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“I do as well, Ledger. Thank you for your hospitality.” She extended her hand out for a handshake.

I took her hand in mine firmly and shook it. Her hand was cold, which made me wonder if the rest of her was. The top that she wore was lace and exposed her skin. The building was kept at sixty-nine degrees, so I could see her being a little cold.

I gave them a final farewell, then headed back to my personal VIP section. This section was only for Cole, our guests if we chose to have them, and me. When the lounge was built, my section was strategically placed to see the entire layout of the lounge.

When I entered my section, Cole was seated on the leather couch with a glass of whiskey in his hand. His eyes stayed on me the entire time I made my drink order with Bianca, who was my private waitress. She only worked my section and the private rooms if we had any that night.

I didn’t take a seat until I had my drink in hand. The cool liquor soothed my throat as it went down after my sip. “Why are you looking at me like that, bro?”

“I’m trying to read your face. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen this one,” he said with an angled head.

My head cocked to the side. “The fuck? Nigga, I only have one damn face.” I tittered at his foolishness.

“It’s cool you think that, but that’s not actually true. You have several that I’ve counted. The one you have now tells me that something happened over there. Who are they?”

My attention went down to where the ladies sat. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. A smile surfaced when I saw the waitress bring a food order into their section. I hoped they ordered our appetizer sampler so they could get a taste of all of them. We had the best everything, hands down.

“Do you remember I told you I met a female at the influencer event that Joseph had here who said her sister was a lighting expert?” I lifted my hand. “Wait, allow me to self-correct. She is a lighting designer.”

The way she checked me about her career title was enough to know that I needed to respect it. I had no problem with that. She could get a lot more than respect from me if she asked.

“Oh, yeah. Is that who you were talking to?” His words pulled me out of my lustful thoughts. “Wait, is she white?”

I chuckled because I initially thought the same when I spotted her from the bar. “Nah, she’s not. She’s an albino.”

His eyes bucked a little. “Oh, word? I don’t think I’ve ever met an albino. So what she say that got your face looking confused and fascinated all at the same damn time?”

I shook my head at his nosy ass. “Man, Miss Memoree Layne Smith told me that my chandeliers were ugly and needed to go. I can’t believe her beautiful ass said that.” I mumbled the last part absentmindedly.

“That’s a different name. It would take a different kind of woman to be honest about those ugly shits.” Cole laughed a little too hard for my liking with his words. “Nigga, I told you those shits were not worth the money when you bought them. Nah, you wanted to let Lala’s ass have creative input on your shit like she was your damn wife.”

I huffed before I took a sip from my glass. “Damn, you’re just not going to let me live that shit down. Mistakes were made. People were hurt—emotionally and physically. I’ve moved on and so has she and he.”

Lala was my ex-girlfriend whom I had been with for a few years. When it was time to get the concept of my club together, she fussed that I didn’t allow her to have any input. When I did let her, she convinced me that the chandeliers would up the elegance of the lounge. About a month after my lounge opened, I found out that she had a sticky-fingers problem when it came to money that didn’t belong to her because she’d let some nigga get in her head. I gave her ass any and everything that she wanted, but she fell into the illusion of a better situation.

My eyes landed on Memoree Layne. Different was one way to describe her, but I preferred the adjective beautiful. Her beauty was hard to explain for me because she was so different. Her pale skin was almost luminous under the lights of the lounge. I wouldn’t say her hair was blonde. It was white, but I guessed that was a shade of blonde, perhaps.

Albinism. I knew what it was and had seen it only depicted in movies, television shows, and social media. Never in a million years did I think it would be so mesmerizing in a person. It wasn’t because her skin and other attributes made her awkward or weird. It was because they made her unique. She didn’t look like anyone else in the room.

“That’s a damn shame, my boy,” Cole said with a titter. “Y’all talked for what, ten minutes, and you look like you’re ready to take her down. Never seen it happen with you this fast.”

My focus finally left Memoree Layne to land on Cole. “I won’t say that I would just take her down. I do want to see what she’s about, outside of her lighting designer role.”

“She is beautiful. She probably has a man, or maybe not. Niggas can be weird about people that are different and stand out.” He shook his head. “That shit is crazy.”

I turned to take her in one more time. Luck would have it that I caught her in the middle of a laugh. Beautiful. “Yeah, that shit is crazy. Good thing I’m not those niggas.”

Our Children Are the Future . . .

Today was my mother’s childcare center, Bright Beginnings Learning Center’s, pre-school graduation. It was a big deal because of the size of the graduation. With five centers, the graduation class was sixty five- and six-year-olds. She made the smart decision to have a joint graduation.

Kamila Johnson was my heart in human form. She had me when she was sixteen years old, but she didn’t allow that to define her life. My grandmother, whom I’d never met, kicked her out when she found out. My mother stayed in a home for teenage mothers that helped them transition into adulthood as young mothers.

She attended a trade high school, where she was able to graduate with her diploma and her North Carolina Early Childhood Administration Certification as well as everything that she needed to start her own childcare facility. She worked in a center until she was twenty-three years old, then started her own in-home day care. Twenty-five years later, she owned five centers.

Her role at her centers now was very different than when she started her first. Today, she was the overseer of her center’s business side. Her responsibilities were branding, finances, property decisions and expansions, and she hired senior leadership, such as the center directors/administrators for every location that handled the daily operations. Those were the individuals who hired the rest of the staff.

My mother was the person the parents knew about but rarely saw. They saw her at the graduation for the babies who would leave her center to move on to elementary school. The parents loved to see her.