Page 47 of Absolute Fulfillment
“When are you coming home?”
“He doesn’t live with us, Adonis. Rennix has his own hou?—”
“Stop correcting him. He good. And I should be there in a couple hours, what we watching tonight?”
He giggled excitedly. “Lilo and Stitch. Mommy bought it on Amazon.”
“I told you I wasn’t watching that movie no more, Lil G. Pick another one.”
“Okay,” he dragged out. “I’ll give the phone back to Mommy.” That was code for “I’m watchingLilo and Stitchwithout your ass”.
Once Caya was back on the phone, I couldn’t stop looking at her. I could look at her for hours and not grow tired. Everything about her had my existence in a state it wasn’t used to. I was obsessed with her, mentally and physically, moving at a pace unfamiliar to myself. I knew this would happen, I felt it, but I lied to myself, believing I just needed one night.
“Stop looking at me like that, Rennix. Tend to your business and leav?—”
“What you like… a small?” I asked, narrowing my eyes toward the camera.
“No, a medium. Why?”
“Cause I’m ’bout to bring you a Donuts shirt home.” I winked.
She chuckled, momentarily forgetting she was trying to be mad at me. “You gonna get me one of the cropped ones that the bartender wears?” She seemed too excited for my liking.
“Yeah, but you can only wear that shit in my presence.”
“Ay, man, I don’t wanna hear that. Cake when you get to the crib. Can we handle this business while we here?” Reminisce’s disgruntled ass butted in.
Caya laughed and so did I. “Hey to you too, Reminisce.”
“What’s up besides the fact that you turning my brother into a simp.”
She laughed, and he did as well, while I grilled him. I wasn’t no fucking simp… well for her I might be but I wasn’t about to volunteer that much.
She and I hung up a few minutes later. My brother grinned as soon as I set the phone down.
“What, man?”
“You. That’s what. You done fell your goofy ass in love.” He made a heart with his hands. “You talked all that shit about me, but now you see.”
I didn’t respond at first. Instead, I shrugged his statement off. Maybe he was right, but either way it went it was what it was. “It is what it is.”
He had a knowing smile, one I wouldn’t refute. Instead I moved the mouse to see if the program I was using had finished sifting through the tapes. It had, so I focused my attention, watching camera eighteen closely, using seventeen as a spatial reference.
My brother stood behind me, also studying the video. We were about two minutes in when I saw it… not it, but her. She was in the corner, but I knew that lopsided jaguar tattoo from anywhere. At that exact moment, my office phone started to ring.
I looked from the footage to the phone before I reached for it and answered. “Yeah.”
“Hey, boss. It’s about one of the dancers. Juicy hasn’t been in. She was a no call, no show this whole week. When I called the number I had on her, a restaurant answered. So it wasn’t her real number.” Boe’s voice filled my eardrum as I watched the clear dancer heel hit spaces near the camera before ultimately hitting it.
“Aight. Replace her for her set…indefinitely.”
“Uh, okay.”
Once I hung up the phone, my brother was talking. “One of your dancers fucked that camera up.”
“Nah. I know exactly who that is. It’s Juicy. I know that crooked ass jaguar tattoo from anywhere.”
“Then I’ll go grab her ass. Gimme her personnel file.” He was on his feet within seconds.
