What He Needs

•64•

•Abel•

12:25 A.M.

On my jet heading back home to California, I scroll on my phone for places to stay in Tokyo while Nava lays back against my chest fast asleep.

My fingers running through her hair I scroll through a few private villas until I find one that pops out at me. Seeing one that reads Umito Morito Kaze I select the picture to go through the gallery and I'm impressed with what I see.

With four bedrooms, four bathrooms, three partial bedrooms, and an amazing view of the tree tops; I'm sold on the outdoor bath tub. Checking for its availability I'm happy to see July is open; putting in my credit card information I book the place for the rest of the month.

For the longest I was trying to figure out the perfect place to propose to Nava and I was coming up blank until Japan randomly crossed my mind; now I just have to find the perfect spot to actually propose.

I'm lucky the only thing I don't need to worry about is finding a ring. All thanks to my mom I have the perfect one.

Although my mom was excited about her new car she was ecstatic when I told her about my plans to propose to Nava.

I was a little surprised when she gave me a ring saying it was given to her by my grandma and that she wants Nava to have it.

I was grateful for the simple silver band decorated in faux diamonds since Nava isn't into flashy jewelry. Now all I need to do is find someone to resize and replace the fakes with real diamonds.

I can't help smiling to myself, this upcoming trip is panning out real nicely, now all I have to do before I leave is talk to Adrian about XO. I don't want to worry about shit while I'm away.

Speaking of the devil, just then a text message comes through from Adrian.

It's about damn time, I texted this man hours ago.

Adjusting Nava on my lap I reply asking him to meet up with me later today. I heard he's going to be in Los Angeles for the next few days so the sooner I talk to him about possibly taking over XO the sooner I can be done with this and move on with my life.

I'm relieved when he agrees to the meet up. Telling him to meet me at my house I send my address then sit back in my seat resting my head on top of Nava's as I wonder how he'll react to my offer; this won't be the first time we've had this conversation about him assuming my position as the leader for XO.

The first time, I wasn't open to the idea because of the exact reason Belly said. I didn't want XO to become something else but now I think I was being paranoid, in the back of my mind I had always kind of known Adrian's the only one who can run that house the way it's supposed to be ran.

A deep sigh I peer out the window into the night sky, I'm actually a little nervous about this. When I was going through my options and I had finally narrowed my choices down to who was going to be the new leader, it was between Stix and Adrian.

Something told me to make Adrian the leader, I even had conversations with him about it but in the end, I chose Stix. When I told Adrian I was gonna give XO to Stix he warned me it wasn't a good idea because he's not as thorough as us.

I should have listened, I would have never missed that thousands of dollars worth of merchandise was being stolen right from under my nose. I'm very meticulous about my money.

Just then Lamar sits diagonal from me breaking me from my thoughts, "I know that face, what you thinking about?" he sits back kicking his foot up on the seat across from him.