Page 42 of Beni

Too bad it didn’t last longer.

“But if you’re going to be around,” he said, his words whispering over her cheek as she smiled, “then I would really like to see you again.”

“Me, too.”

“Yeah?”

August nodded. “Give me your phone?”

“To plug your number in?”

“Yep. I’m going to be busy for the next week with some locations I want to document, but I’ll see what I can do for you after that.”

Beni placed a hand over his heart, brown eyes darkening with his amusement. “Ouch, I take second to work, that hurts.”

August shrugged. “A girl has got to have priorities, that’s all.”

He didn’t even look offended.

“You’re absolutely right.”

Then, he fished out his phone from his pocket, and handed it over. Telling her the passcode to get inside. Now, that was some trust.

August appreciated it.

“So,” Cam drawled as August kneeled on the ground, her Nikon at the ready to capture the perfect angle of the mural covering a good portion of the underside of a bridge. “Are we finally going to talk about last weekend, or …?”

August shook her head. “You’re doing too much. Trying too hard.”

Cam laughed. “I mean, come on … you spent the night with a gorgeous man, and you don’t even want to tell me about it?”

She got the shot in the frame that she wanted, and held down the shutter of the camera, taking a burst of shots in a spread of seconds. Standing up, and brushing the dirt from her knees, she turned to face her friend.

“You’re married now, so do you really want details about my sex life?”

“Um, yeah.”

August grinned. “You know, I am surprised you lasted this long. I thought when we met up for lunch last weekend, you would mow me over to find out every last thing you could.”

“I was trying to let you come to me.”

Right.

“It was … good.”

“Just good?”

The slyness to Cam’s tone couldn’t be missed. August came out from under the bridge, taking note of the towering apartment buildings in the urban neighborhood around them. An area popular in Chicago for the rap scene, and the artists that had come out of it, she knew—without a doubt—this was one of the places she needed to come to and soak in during her trip. Not just for the spread she was working on for the magazine, but also for herself.

There was so much to absorb.

And she wanted it all.

Like the mural—painted by fans of a famous rapper who had grown up just down the street, and got his big break in the nineties during a rap battle that took place in a now-demolished warehouse three blocks away.

The rapper died seven years ago … an undetected heart condition. He was revered by his fans, not just for his music, but also for the legacy he left behind. A good man, and his community work had always been a top priority.

His legacy lived on beyond the music people still streamed so much; his tracks regularly made it into the Top 100 lists. Like the murals that continued to pop-up all around Chicago. The city would just remove one, only for another one to be painted overnight in the rapper’s honor. That was respect.