Lemon Pepper: Where Love & Grief Meet

Copyright © 2023 Nina All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For permissions contact: [email protected] – [email protected] This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. CONTENTS… Author’s Note Prologue One year later… 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 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 A Few Months Later… Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Thank you! To anyone struggling to find balance through grief: Carry it with you proudly as the memories are worth cherishing. Your grief is love. That love is timeless and limitless. PROLOGUE Sunrise Nobody wanted to do bad things in life. Daun was from the gutter, and he never met anyone who wanted to sell drugs, murder, or subject themselves to any other crime to survive—it was life. You stayed down for as long as you could, held your head, but how many worries can you watch your mother go through before manning up? Listening to her cry on the phone to a father who was in prison helpless. No black boy wanted that life—struggle was one hell of a way to get them out of school and into the streets. It was an aesthetic now when the real killers and drug dealers rather be on the other side. The trenches were glamorized when there was nothing enamoring about it. It was life or death, but the internet had people thinking anyone could pick up a gun. Sensationalized. A gun meant you were able to kill. A fucked-up attitude with a distorted perception solidified you as a real nigga. Daun stood over the young boy and pulled the trigger. He couldn’t have been any older than seventeen, but the game was the game. You don’t perpetuate to real killers being something you weren’t. He let off three shots in his head, tucking his gun before walking up the street. It pissed him off more because he had to do this shit. There were no other options for him, so yes, fake ass niggas offended him. Offended his way of life. Did Daun feel bad about what he just did? No. There was very little feeling left inside of him. He murdered another black body, but, in his head, that was a scared nigga who crossed the wrong side. A scared nigga trying to take his life. It was kill or be killed. He couldn’t see past that. These were the ones the opposition sent now. Rather smoke you out with a sheep when it would take at least a wolf to ever catch him lacking. Niggas crossing that line had better at least have heart because he was always lurking. He’d spent too much time preying to ever become the prey. “Sleep?” Travis asked when he got back in the car, and Daun responded with a simple head nod. They’d been doing this for so long that the action of murder was as simple as putting their draws on in the morning. Travis and Daun traveled to their destination with the music pumping. It was still early if going by their time. Half past midnight was for the vampires. Niggas who couldn’t afford to sleep. It could cost them money or death. Imagine being scared to actually close your eyes. This the life niggas wanted? Daun couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Daun stared out the window as his brother drove. While Travis breathed this life, Daun secretly wanted out. But, how could he? He had no real physical guidance. A mother who was there but young and still trying to live life for many years. A father in prison during the most important years in a boy’s growth. Typical makeup for a black man predicted to die before the age of twenty-five. A life expectancy so young. “Cause where I'm from all y’all niggas die in the parking lot. Get ten seconds on the news, they barely talk about us,” Travis rapped along to the very real words they lived. “You gotta watch the way you move, they'll make a target outcha,” Daun bopped his head. “The reaper comin’ gotta keep it on me. I told my momma I won’t leave her lonely.” While the hoodlums roamed the streets so did the hoochies. The girls who were in the exact same position but possessing a different hustle. Anybody coming up where they came from could only respect that shit. Travis and Daun looked down on nobody. A bag was a bag as long as you were a stand-up nigga or bitch. It was that simple. “The graveyard throwing a party for all the real niggas,” they both recited at the same time, thinking of all the friends they’d loss. “They invited me, but shit we got a meal ticket, and everybody won’t make it out, we gotta deal wit it.” As the song played out the daily lives of many young and older black men hoping to see more summers, Daun thought that was all he could ask for, to see another day. Another winter. Another spring. Another summer. “You gon’ be a killer or a homicide, make your momma shed a tear before my momma cry,” Daun spoke low, meaning that exact statement. “Here you go,” he started laughing at his brother getting ready for his favorite part. “Brrr!”