Chapter 23

The October breeze sends a chill down my arms as I wait on the steps outside of my house. Just this morning it was hot as a sauna in July and now the chilly air serves as a reminder that the holidays are coming.

I'm tempted to go inside to grab a jacket but Caesar just texted that he was a minute away. He could be impatient at times and I'm in no mood to deal with his agression after spending hours dealing with Simon's. Caesar wasn't explicit in his reasoning for dragging me out the house at 8pm but I hope it's to deliver good news. I haven't heard any word back after I sent him off to clean up Simon's mess.

Soon as I say to hell with waiting in the cold, Caesar's grey Audi pulls into view. The headlights momentarily blind me as he settles into a parking spot next to the curb. I stand to brush off any lingering dirt. I walk over to him shivering. He opens the car door from the inside so I just slide into the seat. As I'm pulling the door closed, Caesar reaches into the backseat. He tosses his grey Nike jacket on my lap. It swallows me as I shove my skinny arms into the sleeves.

He refocuses his attention on pulling away from the curb. I wrap the jacket around me tighter, hoping his scent will stick onto me the way it does his jacket.

Drake's "After Dark" plays lowly as we cruise down the street. I wasn't expecting us to move away from the house but I'm not complaining. The Audi rides smoothly as we switch lanes to intersect onto the bridge. The view of the city's lights maximizes the moment.

"Did you figure out a way to help Simon?" I ask.

"It's already taken care of. Did you do what I asked you to?" He asks.

"Yeah. He didn't enjoy the trip down memory lane but I can't say I blame 'em."

"What you mean?" Caesar asks.

The turn signal flickers methodically in the background as I try to get my words together.

"I guess I never had time to dwell on the shit that's happened 'cause it's always one thing after another. Simon blames you and Ace for bringing me in but I know shit isn't as easy as he makes it seem," I say.

I stare out the window so I can see Caesar's reflection staring back at me through the glass.

"You blame me?" He asks.

I shake my head, "No. If Ace never dragged me along to Angel's house then you would have never felt comfortable pulling me into the game. I can't lie. Sometimes I do get mad about the way it all happened but everything happens for a reason, I guess."

My mind starts to replay the ultimatum Simon gave me. If I wasn't in a position to help, he would have turned back to the corner. At least now I can have a hand in my brother's safety.

"Simon wants a hand in our drug game. He's determined to pay you back. He won't listen to anything I have to say," I say.

Caesar struggles to watch for oncoming traffic as he tries to read my face.

"What'd you tell him?" He asks.

"The only thing he'd listen to. I told him what he wanted to hear," I say, sounding as defeated as I feel.

"You want me to talk to 'em?"

I go back to staring out the window.

"Ain't no talking to Simon," I say.

Thankfully, I don't have to tell Caesar to drop the conversation. A thousand unsaid words float between us but I'm happy to let the music drown them out. I don't need comforting on my decision to bring Simon in. I did what I had to do. I still have mixed feelings about it but not even Caesar can rectify that.

We spend the rest of the drive silently jamming to the R&B softly filling the car. We exit off the bridge and the city's lights fade into the nighttime. After cruising on the streets for a few minutes, Caesar stops in front of an abandoned building. I stare up at the tall structure while he maneuvers his car into a parallel parking spot.

He presses the push start button causing the car's engine to stop humming. He tucks his keys into his pocket. He reaches in front me to retrieve his gun from the glove compartment. He tucks that into the waistband of his sweats before ushering me out of the car.

I follow Caese to a gate that has a No Trespassing sign on it as clear as day.

"Caese, what are we doing here?" I ask.

He answers me by reaching into his pocket and pulling out a set of keys. It's the same ring of keys that he used to unlock the door at the stash house he showed me. This time, he twirls the keys on the ring until he produces a thick silver key. He inserts it into the heavy duty lock hanging on a chain around the gate. The locks falls into his hands. He untangles the chain enough to push the chain linked fence open.

I stand put with my arms crossed over my chest. I'm not trespassing onto any property until he tells me what's up.

"I'm not holding this gate open all night," He says.

"And I'm not coming inside until you tell me why you got keys to an abandoned building," I say.

"I'm not explaining nun until you walk yo ass inside. It's dark as fuck outchere and last time I checked, I'm the only one with a gun. So come here," Caesar says.

It isn't the dangerous neighborhood we're in or the fact that its nighttime that makes me shuffle inside. It's hearing Caesar say 'come here' with his deep voice that gets my feet moving. Old habits die hard.

Caesar wraps the chain back around the gate but doesn't lock it. On the other side of the gate is a large slab of asphalt with white buckets of paint near the entrance of the building. The paint must be for outlining parking spaces since it's clear we're standing in what will be the parking lot.

I keep my questions to myself as I follow Caesar to the chunk of metal door. He has a hard time pulling it open since the door is rusted shut.

"Caesar, I'm not going to jail cause you wanna break and enter onto private property," I say.

"Shut up, Candyce. These motherfuckers have to come through here all the time to get inside. Unless...these...niggas..ain't been getting no work done," Caesar huffs as the door finally unsticks.

Once we step inside the place, it's obvious that this isn't an abandoned building. It's a building under construction. We step onto wooden floorboards that serves as flooring for the time being. There are iron railings ontop of crane machines to lift people into the air. It's too dark to see anything else so I'm glad when Caesar disappears to find the lights.

The lights flicker on one by one. Soon, we're illuminated enough to see each other. Caesar's standing at the top of the staircase that I didn't notice until now. I wait until both of his feet is firmly planted onto the floorboard to dive in.

"What the fuck is this?" I ask.

"Which part?" He asks.

I ignore the smug look on his face as he starts to point to our surroundings.

The first thing he points to is the railing covering what appears to be the balcony overlooking the rest of the place. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was the layout of a club.

"I was thinking that could be the V.I.P. area up there. It runs the length of the club. When it's done, it should be separate rooms that can be closed off with a curtain, kinda like they had at Legacy," Caesar says.

I squint my eyes at him although I can see him clearly since we're no longer in the dark. I'm curious as to where he's going with this.

He turns both of us towards the front of the club. His hands is clamped onto my shoulders. He tickles the spot just below my ear as he whispers in my ear.

"You see how the stage is leveled from the rest of the club? That's gonna be where the DJ set up at," He says.

My heart pounds in my chest feeling his hands and his breath on me. His left hand reaches around to the front of my neck. He gently clasps his hands around it before finding his way to my chin. He slowly lifts my head up to the tiny room next to the stairs he just came down.

"That's gonna be your office right there," He says.

He removes his hands from my neck suddenly. Was it possible that after all this time he still knows that my neck is my hotspot? I raise my hand to my own neck, desperately wishing it were his hands still on me. He's still standing behind me. Not close enough so that I could feel his body on mine, but close enough that I know if I backed up two inches, I would feel something poking my back.

I may be green to a lot of things but I know when a nigga is trying his best to turn me on. And it's working. Fuck it's working.

Caesar clears his throat behind me. I blink a few times also trying to pull myself together. I got so distracted feeling Caesar's hands on me that I almost missed what he said.

"My office?"

I turn around to face Caesar. I make sure to keep my eyes above his waist so as not to distract myself. He nods his head.

"So like, that office up there is mine? Like I'll be managing your club?" I ask.

Caesar shakes his head. The excitement that was starting to creep into my voice dissipates.

"What the fuck do I know about clubs? I bought this shit for you," Caesar says.

My eyebrows spring to the top of my forehead.

"It's mine?" I ask.

Caesar nods his head.

"I figure since you got this whole idea of running drugs through a club that you might as well open your own. Nobody can control what happens in this bitch like you can. It gives you a way to clean the money too. What better way to get you a foot in the game than to make this shit as easy as possible for you?" Caesar says.

A smile slowly creeps onto my face. I forget all about boundaries and our past and our present situations. I throw myself into his arms. My hands hook around his neck as his arms fasten around my waist.

"Thank you, Caesar," I whisper into his neck.

Caesar chuckles as we start to pull away.

"You deserve it. I know it was never Ace's plan to have you in this life. So when he comes back maybe you can still have your own thing going with the club. You might not be slanging drugs through here but at least you won't have to rely on him or nobody else to make money," Caesar says.

My grin starts to put a strain on my cheeks but I keep smiling up at him anyway. Nobody, not even Ace, has ever put me in a position to win on my own. Independence is all I've ever wanted. With indepence comes the freedom to play by my own rules. Now, I won't ever have to resort to stripping to make my own money. I can sit pretty like the good Lord intended me to do from a seat in my own office.

"Can I see the office?" I ask.

Caesar laughs, "Go 'head."

I jog towards the steps excited as ever. I climb the stairs two at a time. The current build of the office doesn't give me much to go on but my imagination makes up for what I can't see. The only thing that's set up in the room is the floor to length window overlooking the city's lights. The view is as beautiful as it was in the drive over. Only this time, it floors me.

Caesar's footsteps sound behind me. I break my gaze from the view when he knocks on the doorframe.

"You think you gotta name for it yet?" He asks.

I turn my head back to the view ahead of me with a smile bright enough to challenge the city lights.

...

"I'm calling it The Penthouse. Max and I think y'all would be vital to the success of our new club," I say.

The girls clumped in front of me all nod their heads. They come in all shades and sizes. There's 10 of them altogether with Max standing beside me, making 11.

"No shade, sis. But I think you should keep working on that name," Trinity says.

"Who the fuck asked you?" Max says.

I groan beneath my breath. Not this shit again.

Trinity, who's tall, mocha colored with teal green weave down her back steps away from the crowd. She stands tall in her platform heels made for twirling on poles. She's one of the few strippers I hired. She's also the only one who danced at Club Fantasy with Max and I.

"Well nobody asked you, bitch!" Trinity shouts.

Max chuckles lightly as she hops down from the stage. She's pushing her way to Trinity before I can remind her that she's my number 2 and that she should start acting like it. To my relief, the rest of the girls stand between them to keep the two apart. They're both yelling too loud to hear me shouting for them to calm down. Trinity steps out of her heels and is significantly shorter. She now stands a couple of inches under Max but that doesn't stop her from jumping over the crowd to make her voice heard.

Max continues to go off, now threatening to fight everybody if they don't let her through to Trinity. Trinity's steadily talking her shit over the crowd. It's a mess of red, green and pink wings as the glue that will hold my club together start to come undone.

"Both of y'all need to chill the fuck out! I thought we was here to make some money!" I yell.

"We are! But your minion over here won't let bygones be bygones!" Trinity shouts.

"Bitch you stole money out my locker! How the fuck I'm supposed to let bygones be bygones?!" Max yells.

They start going at it like cats and dogs once again. I step down from the stage 'cause trying to reason with them from up there ain't working. I break apart the tangle of limbs and acrylics until I find the arm and nails that belong to Maxine. I drag her away from the crowd by her arm. She's still yelling so I push her in the direction of the bar.

"Go get a drink and calm the fuck down! I'll be over there to talk to you in a second," I say.

She looks like she wants to challenge me on it but she throws her hands up in defeat.

"I'll chill out as long as that bitch know Candyce ain't gon always be here to save her!" Max yells.

I cock my head at her in disbelief. It's like all the warnings I gave her went in one ear and out the other.

"Yeah, yeah, hoe! Say that shit from across the club!" Trinity yells.

I turn my attention to the crowd across the club. Now I stare at Trinity in disbelief. Not one day of work and these bitches were already a problem.

"Jimmy, get her a Vodka tonic so she can cool out," I tell the bartender.

Jimmy immediately gets to work. He sets aside the glasses he was wiping to pour a drink for Max. She mugs both me and him, while he prepares her a glass. He's a tall guy whose ethnicity I'm still not sure of. If he said he was born to white parents I wouldn't be surprised but if he claimed a Hispanic heritage, I wouldn't call him a liar either.

I leave Jimmy's bartending skills to calm Max down as I stomp back over to the girls.

"Yo, how many times you gon let her do that shit?" Euphoria asks.

She's a skinny, brown-skinned girl. She doesn't have much to show for in the waist department, but she has that eccentric look going for her. Her hair is cropped close to her head and dyed pink. Her face is littered in piercings on the bridge of her nose, both of her nostrils and her septum. Her eyes are hazel-green. She's a head turner for sure, which is why we all agreed to hire her.

Unfortunately at the time, none of us knew she had a knack for voicing her opinion only when the person she was talking about was far, far away. Max had stepped to her a few times already for stirring shit up behind her back.

"Not now, aight Euphoria?" I bark.

Euphoria holds her hands up in surrender. I know she'll whisper about me when I leave too but I don't give a fuck. I'm the boss. Nobody's supposed to like me.

"Y'all do understand the club opens tomorrow night right? We can't afford to have y'all cat fighting in the middle of the fucking club! All y'all came from nightclubs, stripclubs and bartending. Where is the fucking professionalism?" I ask.

"We have professionalism. That chihuahua over there don't have no home training!" Trinity yells.

"Trin, how many bitches you got into it with at Pink Fantasy?" I ask.

Trinity rolls her eyes, "Too many."

"And how many did you let stop yo hustle?"

"None."

"My point. Whatever beef you and Max got need to be dealt with before the grand opening tomorrow. I put too much time getting this club to look the way it do for y'all to trash my shit up!" I say.

Trinity, Euphoria and the rest of the girls are quiet. It's true that Max has her faults but so did every other girl here. Every single one of them have made me stress about one thing or another. Half of them had no experience selling product at all so we spent ample time trying to be sure they won't fold under pressure. The other half didn't know how to leave that ghetto shit outside. At a club called Penthouse, I expect them to act like ladies. I guess you can take the woman out the hood but you can't take the hood out of her. It seems I'm having that same problem with Max and Trinity.

"Look, forget all that shit. I need to know if y'all are ready for tomorrow night," I say.

"Mhms" and "Yeah's" emerge from the crowd.

"Max called in a favor to one of the hottest hostess so she can turn this bitch up. I'm expecting a big turnout on account of her so y'all need to be pushing coke, Molly and X out like y'all lives depend on it. 'Cause it does. If any one of y'all fuck up tomorrow night, don't bother coming back. Trust me. You can ask the hostess of the club tomorrow if y'all think I'm playing," I say.

I can tell by the look on their faces that they take my warnings seriously. Most of these girls had to put in serious overtime to qualify for their spot. To trust them with product and to train some of them meant that The Penthouse needed their undivided attention. For everybody here, The Penthouse was their only source of income. Tomorrow will determine if job searching comes sooner rather than later.

"Y'all make sure y'all pick up y'all dresses in the VIP area. Y'all name tags are on them so make sure you don't take somebody else's shit before you leave. Y'all are dismissed," I say.

I watch them file towards the staircase that links the balcony of the club with the first floor.

While they travel from room to room looking for their dresses, I accompany Max at the bar.

Her glass is empty by the time I get there with the lime still perched on the cup.

I sit in the bar stool across from her. She doesn't look at me so I know that she's more pissed at me than she is at Trinity. I brace myself for the conversation we've been having since I hired Trinity.

"Max, how many times we gonna have this conversation?" I ask.

"I guess until you help me understand why you hired a bitch that stole from me," Max says.