Malia & Khari III: The Kids

Iman Khalil Valentine

Excuse any mistakes, please.
The same night...

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Music blasted throughout the strip club that Kamari and I was at. It was real lowkey, and I knew Kamari needed the night out. He suggested that we come to downtown LA so I brought him here. Kamari never drank so I knew he was stressed out over the Farrah and the baby.

"I miss home so much." He said as he watched the strippers on the stage. I looked over at him, taking a sip of my drink. "I don't even wanna play ball no more."

  "What?" He glanced at me, and nodded.

"It's too much pressure. Dad was the king of the court. I'll never get out of his shadow. It's too much, and I think I'll get back on them pills."

Shaking my head at him, I sat up. "You drunk."

"Maybe." He shrugged, chugging the bottle of Moët & Chandon back like a bottle of water. "But, don't they say a drunk lip speaks a sober mind or some shit like that? Well, I may not remember sayin' none of this, but it's the truth."

  I took the bottle of him, causing him to smack his lips. "Where this coming from?" I asked, sitting the near empty bottle down beside me. Kamari had always loved basketball ever since we were little kids. For him to be talking outside of his neck like this had me wondering.

"When you in rehab, you got so much time to think. Maybe I was overthinking, but I realized that I wasn't built for it. Even dad knew it, that's why he stayed on my ass."

   "Nah." I shook my head. "He stayed on you because he knew you could handle it. Like he said, he wanted you to be better than him. Stop sellin' yourself short."

"Anyway." He brushed the topic off, and leaned over to snatch the bottle. "I came here to have a good time so enough with the deep conversations."

  He stood up, attempting to find his balance and abruptly turned around to look at me. "Aye, you remember.." He snapped his fingers in hopes of remembering the name he was trying to say. "Damn."

"Who is damn?" I asked.

  "Nah, not damn. Like, damn I forgot her name just that fast. Shit, what's that girl's name?" He mumbled to himself. He fished for his phone in his pockets, and took it out seconds later. After going through his phone, he looked up at me. "Lauren."

"Oh, yeah. That girl mom didn't like." I snorted.

    He laughed, and nodded his head. "Yea, why mama didn't like her?" He doubled over, trying to contain his laughter. He knew why mama didn't like that girl. She had Kamari so far up her ass that he was willing to do anything for her, I mean anything. He almost followed her across the country at age seventeen, and mama was not having that. The thing mom was saying that she had her life planned out. She knew what she wanted to do. She was going to go to acting school in New York and go on from there.

Kamari was going to leave everything behind just to follow her. I guess you could say he was in love. "You was ready to risk it all." I shook my head at him.

  He took a couple of steps to keep his balance in check. "Bro, she was just so much fun. I was just young and dumb, though. If we was together now, I could handle her ass."

"Yea, right." I said to myself. "Why you ask anyway?"

  He was about to say something, but something caught his attention. He pointed towards the door causing me to look back. There she was walking through the door, but she wasn't the one I was looking at. Beside her was a person I hadn't seen in s minute, her baby cousin, Layla.