Address Me As Doctor

To The Sun

Shep POV-

"Any of y'all ever regret getting married?" Kenny asked O, Rashad and Otto, since they had been married the longest.

We were all sitting in the patio area of the house having a cigar, drinking glasses of whiskey and watching the sunset on our last night, just having guy talk about relationships.

"Regret no. But that shit is hard." Otto shook his head thinking about it, taking a drink.

"Who you telling." Rashad said agreeing, exhaling smoke from his cigar.

"Aw man." O shook his head in agreement. "That shit take hella work." He puffed from his cigar.

"What's the hardest part?" Diggy asked.

"For me, I gotta wife with a temper and attitude. And she had a lot of emotional baggage from her past relationship that made her hard. So the hardest part was breaking through that for me. To get her to see, I'm not dude." Rashad said taking a drink.'

"I love my sister but kudos to you Shad. Cause I couldn't deal with Toya."
I said knowing exactly how she was I took a puff of my cigar.

He chuckled. "Every now and then, I have to remind her. But we cool now. Having London, our daughter calmed her a bit."

"What about you Otto?" Diggy asked.

"Well me and Anais problems stemmed from me moving around a lot in the league. Getting cut a lot, then having to do workouts, getting on a team, then getting traded. Like the uncertainty of the business. It had me feeling like a failure. Then pushing her away. Then her telling me, we have to do this as a team, it just was a lot."

"How did y'all get through that?" I asked.

"Honestly, if you know Anais, you know she has no problem saying what she feels. She just told me straight up, I don't care if you never play in this league another day in your life. You're not gonna get rid of me. I married you for you, not what you do. So get your shit straight nigga and figure it out."
He imitated her voice at the end.

We chuckled.

"O you been married what?" Kenny said.

"It'll be ten years this year." He smiled taking a drink of his whiskey.

"Damnnnnnn." We collectively said.

"How does that work?" Rashad laughed.

"Yo man. A lot of hard work. A lot of it." O sighed.

"See you gotta understand me and Kenya been together since college. So yeah its ten married years, but add another five that's like 15 years. So we didn't meet each other as adults. We grew up together. So its figuring out okay, who are we as people. Okay we got that figured out, now who are we in out careers. And just all it takes to be a full human being. We did a lot of figuring out who we are together? She's not the same. And neither am I."

"What's the biggest difference?" Shad asked.

"Umm at the beginning K was very selfish. I'm just being real. There was a reason for her selfishness, but still her career was her priority. Even after we had Livy and Kenyon. And that's when I had to draw the fucking line. Overlooking me is one thing. But when you overlook my kids?" He let out a tsk sound.

"I don't play that shit. My son Kenyon..."

"That middle boy right?" Otto asked.

"Yeah. He puts on this tough exterior. like I don't care, nothing bothers me. But I will never forget he had a game. He was about 4. K said she she was gon come, but she didn't. She said she was tied up at work. Kenyon acted like he was good or whatever. I look in through my driver's mirror, I see tears."