“Us,” I corrected. “This is good for us, Tink. Me, you and the baby. Our kids won’t have to worry about shit as long as I’m breathing and even after.”
She could think I was bullshitting if she wanted to, but I was deadass serious.
“Look, we’ll talk about this when I get home. I just pulled up to CPC.”
“Okay.”
“Aight, I love you,” I affirmed.
“I love you, too.”
I hung up and headed inside. This would be my first real practice since the accident, and I was somewhat nervous because I knew they were expecting me to be one way and I didn’t want to fuck this up.
***
Practice ended better than I expected. I wasn’t moving like myself all the way yet, but I wasn’t out there looking lost either. My shoulder still had a little tightness in it, and I could feel the difference when I came out of certain breaks, but nothing about it felt like I couldn’t get back on the field. If anything, being back on the field made me realize how much I had missed this shit.
The field had started clearing out by the time I headed toward the locker room. Tatum and Kobe fell into step beside me somewhere along the way. Neither one of them said much at first, but I could tell they were looking at me the same way Coach had.
Kobe broke the silence first.
“Bro, you looked good out there today.”
“That shit felt good,” I countered.
For weeks, every workout, every rehab session, and every practice had come with a question mark attached to it. Could I do this? Could I reach for that? Was my shoulder going to respond the way it was supposed to? Today was the first day I stopped asking myself those questions and got the shit done.
Somewhere between the locker room and the parking lot, the conversation shifted away from football.
“How’s Cadence?” Tatum asked as we made it to our cars.
“She’s straight… mean as fuck, but straight,” I chuckled.
“Shit, then it sounds like she’s the same to me,” Kobe co-signed, causing me to cut my eyes at him.
“Watch that shit, nigga.” I mugged him.
It wasn’t a secret that Tink was mean, but they couldn’t speak on that shit.
“You ready for this shit?” Tatum asked and I looked at him for clarity.
“For what?”
“Fatherhood… that’s what.”
I thought about it for a minute and realized that I was ready. I spent most of my years fucking on different women and not giving a fuck about them or their feelings. Now, I had a girl and was about to be a father… hell yeah, I was ready for this shit.
“Believe it or not… I am. Tink makes this shit worth wanting,” I answered honestly.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t thinking about what could go wrong. Or what people had to say about me. I was thinking about getting home to my woman and laying up under her fine ass all night.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cadence
sometime later…
A few months ago, there was no version of my life that looked anything like this one.
