Prologue
Fifteen years ago…
“Nowremember,youseeanythingyou know you shouldn’t be seeing, you call me and I’ll come get you no matter what, Smoochie.”
“Daddy, Bishop wouldn’t do anything to harm his son.”
“That nigga fucked a child, he will do anything.”
“I wassixteen–”
“When you got pregnant. You was twelve when he started sniffing around yo fast ass.”
Rahshad yawned and fiddled with his backpack straps. His grandfather and mother had been arguing like this for months now. He’d sit at his door late at night when they thought he wasasleep and listen to them argue all night about Rahshad’s father, and if he should be allowed to see him.
Rahshad didn’t even know he had a father. His grandfather was the only man in his life, and he and his grandmother were his best friends. He loved watching crazy daytime shows with them when he stayed home from school. He loved going fishing with his grandfather, and helping his grandmother around the house and sitting with her in church almost every Wednesday and Sunday night.
And they spoiled him rotten. As soon as he was old enough, they started putting him in all sorts of STEM summer camps. Even after his grandfather got hurt on the job and their income decreased dramatically, he still was able to buy Rahshad a used laptop and a couple programs so he could keep learning to code.
They didn’t have a lot, but they had each other, and that was enough for Rahshad.
Until he learned he did have a father. A father that wanted to see him.
His mother was all for it. His grandparents were vehemently against it. So every night for months they argued, until last week, when his mother came into his room and told him he’d be spending weekends with his father.
Last night, he packed his backpack with some clothes, his laptop and charger, his grandfather’s old cell phone, and his glasses case. His mother retwisted his locs and put them in a braided style for the first time, since they were finally long enough for that. They still didn’t touch his shoulders, but he was excited. His dadwantedhim. Maybe his parents can get back together, and his mother could be happy again. Maybe she was sad because he’d been away, from what he gathered in the arguments he heard.
The trip was mercifully quick, and soon his grandfather was pulling up to a tall brown building. There were others in thebackground, but when he made eye contact with the tall man a few feet away from the car, that’s all he could look at.
Rahshad looked just like him.His father.
The man walked up to the car and went to open Rahshad’s door, but his grandfather locked it at the last minute.
“Smoochie, you call me and I’ll come get you, okay? You don’t have to be here.”
Rahshad looked back at his grandfather. He and his grandmother were the only ones who called him Smoochie. He acted like he didn't like it in public, but in private, it always warmed his heart.
He nodded and smiled. “I know, Granddad.”
His grandfather grunted and unlocked the doors, letting Rahshad open the door and get out.
“Waddup?” his father said. He took Rahshad’s backpack and swung it over his shoulder before closing the car door behind him.
“Take care of our baby,” his mother said through the cracked window.
“I got him.”
Rahshad couldn’t stop staring at his father. He was big like the guy fromFriday After Next, and tall, and looked just like Method Man, with dark caramel skin, and thick dark hair that he wore in braids.
“You don’t gotta call me Dad or Pops. Bishop is cool while we get to know each other.”
Rahshad tried to play it cool, even though on the inside, he was close to panicking. “I-I can call you Pops,” he said lowly. He knew his father heard him though, because he smirked at him and gestured for him to follow into the building.
“Now, I know your granddad don’t fuck with me, but when you’re here I’m in charge, aight? And what goes on over hereyou can’t be going back telling him or even ya moms. Not if you wanna keep coming over here.”
The smell of bleach assaulted Rahshad’s nose as they stepped onto the elevator. He swallowed and nodded, watching the numbers climb as they ascended. “Aight.”
He didn’t like lying to his grandparents, but it wasn’t like he’d never done it. His grandfather didn’t know he’d been getting bullied badly at the start of the school year until he finally beat Charles Watson’s ass, who broke his third pair of glasses. His grandmother didn’t know that he did in fact smoke weed with the other church kids that time he came in smelling like it, instead of just being around them.
