Page 18 of Rebooked For Us
“It’s your turn, Cane.” He put his hand out, and I shook it. “I hope this trip is what you need. Because it’s time. Ya hear me?”
The way he said it gave me chills.
I’d thought about Skye more than I’d ever admit out loud. I just got good at leaving her where she was. I went to work. Won cases. Took calls. Showed up for dinners I didn’t want to be at. Smiled when people expected me to. Then every now and then she’d slip back into my head, and I’d spend the rest of the day pretending she hadn’t.
“Yeah,” I said. “I hear you. Stay out of shit until I get back.”
He sat up and poured two fingers of Gentleman’s Jack into a glass and slid it toward me.
“To not giving up,” he said.
I picked it up.
“To not giving up.”
I tossed it back.
Mudd sat back down. “I need to holla at you about something else I’ve been sitting on.”
“Talk.”
“I’m opening a label. Independent. No majors, no co-signs, just mine. I need somebody I trust on the legal side. Not just for the label. For everything. Artist contracts, distribution deals, publishing, all of it.” He looked at me straight. “I want you as my lawyer. Not the Shane & Simmons bullshit. You.”
“Send me the paperwork,” I said. “I’ll have my team look at the structure. We’ll talk terms when I get back.”
“My nigga,” he sang. “I’ll get the details to you. The quicker the better. We about to take over the world.”
“You know I’m with that. I’ll be on the lookout. But look, I’m about to head out. Stay up nigga. Yo ass bet not be a ward of the state when I get back.”
We dapped up again, and I headed out.
The El Camino was waiting exactly where I left it. I tipped the valet, got in, and pulled back onto the quiet street with Po’d Up Shawty still spilling from the speakers.
I stopped at Whataburger on Merritt and ordered my usual. Within a few minutes I was back on the road, headed home.
It’s your turn, Cane.
Mudd’s words bounced around in my head the whole drive. It being my turn could mean so many damn things. A slight anxiety was setting in around the edges of the excitement. The future had been mapped out for me from birth. What I’d do. Who I’d become. Who I’d become something with. It was always supposed to be black and white. Lock step. No deviation.
My whole life had been spent staying inside those lines and losing anyway. Maybe it was time to step outside them on my own terms.
I pulled into my driveway and cut the engine, sitting there for a minute with the bag of food going cold in my lap, thinking about everything owed to me and then some.
I was ready to go collect.
“You know, studies show that monogamy is actually a social construct. Statistically, humans aren’t designed for it.” JD leaned against the galley wall, presenting his closing arguments that literally no one cared about. “I’m just living in alignment with my biology, Skye. You should try it.” He winked.
I was going to lose my religion and my job in the same breath if he kept it up.
“It’s too early for this, JD.”
The sun was barely up, I had a full flight ahead of me, and this man was standing in my face with his wife’s lipstick on his collar trying to invite me to a freak-off on the clock. He was the exact reason I refused to entertain anything with two legs, two eyes, and two balls.
“Look, I’ve converted three flight attendants on this route alone. Just saying.”
“JD,” I said, as calmly as I could muster up. “I’ve said it nicely. I’ve said it firmly. Please let this time be the last time I say I’m not interested. Single, married, open or closed, you and I will never happen. You got a whole ass wife.”
“Come on now.” He leaned into my space, irritating me further. “Me and my wife got an understanding. She don’t care about none of that. Thirty and single, options getting slim, Skye.”
