ Sweet-Thang Yams. Gorgeous. Curves that apron couldn’t hide. Plush, smirking lips, sharp and no-nonsense, like she wanted to cut and kiss me with them.
When I laid eyes on her, I swear I hadn’t seen past brown skin—warm as sunbaked pecans—and her complexion caught the light before the door closed. She had these watchful eyes, like she expected the world to steal from her if she blinked too long.
When her eyes met mine, though?
That hardness melted, and she glowed—caramel warming in the pan. Soft. Rich. Pulling me in.
But her beauty came with scars, forged in fire. The kind that made a dude want to learn every shade of her.
Was Big Country the staying type, though? Nah.
Shaking my head, I headed to the back. Since Momma and Peaches ran the place, it didn’t seem right for me to claim the leather chair opposite the black obsidian table. I sat in a fluffy chair. “Ridiculous.” Pink fur itched my forearms.
I pulled out my phone, torturing myself, and added to the view count of an LA-based online gossip site. I’d watched this video countless times. And every single time? They dragged me.
Yeah, they dragged all two hundred and thirty-nine pounds, six foot four of my Black ass. Spike Lee would give them props. The team incorporated a catchy sequence of footage: my rise, fall, and their disses.
“Big Country … Big Country …” That name—the nickname hollered at me since I got stuffed after eating half a roast beef po’boy and still thought I was grown—blared from my iPhone screen. The clip segued from a crowd, almost seventy thousand deep at the Los Angeles Dodgers stadium on the night me and my boys won the World Series, to an after-party video. I’d shoved a man. A little shove.
Dude flew across the table as I shouted, “Get the hell outta my face before I kill you, bruh.”
I cut off the news segment where the gossip commentator chewed me out for forgetting to be a role model. Over ten years in MLB, and I’d financed community centers from here to the streets of LA. Visited kids with cancer. Not for face time, though. I still kept up with those struggling or learning to survive. Now this?
Should I have pushed the dude?
Damn straight.
Should I have threatened his life?
Hell, yeah.
Just not with opportunistics around. The video paused. A FaceTime flashed.
With the press of a button, my brothers’ faces popped up. Washington, the eldest, strolled down the steps of the Juvenile Court Building in New Orleans. The judge’s bald head reflected the sun. Based on the mirror's reflection, Texas and Tennessee worked out in Ten’s apartment’s gym. The twins were identical, except the oldest had dreads, and Ten wore cornrows.
“Momma said you showed up. What’s going on?” Washington asked, and he stopped walking. A button chirped, probably to that Bentley he bought after his divorce.
“What’s up with y’all not telling me about Sweet Cheeks?” I cut in.
Ten laughed. “You met Journey?”
“Calm down, young’un, I saw her first.” Texas elbowed him.
“Don’t matter,” his twin snapped. “Your sketchy, unemployed ass would need to fight her little man for the remote.”
“Big Country, your ego might not survive if she don’t fall for you,” Washington said, sliding into the driver’s seat. “But hey … women make surprising choices every day.”
I lifted a brow. “You interested?”
“No.”
Forgive me for asking. “Drinks?”
“Your treat,” Texas said, not asking. “You didn’t come home for Thanksgiving. You’ve been hiding in that mansion, sulking since the Dodgers dropped you.”
“Funny. It’s a suspension.” For who knows how long. Guggenheim Management still hadn’t decided because of the holidays. “If my bank couldn’t eat you alive, I’d let you pay. T&T, scrub y’all asses. Can’t be caught on the media. Y’all look like you can’t spell soap.”
“Ha!” Tennessee shoulder-checked his mirror image. “That’s Tex. He can’t spell job either.”
“I got mon—”
I clicked the Off button, cutting into Texas’s retort. I bet Washington also hung up. As a judge, he recused himself from Texas’s foolishness by the time he ended up in juvey. I roughed a hand over my beard, wondering who helped my younger brother stay on track these days.
On the phone, the video remained paused.
Momma entered, closing the door behind her. “Boy, give that video no mind, you hear me?” Before I could speak, she transitioned to Kouri-Vini—literally repeating everything she just said in Louisiana Creole—cadence much deeper than the “proper talk” she reserved for the restaurant.
“Yes, ma’am, I hear you,” I mumbled, as she sat in the other pink fur chair beside me. “I came home to take my momma out to dinner.”
She waved a hand. “I eat here for free, cher.”
“Or we can go by private jet wherever you like.”