SIX MONTHS LATER

Brendan was recovering quickly. He was still in therapy but was now working out vigorously. He ached at night but he didn’t complain, he was lucky to be alive. He was self-conscious about the slight limp he walked with. The doctors told him that the next surgery would eliminate that and he’d be back to normal. Aside from the two-inch scar on the side of his head, which was now covered by the curly fro he’d grown out, he had no visible marks from the accident.

Each morning he would get up and go to therapy. After that he would go to the gym with Nate and Dee. Nate was on a mission, working out like he had never before. His regimen inspired Brendan to push himself to the brink and had been part of the reason for his speedy recovery. Dee, in the meantime, had gone back to college and was trying to regain his youthful physique for the college girls. He’d decided he wanted to be an elementary school teacher, of all things. It was a noble profession, but hard to imagine a guy with the history that he had molding young minds.

In addition to his partners working out, Brendan was getting even more inspiration from his newborn son, Khalil Brighton Shue. Trina had reluctantly given their son his last name. She had been trying to convince him to give their relationship another chance for the sake of their son.

Brendan, for his part, told her that he merely wanted to take it slow. There was so much damage to repair. Before he even wanted to tackle the idea of trying to become a family, he needed to get well physically first. In addition, he was seeing someone who had been there for him through it all. He wasn’t willing to turn his back on his blossoming relationship and blow what could possibly be the type of love that he’d always wanted by giving yet another chance to Trina’s psychotic, lying ass.

I arrived last to Nate’s crib. When I got there I could smell the food when I hit the door. I walked in and took my shoes off as was required. “Hey, Cory,” everyone spoke.

“What’s good?”

Brendan walked in off of the balcony. “What’s up, dog?”

“I can’t call it,” I answered. “Where’s the baby?”

“Renée is in the back changing him for me.”

“So, playing Mr. Mom is rough, huh?” Just then Renée walked out of the room with a freshly changed baby. “I see you brought in some reinforcements.”

Renée handed Brendan the baby and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, love,” she said.

Nate had on an old-school mix CD playing, and currently “Joy and Pain” was bouncing through the system. I looked around the room as I found a seat and thought about how fitting the title of the song was to everyday life. We each had been through our own personal turmoil in the past couple of years. Then I wondered why it was that the joy that was so elusive and the pain so easy to find.

On a positive note I looked at Nate over there with his fiancée. Anita’s divorce wouldn’t be final for two more months but she was already wearing a five-carat diamond ring straight from Harry Winston, and had said yes to Nate’s proposal. He had flown her down to North Island in the Seychelles where he’d rented one of only eleven secluded villas. They had spent four nights in the 4,500-square-foot villa. Nate had told her that the trip was only for her to clear her mind and relax, but on the second night there, he presented the ring to her as they watched the sunset. He’d told me that the vacation was the best fifteen grand he’d ever spent. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the wedding he was now planning or all of the incredible lovemaking he’d claimed they’d done.

My life was settling into a steady pattern of woman sampling. I wasn’t ready for another relationship. At least I kept telling myself that to keep from getting bent out of shape about the poor luck I was having finding a suitable mate. I looked over at Brendan holding his son and found it hard to believe that he too seemed to be on the verge of settling down. Even if he was going to have a baby’s mama situation on his hand, he seemed content. I figured having a new lease on life will make a man put things into perspective. He had been repeating that “life was too short to be involved in a bunch of drama.”

He definitely had a point, but I was having some trouble finding out what was the point without the drama. My crew was getting boring.

“Listen up, everyone,” Nate yelled out. “I have an announcement.”

“Turn the music down,” I said. “This is gonna be good.”

His grandmother was smiling, waiting to hear her loudmouthed grandson profess his love for Anita or shower her with some other outlandish romantic gesture. Everyone else in attendance tuned in as he clanked his fork against the side of a wine bottle.

Nate made his way out to the middle of the floor and for some reason he pulled his T-shirt off. “Man, it’s hot in here,” he said.

“Come on, man, what is it? A brother is ready to sample some of that grub,” Brendan said. “What’s up, you posing for Playgirl again?” The room erupted into laughter.

“Not quite,” Nate said. “But I will be making a return to the public eye.”

He had us all at attention.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his necklace with the diamond-encrusted boxing glove charm and put it around his neck. “I’m coming out of retirement. I’m going to fight again.” He was grinning from ear to ear; meanwhile everyone in attendance, except for Anita, sat there with a blank look of surprise.

“What?” I said.

“What did you say?” Brendan chimed in.

“You heard me,” Nate barked. “I’m fighting again. Don’t try to talk me out of it, I listened to your concerns before and I retired in my prime. I have my wife-to-be’s blessings and that’s all I care about.”

“C’mon, man, you haven’t fought in seven years,” Brendan said. “Who’s you gonna fight, Sugar Ray?”

“I already have a deal lined up. Two tune-ups and then Henry Scott for the light heavyweight title.”

“You got to be kidding,” I said. “Henry ‘the Horse’ Scott. Why would you want to fight him of all people? This is ridiculous, man. I mean, why would you want to fight, period, it ain’t like you need the money.”

Nate was quiet. Then he looked over at Anita. “The stock market has been a bitch. What can I say?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Nate Montgomery had been the youngest welterweight champion in boxing history at seventeen. He had skipped the Olympics and started fighting professionally in order to get an early shot at the belt. He had surprised the champ at the time, Marco Revera, with a patented overhand right. The odds in the fight had been thirty to one. Revera was 29–0 at the time. Nate was in only his tenth fight. He had gambled every bit of drug money that he’d ever made at that time and even gotten his uncle to loan him the money that he’d be earning on the fight. In all, Nate had bet close to two hundred thousand dollars on himself. He’d walked away with nearly six million dollars.

Nearly every fight the odds were against him and every fight he bet on himself. By the time he reached twenty wins, he was worth nearly twenty million dollars. He had planned to make a hundred million in the ring like his idol and fellow D.C. boxing legend, Sugar Ray Leonard, but in his twenty-first fight he had suffered a head butt that knocked him out cold. He had landed on the back of his head, bursting a vessel in his brain, nearly dying.

He recovered and saw four of the best doctors in the world; to his dismay, they all agreed. His career was over. Not one punch, but the accumulation of head trauma caused by sparring, could and most likely would prove fatal. Even with headgear it wasn’t safe for him to absorb punishment. No sparring, no boxing, it was simple as that. Or at least I guess until the money ran out.

“Man, this is crazy,” I yelled. “If it’s money you need, I got you. We can start some kind of business and we’ll be all right.”

He shook his head no. “Sorry, brother, I don’t do handouts. Besides, I can whoop this nigga. You saw his last couple of fights.”

It was true. Scott was showing signs of aging and he no longer had the same speed or power he’d shown early in his career. But against someone who hadn’t thrown a punch in the ring in seven and a half years, he didn’t seem old at all. “Yo, how much could you make off a fight with him?” Dee asked.

“Five million, maybe as much as six.”

“Yeah, but you’d have to win two fights to get to him, right?” Renée asked.

“He’ll win.” Anita said, trying to sound supportive. “He has been training like mad. Look at him.” Nate flexed and indeed he did look rock solid.

“Seriously, though, folks,” Nate stated, “I’m gonna need all of your support and no negative energy allowed. Understand, Nana and Cory?” He was looking at us.

We all debated with him for the next hour before we began reminiscing about his career. By the time we’d eaten we’d all given in and were either going to support him or keep quiet. I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be carrying his casket. Nate might as well have been fighting a gorilla as far as I was concerned. There was no way he would beat Scott, but you couldn’t convince him of that, so I gave up trying.

I had to go and pick up Amani from my mother’s house. School had started and I was taking her all week. Her mother and I had worked out arrangements that suited us both. One week a month Amani would stay with me the entire week and I got another weekend. In addition, she had started taking her past my mother’s home on a regular basis. My mother was thrilled that she was given an opportunity to play catch-up and spoil her youngest grandchild. So much so that she redecorated my bedroom in the latest cartoon for girls. Every Saturday she would pick Amani up and take her to dance class.

The advantage to Shelly was that she had more free time to run back and forth to New York to see Ricky Reyes. Things seemed to be serious between them. It was no shock that she was in a hurry to get the divorce papers through and didn’t ask for a dime in child support, said she trusted that I would do the right thing.

It was a good-money bet that she and Ricky would be getting hitched or at least shacking up as soon as those papers came through. We had a court date for the week before New Year’s. For her, it would be out with the old and in with the new in more ways than one. But I wasn’t mad at her for moving on so quickly. As a matter of fact, I had to admit that the brother had some long cheddar and he was obviously feeling Shelly. He spoiled her in an almost sickening fashion. They say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. If that’s so, then a man who owns a diamond store obviously runs a close second. Followed third by a man who will buy them.

Though I had nothing lined up as far as a relationship, I was ready to move on with my life. I was enjoying my time with my daughter and our bond was growing tighter each day. I was finding that my life did have meaning beyond a relationship or sex with a woman. Eating dinner, braiding hair, and doing homework were becoming my favorite dates and the only ones that I came to look forward to.

It was becoming obvious that life has its own way of developing you. As I drove toward my mother’s home, I thought about all that I had to go through to obtain the type of growth that I had. I’d once heard that no matter what you go through you always wind up in the same place, which was learning. I’d learned that even if I loved women, I needed to respect boundaries. A pretty face and a piece of ass are never worth causing a bunch of confusion over. I realized that, in my past, all I’d ever done was chase women based on those criteria. Married or not, sisters or not, and even with Renée, I realized that yet another line had been crossed. I shouldn’t have done it. She and Brendan were special to one another and I had violated that bond.

I was more like the old Nate than I had ever realized. The only difference was that he was who he had been by design. He always embraced being a conqueror of women. I did it without intention. And without thinking. I didn’t know which was worse.