The Business

Sean

Ten hours earlier ...
I walked into the large conference room of The Masters Agency, for our annual year-end board of directors meeting, followed by my wife, Beatrix, who I called Bea.

Already seated at the table was Bryce , our tall, slim, brown-skinned third son. He had a phone to his ear as he worked an iPad like it was a piece of him. He didn't say much, other than to acknowledge his mother with a wave as we took our seats. Bryce wasn't being rude or anything; he was engaged in a phone conversation with one of our distributors about a the old property's that we recently purchased down in Knoxville.

Like myself, Bryce was a workaholic. He ran a tight ship, for which the devil was in the details. He was the company's chief operating officer, in charge of running the day-to-day operations of our agency. Only thirty-three years old, he was turning into one hell of a man, if I did say so myself. Of course, like everyone, he had his flaws of a sort. He had no idea I knew anything about it, but we were going to have to address it in the very near future.

"We're good, Pop. They turned the properties over to our guys in Chattanooga, and the paperwork will be delivered sometime tomorrow," Orlando called out to me with a thumbs-up before continuing his conversation.

In addition to our ,The Masters Company Agency,we also oversaw there smaller agency's which made us one of the largest African American real estate agency's in South of Mississippi as per Essene's magazine.

Bea shook her head. "Will that boy ever learn to slow down?"

"Somebody has to pull the load around here," I replied, wishing the rest of my children had what Bryce possessed.

They all contributed to the family business, but none of them had his work ethic. He was the first one in the office every morning and the last one out every night.

"I heard that," my youngest and more

"I heard that," my youngest and more defiant son, Ben chimed in as he walked into the conference room and took his seat.

Ben was wearing a bright yellow paisley shirt that could be seen halfway across all of Music City.

He glanced over at Bryce , who had just finished up his conversation. "No offense, bro, but I bust my ass around here just as much as you. You're not the only one who makes a lot of money for this family.

I don't hear anybody complaining when the money from the clubs gets deposited on Monday morning, or about the two properties I closed in Hillsboro with Yung Buck." Ben spearheaded the marketing and promotions aspects of Masters Agency, a creative endeavor he came up with himself.

He paired the two things celebrities loved most: exotic houses and women. Where there were celebrities, there were fans willing to buy everything their idols purchased. I wouldn't admit it to him, but his brainchild was a brilliant, unquestionable success that had only served to expand the family's reach in ways I didn't think possible.

Bryce nodded, acknowledging his brother's work, but I took a different path, rolling my eyes in my youngest son's direction.

"Do you call going out to a club all night and sleeping until three and four in the afternoon busting your ass?" "Nope,"

Ben huffed, meeting my gaze with one of his own. "I call it the night shift. When you're sleeping, I'm working. Why can't you understand that? Is this because I'm gay?"

Ben pulled his sunglasses down, peering over them as he struck a very feminine pose. "Don't mess with your father, Ben. Not tonight, all right?" Bea warned, with a look that said she meant business. Ben shrugged his shoulders and gave her an angelic smile.

Of all our children, he was the closest to Bea. She loved and accepted him as is—no exceptions. I, on the other hand, loved my son but just couldn't accept his lifestyle. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that my son was a homosexual. I didn't think I ever would. His sexual preference disgusted me. "I'm not messing with him, Momma. I'm just trying to make a point. I bring business
into this company too."

Ben sat back in his chair and folded his arms. "I just think a little recognition would be nice." "Are you finished?" I asked.

The look on my face said everything that didn't come across my lips. With a final glance from his mother, Ben softened his demeanor and nodded. "Yeah, Pop, I'm finished."

I turned my attention away from Ben just as a cute little bundle of energy came into the room, scurrying around the conference table and chairs as if they were her own personal playground. That little bundle of joy was my granddaughter, Gabriel , and with her mother on her heels, she bolted just out of reach behind me and her grandmother. "Gabby! What did I tell you about running in here?" her mother shouted.

Gabby mother, my eldest daughter and fourth child, Brooke Masters-Redeo, was a tall, classy, butter almond–colored woman, the spitting image of her mother when she was the same age.

"It's okay, Brooke," I said, handing my only granddaughter one of the lollipops I carried in my suit pocket just for such occasions. She was the apple of my eye. I loved my children, but my granddaughter stole my heart from the moment I set eyes on her. As far as I was concerned, I would lay the world at her feet. "Let her be. She has just as much right to be here as the rest of us. One day this will all belong to her, anyway."

Gabby took the lollipop out of my hand and gave me an affectionate kiss on the cheek before taking off again.

When she passed my eldest son, Sean JR, he caught her with one arm and deposited her in his lap as he took his seat. She giggled at her uncle's sudden display of strength. If she were older, she wouldn't have questioned it at all, because Junior was six feet five inches tall and a solid  280 pounds of pure muscle. As big as he was, Junior could be as gentle as a lamb—unless provoked.

He was in charge of overseeing that all the properties were well maintained ranging from floor replacements till building security . He wasn't involved much with the financial end of our company, but he could fix anything , which in our business made him very valuable indeed.

"Humph. Daddy, you'd let that girl get away with murder if you could. I don't recall you ever saying anything like that to us when we were growing up," Brooke said with a slight attitude as she took a seat beside her husband, Gabe Redeo .

He and my daughter had met while she attended Spleman University in Atlanta, Georgia,and Harris was attending Moorehouse University Vermont Law School .

Gabe was always thinking, and kind mind of his had allowed him to graduate magna cum laude from Morehouse.

In the years since he and Brooke got married, Gabe had become an integral part of all our business affairs and was now the company's in-house legal counsel.

This allowed Brooke to happily relinquish her duties as the Head of Training and Development and focus on being a loving mother and devoted wife, something she took very seriously and sometimes to extremes.

"Y'all were my kids. It was my job to raise you right. Gabby's my granddaughter, and it's our job to spoil her."

I smiled at daughter, then lifted my hand to my wife, who gave me a high five.

"Well, that ain't making my job any easier. That girl is just as spoiled as can be."