“For what? College?” He chuckled.
I sat forward. “Among other things. Housing. You wanted to be an engineer.” The youth looked shocked, appreciative that I remembered, not that I ever patted my own back.
“You slipping, Judge Babineaux. Used to be sharp. Tie straight. Showing up with them fancy cakes on my birthday.”
At the ripple of laughter, my glare pinned the bailiff. I shot a look that said,Try me. “Anything else you need to get off your chest, Cason? I’m sure this roast has a legal argument somewhere. Remove the hoodie. I’ll listen.”
“I got arguments.” The swiveling stopped. The damn kid reminded me of Madison at the NOPD. He sat forward. Shoved the hoodie off. “Where’s your wife? Maddy. With that sexy voice, thick hips. She used to bake my cakes.”
The courtroom fell silent. Instead of punching her time clock, though, the stenographer dictated this mess. Her creepy, long fingernails pounded the keys.
Cason shook his head. “Heard she brought cake for all the worst ones. She taught you not to be sojudgy, huh? Now she upgraded? Too fine for you anyway.”
His lawyer groaned, “Cason.”
Though my personal life was off the table, I adjusted the sleeve of my robe instead of saying,Fix that tone before I fix it for you.Right words? Yep. Wrong setting. Honestly? I needed to let Cason go a little further. See what was up with his attitude. Under no circumstances would I get roasted. Even as a first-year law student, I’d have run circles around his ass. “Cason, you’ve been moody for two years.”
“Nah.”
“Three years, actually.” I agreed.Okay, we’re onto something.“I missed your fifteenth birthday and when you turned seventeen too?”
“I miss … that cake.” He rubbed his hands together. “How do I get a piece of them chocolate cakes?”
I was seconds away from jumping, hell, teleporting across the room, my good shoes landing on his ass.
“Wrong,” I snapped. “My switch up got you in your feelings. I had always delivered until that point.” The young man fought back moist eyes. “So, you took my absence personal.”
“I ain’t take nothing personal.”
“Your fifteenth birthday fell on a day I took off. I missed an entire week. It wasn’t a planned trip. Last year?—”
“Now you wanna be honest?”
“I intended to be here those days, Cason.”
“Don’t matter, bruh.”
Anybody else calling mebruhin a judicial capacity? Absolutely not. But his face saidI’ma do me even if nobody else cares. That type of mentality ruined lives. That’s why I allowed him to take it there.
Because he mattered. Not enough young Black men thought they mattered. They needed that one person to believe.
I’d prided myself on being that one.
“Cason, I should’ve asked why you switched it up back then. We’ve always been good. I let you down.”
“You didn’t.” Defiance flashed in his eyes, and he swiped his forearm over his face, mouth trembling.
“I was in a bad headspace.”
“Bruh, miss me with that!” he snapped. “My whole life is a bad headspace. Yours ain’t nothing but old episodes of Seinfeld and Friends. Don’t know which one was worse. Then your woman left you, huh? She got tired of running cocoa butter on your dome for hours every night? Her new boo got an actual hairline, huh? Gone bang that gavel like a drumline or be honest?”
“Nope. We didn’t divorce until last year.”
“You a lie! She had you whipped. Then she?—”
“Our son died, Cason!”And then my world fell apart.“He’d been on life support for two years. We removed the machines, hoping he found rest, and pretended like we hadn’t lost faith. His death broke us.”
Hours later, I stood on a yellow fire escape that was like throwing a rainbow at the turquoise and orange row house. I glanced through the window and caught sight of Madison. Seeing her put a smile on my face after my long day.
