“Cass, wait. I didn’t expect to see you again, let alone today. I toldmyself that if I ever did cross paths with you again, I’d tell you to your face that I’m sorry for how I handled everything. I don’t regret my son, but you never deserved to be tangled up in any of that.”
I couldn’t deal with everyone who had a place in my heart, whether past or present, using me as their emotional sounding board. My emotions were already running high after finding out about my mother’s diagnosis, and a part of me fought to respond with something toxic, but I refrained from saying anything that would keep us in each other’s presence longer than need be.
“Listen Omar, I?—”
He interjected before I could finish, “And I know that shit just probably made everything awkward, but I had to get it off my chest.”
I shook my head. “This entire conversation is awkward, Omar. It’s fine. It’s been months. We’ve both moved on,” I said, stating fact over fiction.
No sooner than the words fell off my lips, his phone lit up, showcasing a family photo of the three of them and she had a ring on her finger. It was then that I realized that Omar was more of a steppingstone to me than he was a stumble. He’d come into my life for a season. Long enough for me to teach his ass a thing or two before he could go back to her and be the man she required, which wasn’t the man I needed. Seeing him again only made me realize just how special Hendrix was. For once, I was the project, and he was the fixer.
“I’m glad it all worked out for you, really…” I told him.
“Yeah, same for you and that ball player,” he mentioned.
Although he hadn’t mentioned Hendrix by name, my antennas went up. “How’d you even know anything about that? I thought you weren’t into the blogs and celeb gossip.”
“I’m not. Malaya, she saw and mentioned it.”
“Mentioned it, huh?” I asked.I would’ve like to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation,I thought to myself.
“Yeah, and I mean to be honest, I was likedamn, she traded up from a nigga like me. I knew you deserved better than me, Cass. We both did. That ain’t no secret.”
Correct,I thought.
“I ain’t have my shit together when you met me, and I wasn’t ready for someone like you.”
Also correct,I thought.
He licked his pink lips before speaking up again. “He keepin’ you happy, right?”
My eyes brightened with relief when I looked past him to see my driver in the gray Toyota Corolla pulling up in the nick of time. I was not about to talk to my old nigga about mynew,old nigga.
“My Uber is here, so I gotta go. Take care of yourself,” I said before slipping into the backseat of the sedan and pulling off.
ten
. . .
Hendrix
I was in Miami conditioning on a workout bike with the team a few hours before the game. ESPN blared on every TV within the training facility, and I zoned out to catch the tail end of the conversation between the on-air commentators.
“You know what game I can’t wait for? The Miami and Kansas City game tonight. I cannot wait to see what Croft is gonna do!”
“You and everybody else, Roland. Croft has been on everybody’s radar this season, that’s for sure.”
“Watching him out there on the court, you would never know he was taken out at the end of last season with a knee injury. The boy gets buckets, Carrie!” Roland hailed.
“I’ll admit it does seem like Croft can do no wrong. Kansas City is on fire right now with a four-game winning streak. That’s record breaking for the team in general.”
“I’m telling you, Carrie, Croft is exactly what the doctor ordered! He brought a team that was on life support back to life! Dare I say MVP?”
“That’s it, Roland. I think you’re calling it.”
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate the past due recognition after niggas counted me out when I got injured and then traded. Mostdays, I felt like I was carrying the world on my shoulders, so the praise was an internal win. As much as I was against the trade at first, putting the Kansas City jersey on my back was the best career decision I ever made, but I still had a lot to prove. Shaking off their admiration, I put the focus back on my workout. After getting off the bike, I headed to see the team trainer to get stretched out and put my compression knee sleeve on.
“Yo, Croft. Coach Jackson wants to see you in the hallway,” my teammate, Sean, told me.
