At the End of It All

AT THE END OF IT ALL RAE LYSE RAE LYSE BOOKS LLC Copyright © 2023 by Rae Lyse All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. ISBN: 979-8-9882947-1-9 (paperback) The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. Cover Design Rae Lyse Editing Jenine Corneal of @imajinconsulting For Granny J. CONTENT NOTE This is a standalone new adult contemporary romance that contains mature themes and subjects that may be disturbing to some readers. “This one’s for my lil’ nigga, Ace. I pray you find the home you told me you were searching for when we talked on that yacht in Malibu. You still one of one for an eternity, Kid. ” DOMINIC “DOUGH” DEBLANC | 2022 GRAMMY ACCEPTANCE SPEECH FOR BEST RAP ALBUM CONTENTS I. The Last Days of Summer Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 II. The First Days of Fall Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 III. The End of it All Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Epilogue Enjoyed the story? Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Rae Lyse PART 1 THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER CHAPTER ONE Ace Houston, TX August 2022 I’m addicted to reporter’s voices. The tone. The bravado. “After several months of speculation, we can confirm that NBA Hall of Famer and Lakers head coach, Ason Williams, has decided to lend his talents to HBCU Lockwood State with his son Ason ‘Ace’ Williams Jr. in tow as a walk-on. You might recall that Williams Jr. was on a fast track to the NBA and predicted to be the number one overall pick in the 2020 draft. Many are skeptical of this move after the UCLA Bruins suspended the former baller indefinitely during his freshman season amid allegations of—” The fucking nerve. The audio from the video cuts out and my eyes snap over toward Pops in our backseat next to me. “I was listening to that,” I mumble, leaning into the back passenger door. Pops stares down at his phone, swiping at the screen while we inch forward in traffic. “You shouldn’t consume junk media so early in the morning.” “But you were just watching it.” “I was and now I’m not. Drive yourself to practice and you can listen to whatever you want.” His driver, Gus, presses the screen on the radio and soft jazz pulses through the truck’s speakers. I turn back to the window, looking for the rolling hills I left in LA for good this time. There’s no hills in Houston. The city is flat and full of suspect bayous. Their version of the Hollywood sign is a raggedy message a graffiti artist painted above I-45. Its style changes depending on the city’s mood, but the underlying message is always the same. I swear every time Gus rolls under it, Pops says the same ole’ shit. “Man, oh man.” He sighs. “Be someone. I hear that and I receive it.” Today’s no different. “Find your purpose and be someone. Don’t I always tell you to find purpose in what you do? That’s what my buddy Ma—” “Marshall used to say.” I cut him off, tearing my eyes away from the message painted above the highway. “He told you that the night you got drafted.” Pops starts talking over me, drifting off on a tangent about his dead best friend who only exists in anecdotes and way back when stories. A drawl coats each of his words because Houston is his home. It’s the only city him and Mom swore they’d ever love because it’s where they met the summer Mom turned eighteen and it’s where their favorite people existed. People like Marshall who ended up playing ball at Lockwood and his wife CeCe, who was supposedly Mom’s good girlfriend. Mom and Pops locked eyes at the Fondé after he beat Marshall in a pickup game CeCe dragged her to. She used to call it an “H-town love story”—some real corny shit. But I liked the way her face lit up when she talked about the day she saw Pops cross Marshall over better than Allen Iverson. “Damn. That’s why you back home for good?” I ask, interrupting his fake sermon that Gus nods at. “Still searching for your purpose at forty-two? Sticking it to the man?” I pump my fist up with a smirk, but he doesn’t smile at my pathetic attempt to lighten the mood. He hadn’t smiled at my jokes since he quit his job. I don’t blame him. Shit, my jokes hadn’t hit the same since I woke up without Mom’s reassurance that he’d laugh with me one day—even if I didn’t make it to the NBA. He stares back at me with hard, brown eyes that don’t look like mine, because I look like Mom in every way. He says we even think the same. “Nah.” He shakes his head. “We here because I’ve obviously been doing you a disservice for the past two years.” “A disservice?” “This ain’t so much about me as you think. You need to learn some things and you ain’t gon' learn them in that cushy condo in Westwood Angie convinced me to let you buy.” I shake my head at the thought of my “cushy” condo with a motherfucking yuppie as a tenant. They’d have a perfect view of Century City from the balcony where I used to take shots of 1942 to the head while chopping