Ma set her glass down and slid her gaze across my desk like she was layin’ cards. “Now, Ka’mari.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You can’t trust her,” Pops answered before Ma could. “She was just engaged to some other man, and the second it fell apart she popped back up over here like this is a lobby you check in and out of. That’s a liability.”
Ma didn’t soften it much either. “I don’t like the pattern, between you two” she said. “If she could leave you once, she can do it again. And if children become part of this… again… do you want to spend years fighting a woman who only knows how to run? She’ll take pieces of what you build, not because she’s evil,but because she’s not rooted. It’s clear that Ka’mari sways in any direction her emotions tell her to.”
Pops leaned forward, the way he do when he locking a point in. “Liabilities get men like you killed. Maybe not your body, but your name, your energy, your focus. You can’t afford that.”
I sat back, thinkin’ about all the times Ka’mari slid in and out my life like a door on a sensor.
“And Kashmere?” I asked, even though I already knew Ma was gon’ give me a layered answer.
She smiled a little, more with her eyes than her mouth. “She’s very beautiful. She carries a spark. And she has potential, real potential. But I know my child. I know how you are with women. I know how you get when desire sits in the front seat and love is still trying to find the map.” She tilted her head. “Tell me true, son—are you keeping her around for love… or is it lust?”
Pops didn’t wait. “Look like lust to me.”
I didn’t say nothin’ for a second ‘cause I wasn’t gon’ lie to my mama, and I didn’t wanna give my father some fake ass chest-out answer just to sound like somethin’. “It ain’t simple,” I said. “She do somethin’ to me. And it ain’t just the body, but I ain’t gon’ sit here and act like the body ain’t part of it.”
Ma nodded slow, like that’s exactly what she expected to hear. “Then you need to test what’s underneath all of that,” she said. “Passion is easy. Substance takes work.”
I tucked that away because I’d seen a shift on Kashmere when she came back to the table—shoulders easier and eyes softer, like she heard somethin’ she needed and I wanted to see if she could hold it when it wasn’t just her and my mama in a quiet room.
Pops tapped the arm of his chair twice, then hit me with, “Where the girl Pluto at?”
That name snuck up on me and sliced clean through my chest. I swallowed, sittin’ up. “Back home,” I said. “Her lil’ sister sick.”
Ma’s eyes pinned me. “Is that the only reason she left?”
“Yeah,” I said, because it was the only reason I would even admit this shit out loud, and even sayin’ that had my chest feelin’ heavy.
Ma took that in, the way she do when she stackin’ thoughts on top of each other and seein’ how the tower holds. Then she nodded like a verdict without the gavel. “Then you’ve got decisions to make.”
Pops stood first. “We said what needed saying,” he told me, and there wasn’t no meanness on it, just that clean Mensah finality. “I’m not here to choose for you, but I refuse to let you walk blind.”
We stood up together. Ma came around my desk, put both hands on my face, and I bent down so she could kiss my cheek like I been doin’ since I was a kid. “I love you,” she said soft, and that always hit like sunlight through blinds.
Pops stuck his hand out; I gripped it, and he yanked me in for that quick pull-in hug only he do. It was the hug that said I’m proud of you, but don’t get comfortable. We walked back toward the foyer and the women were posted up in light chatter with Blaqson and Renza now hangin’ close. Ma hugged each one polite, the same classy smile for everybody, but no extra sugar for nobody. Pops gave them that single nod. Then the door opened, the driver already waitin’ at the bottom of the steps, and my parents slid out like they came in—quiet, powerful, and unforgettable.
Toni dropped her shoulders like she’d been holdin’ her breath for hours. “Thank God,” she said, laughin’ with her whole throat. “I ain’t gotta be on my best behavior no more.” She reached up, popped that damn red wig off like she been waitin’to do it all day, tossed it onto the chair, and kicked her heels halfway across the floor.
I couldn’t stop the grin. “Man, y’all go get comfortable,” I told them, waving them off. “We coolin’ for the rest of the day.”
They scattered—Toni humming to herself, Kashmere sendin’ me a quick look that said she wanted to talk later, and Ka’mari driftin’ away quiet like she ain’t know which angle to play next. Renza slid me a smirk like,Boy, yo’ life a mess,then disappeared with Blaqson.
I took my time headin’ to my room, my mind replaying every word from that office. Pops sayin’ liability. Ma askin’ if I knew the difference between passion and love. And then that one question knockin’ around my skull like a loose bullet—Where’s Pluto?
He wasn’t supposed to remember her, but he did, and the fact he asked told me she had left her mark on more than just me
I put my head in my hands for a moment, breathin’ deep. I couldn’t take another day without seein’ her. Whatever this was with Pluto, the shit wasn’t fading, and the thought of her out there handlin’ everything with her sister without me felt wrong.
I knew one thing for certain—I needed her back in my world, and I was about to make that happen.
Hours had passed and I was still sittin’ at the edge of the bed, feelin’ some type of way. I ain’t even realize how long I’d been stuck in this position, just leanin’ forward with my elbows on my knees, starin’ at the floor. Pops had asked about Pluto earlier, and ever since, my chest been heavy. He ain’t even mean nothin’ by it, just a regular question, but it hit me wrong ‘cause I couldn’t answer him the way I really wanted to. Truth was, I ain’t have noclue where she was at. I ain’t havd her number or her address. A nigga ain’t even have a lead.
That shit bothered me more than I could explain. Me… Pressure… sittin’ in my own mansion feelin’ powerless over one woman. And it wasn’t just any woman either—it was Pluto.
I grabbed my phone and called Renza. Soon as he answered, I said, “Bruh, slide to my room real quick.”
