Kindred Spirits | Juan Toscano-Anderson

64 x Amongst Men

"I wanna know exactly who stopped my brother from coming in this building." The next two days off would be Juan handling Avery's situation and that only.

"We're trying to locate them for a meeting." Bob sighed. "Apparently the team who came in last night aren't our usuals. But I promise you Juan we will find the source of the problem."

"I hear you." Juan didn't have much more to say with no results.

"How's he doing?"

"He says he's cool but this just keeps happening to him and as a young man with black and Mexican parents, he can't seem to escape it in his young age. I wanted to avoid him going through this."

Bob could understand the heart and mind to take care of family. He just couldn't relate to things being hard because of his skin tone. He looked around his office and saw photos of his team and organization throughout the years and all of those who did the work looked different. Their stars of course being black men.

"When we get this handled, I wanna talk to you about what we can do to prevent this in the future."

Juan took Bob's words into consideration but until he figured out what was going on, he could only focus on Avery. His phone ringing instantly pulled him out of his thoughts.

"Hello?"
"Juan."

Taking the phone away from his ear, he looked at the contact and realized the number wasn't saved.

"I'm sorry, who's this?"
"Umm Jeffery, sorry to interrupt you."

"Is everything good?" Juan wasn't sure why Jeffery was calling him but he hoped everything was fine, he couldn't afford anymore issues.

"I'm actually stuck downtown and I left my wallet on the couch at Cynatra's. I tried calling her but she didn't answer."

"You need me to bring you your wallet?"

"No, you don't have to do all of that. I was hoping that if you're at the arena, I could meet you and chat."

Juan thought about it and it didn't make sense for him to not grab the wallet if Jeffery needed it. "I'll do this, I'll meet you at the gym in about twenty minutes, okay?"

"Yeah, I'll meet you there. Thank you."

Although it was strange, he wouldn't mention it to anyone. If they asked cool, but wasn't a point in making it bigger than it needed to be. He would do this favor for Jeffery and keep on about his day.

"You being pregnant is still funny to me." Ricki laughs placing the grocery bags in the car. "Who you telling? Last night my back was on fire and that poor man rubbed my back through the night. The heating pad couldn't wrap around this big ass belly"

"You're not even big! People can't even tell you're pregnant ma'am."

"Speaking of... I wanna do a photoshoot"

"You don't even like taking pictures." Ricki snickered, "But I'm for it. You gonna be naked or something?"

"I haven't really thought about all of that." Cynatra didn't have any specifics but she knew she wanted to take a bunch of photos professionally. She was already documenting everythingg.

"Oh girl, I have some ideas! We can talk about it at the shop."

Ricki's construction at the shop was coming along and she planned on opening by the beginning of the following year.

Jaiden was in the middle of producing an album for an artist he wouldn't share and everyone was happy for him. There was a new light in his eyes and he also shared that with Arrianna. Their relationship was moving along and it seemed like it was heading in a good direction. The Allen kids were happy.