Ours After All (All Ours, #2)

Chapter 9

Joshua

Walking into a building you practically built from the ground up every morning is like a pure shot of dopamine injected right into my system.

Nothing makes me happier or prouder.

Back in high school, I was the guy that watched his friends graduate with honors, while my grades were barely scraping by. I can honestly say that school wasn't for me. And it never will be.

I had dreams and ambitions, and none of them involved studying. It just wasn't for me and I knew it never would be. I remember I would rather be outside at that age, trying to convince my brother or Kayden to come and kick ball with me. I'd rather be in the gym, trying to get my scrawny teenage body buff and muscular. I would rather go out on a run or even to the damn movies with the girls than sit down and write some stupid English paper.

I just didn't want to sit down. I couldn't. I felt restless. While everyone around me was sending out college applications, I was checking out locations to build my dream in. I wanted more and I wanted it right away.

That's how I made Full Strenght L.A.- my fitness center- come to life.

The idea had been in my head since I was a little boy, but I didn't execute a single thing until I turned eighteen and graduation came knocking at my door. I knew I wouldn't pass with the grades I went into senior year with, so I did something I don't ever allow myself to do. I asked for help.

Nara came over, day in, day out, and helped me. Helped me write essays, made flashcards, made me write summaries to study with, and then quizzed me to check if I'd actually got it all in my head. She helped me make schedules for every week so I'd have a clear overview of everything school-related. She also called in her girls a lot of the time. They were a major fucking help.

So with the guidance- or I should say force- of five scary girls, I studied my ass off, got my grades up, and graduated high school. But I still didn't apply to any colleges.

So failure wasn't an option after that. My dad had passed about three years prior to that, and I knew he wanted both of his boys to make it big in life. Do great things and show this country what Black men are made of. Going through life without a college degree was not making it big in my mother's eyes and my Dad was probably turning in his grave. My brother was already in his last year of Uni at that point, so convincing my Mom that I didn't need to go to college to do great things with my life wasn't an easy task.

A week after I got my diploma, I found the perfect property, right in the center of Los Angeles. There was still construction going on when I came across it, but I knew immediately how perfect the place would be for what I had in mind. I went in, talked to the constructors and they called in their contractor. I put in a deposit on the same day and made some changes to make it more suitable for a gym later on.

I put all the money I had been saving since I started making my own money in that deposit, and when months later, the time had finally come for me to sign a contract and pay off the rest of what I owed them, I realized I had to dip in the money my father had left for me. So I did it without hesitations. I wanted that building to be on my name and be completely mine. Something of my own that nobody could ever take away from me.

I had some money left after that, so I called in a designer to turn the cold and lifeless atmosphere of the building into something you walk into and want to stay in willingly. I spent every last cent I had on my name on that. But it didn't matter because the outside and inside of the property made my chest burn with pride just a few months later.

Nothing else really mattered. It didn't matter that I was still living with my mother and still working the shit-job and barely seeing my friends, because I had something to look forward to. The constructing and re-designing might have taken almost a year to wrap up, but there hadn't been a day where I didn't visit to see how it was going. I'd already trademarked everything, already got any license I'd need to be a gym owner. All there was left to do was actually work.