10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace (Caselli Family Book 1)

The flight from Japan was exhausting.

It didn’t matter if you traveled in style either. My jet was equipped with whatever I wanted or needed for long flights. Half the time me and Jeffie never saw one another because I stayed on one side, and she stayed on the other.

After a business trip and long flight, I was always greeted home with silence. The sound of the TV blaring could be heard from the front door. It was always quiet in my house when I returned home.

The silence was deafening and at times I would play music to kill through it. This time, the sound of a movie playing in the distance made my heart jump. It was like I remembered there was a woman now staying in my home.

When I rounded the corner, she was wiping her face as tears fell down her cheeks. I thought it was something she was watching that was making her cry and dispelled that thought when I saw she was watching an Adam Sandler movie.

That man’s movies never made you cry like the way Wonder was sitting on the couch crying. I stood there for a minute before making my presence known.

What I didn’t expect was for her to go off about me not calling her. This shit was new to me. Was I supposed to call her? I mean, shit, I made sure she got water, sun, and food. The fuck else was I supposed to do from across the world?

The word business arrangement hit me harder than it should have. Wonder wasn’t wrong, this was exactly what this was. I didn’t like to think of the shit like that because she was in my home.

My home was sacred, and I didn’t welcome anybody in this bitch. She was not only in my home, but she had settled in and made herself comfortable. The sound of my automatic shades opening had me open my eyes.

I remained in bed for a few seconds too long and was inside my head. Thinking about how she called me out about not calling her.

Why did she care so much?

Not knowing why she was crying kept me up most of the night, too. What made a woman like Wonder cry? She was easy going, spunky, and always positive, even when she was moments from dying.

The light knock followed by the shuffling across my heated floors, and the humming caused me to lean up in my bed. Purple was putting down the laundry on top of the chairs in the room to be put away by housekeeping.

She had one headphone on and was shaking her hips while humming, which was further pissing me off. When she turned, she jumped, dropping my white cashmere Brunello Cucinelli shirt on the floor.

A shirt that cost eleven hundred dollars and she had my shit on the floor. “You used to make your Barbies fuck, huh?”

“Excuse you?”

“Why the fuck are you in my crib with those little ass shorts, knowing my future wife is on the bottom level?”

Plum’s cheeks turned red as she looked at me. “I promise I didn’t mean anything. Before coming in, I worked out and didn’t have time to go home to change, so I came right to work… Jeffie is out for a few days.”

I watched as she shifted her weight on each foot, and stood there looking awkward. “Bottom drawer… take a pair of sweats and put them on. Don’t ever come in this house with shorts that fucking little on. You see Jeffie walking around like that?”

“No, Mr. Caselli.”

“Fucking Menace!” I roared, tossing myself back onto the bed, and whipping the covers from my body.

She grabbed a pair of sweats, picked my shirt up from the floor and got ghost. I hit the button on my night table to turn the heat on the floors up more and then went to shower. Grabbing a fresh washcloth, I climbed into the shower and grabbed my body wash.

One.

Two.

Three…

I counted the amount of times I squeezed the shower gel onto the washcloth. The waterproof clock on the wall told me the time, and I spent the time washing my entire body four times.

If I didn’t wash my body four times, then I wasn’t clean and then I couldn’t function for the day. As a child, I remember my father forced me out the shower because we were running late. A nigga broke out in hives because I felt like I was dirty.

My mother had to pick me up from school because the shit was so bad. It wasn’t easy having my brain wired like this. The shit became exhausting to myself and the people around me, but I couldn’t function if I didn’t do the things that I had to do.

As I wrapped the towel around my waist, I looked in the mirror and grabbed my pill bottle. Popping two pills, I swallowed them without water while looking in the mirror at myself. I was so much to so many, and nobody really even knew the real me.

It was hard letting someone in and never knowing their intentions. My uncle fucked over my father, so how the fuck was I supposed to trust people? Trust was something that had to be earned, and even then, you had a few years of me really watching you to see if you were as solid as you portrayed.

When I came out the bathroom, housekeeping was already making my bed. She smiled at me as she continued with the same routine while I entered the closet to get dressed to head down to work out.

Everything in my life had a schedule. If you worked in my house, then you knew the schedule and moved accordingly. I liked things to move how they were supposed to.

How it moved in my mind.

Tossing on a shirt and shorts, I grabbed my sneakers and carried them downstairs before slipping them on and heading to the bottom level to work out for the morning. Hitting the buttons on the wall on my way into my state-of-the-art gym toggled on my song of choice.

Viva La Vida played through the gym’s speakers as I nodded my head and started to stretch. I started on the treadmill, running six miles before moving to each machine while the song played on a loop.

I sang that shit in my head every morning while working out, even when I was out the country. The song had no use for me once I completed my workout. It was like fucking a bitch and once you got that nut, everything disgusted you.

Including her.

Alone in my own world, I completed my workout, snatching a water out the fridge and then heading upstairs. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I saw my sister’s name and quickly answered.

“Kora, you good?”

“I am always good,” I could picture her smile, even over the phone, as I leaned in the kitchen and accepted the smoothie from Lupita.

“Tacos, Menace,” she stressed, wanting me to try anything but what I had her ass making. We had a rotation of meals I liked, and she was always trying to get me to try something new.

“Pasta… sauce on the side.”

She groaned and then smiled at me before going into the pantry. “I’m almost certain Jefferey Dahmer ate his pasta the same way. Mav, when are you going to try it mixed together… you’ve been doing this since a child.”

“Why am I getting a call from you?” I switched the subject because I wasn’t having fucking tacos, and I wasn’t mixing my damn pasta.

She sighed. “I’m off today and figured we could do something. It’s been a while since we’ve done anything together and I miss you, Mav.”

I smiled. “Miss you, too, K.”

“I have a few online meetings this morning. Text me and let me know what we’re doing, and I will meet you there.”

“Bet.”

“Have you spoke to Zoya?”

“Her man still alive…so no,” I nonchalantly replied.

“I didn’t hear that… see you later.”

“Yeah.”

I ended the call and watched as Brown floated into the kitchen, then tried to double back when she noticed me standing in here. “Where the fuck you running to, Purple?”

“It’s Greene,” she corrected as she slowly turned around.

I stared at her. “Is that not a color?”

“Yeah… I guess.”

“Where you going?”

She looked down at her clothes and then the bag she wore on her arm. “Oh, no where… just going to run some errands. Beans is coming to pick me up to take me… my car has been acting funny.”

“You fucking Beans, Purple?”

“No… I swear. We’re really good friends.”

I took a sip of my smoothie. “You wanna fuck him, huh?”

She looked away. “Mr. Caselli… um, Menace, we’re just friends.”

I looked at my watch. “Since Corleon wanted to make his move on Jeffie, you bitches think this is actual Case House in this bitch… just swapping spit and shit with each other,” I ranted and looked across the room at her. “Where were you going? I know for a fact Jeffie left some shit for you to do.”

I watched as she walked further into the kitchen. “Stevie is bored. She was telling me how she loves Legos, and I think that it might be fun for her to do. I was going to pick her one up.”

Looking at my watch, then back at her. “I’ll do it.”

“You?”

“The fuck is the problem, Lavender?”

“Nothing… I mean, I could tell Beans to leave.”

“Do that, Lilac.”

She rushed off to tell Beans to leave, and I made a mental note to ask his ass what the fuck was between them. While she was acting all coy and not wanting to say what it was, I knew Beans would give me the real.

My Wonder was bored, so I was going to take the first step and offer the truce. If she wanted Legos, then I was going to give her Legos.

A couple minutes later and she was texting me the address to the nearest mall to me. I headed up the steps, removing my sneakers, and went to shower for the second time today. Three showers a day kept me from feeling like I was losing my mind at times. On the way up to the third level, I looked down the hall at the room that Wonder was staying in.

The door was cracked, and I could hear music coming from the inside of the room. Brushing off the urge to head down the hall, I continued up the stairs to my bedroom.

“You’re what?” Kora did a terrible fucking job with her fake ass whisper.

She followed behind me with her Hermes Box Kelly Sellier propped on the crook of her arm, button down shirt, and linen shorts with a matching belt to her purse. Her curls were perfectly coiled, and she continued to follow and study me as I picked up different boxes of Legos.

Kora was the Hilary Banks from the sitcom Fresh Prince Of Bel-air with brains, and she didn’t have a father as a judge, she was the judge. While Zoya loved to hang in the hood and mess with niggas that didn’t deserve her spit on their face, Kora was different.

She dated men, usually White, and they nine times out of ten had a trust fund and their father had a hair piece. I knew she played it safe after her last situation, and one would never know if she truly liked these men or just used them to pass time.

The shit didn’t keep me up at night, so I didn’t care what she did. While Kora cared about her brother’s sleep, Zoya could give a fuck if I never slept a day in my entire life. She loved to cause me stress and push my buttons.

While both my sisters were big fucking deals and handled business, they handled it different. Zoya was a fucking big dawg, shark, and whatever animal that described someone who got the shit done.

Kora was quiet with hers, however, get her to that point and she was handing out football numbers and letting you know she wasn’t to be fucked with in and out the courtroom. Despite their differences, they were thick as thieves and leave it to Kora to always try and defend Big Zoya’s fucking honor.

“I paid for that expensive ass school, so I know you know what marriage is.” I pointed to one of the boxes and let one of the workers know I wanted it.

He quickly came over and smiled. “Is that all you want, Sir?”

See, I could respect a man like Josh. He came right over ready to assist and not ask if I could afford the nearly three hundred dollar set. If anything, the man was ready for me to spend more money with him, and because he didn’t start out pissing me off, I was going to do just that.

“I want to grab a few more things.”

“No problem. I will take this upfront and if you need help, let me know and I’m your guy.” He nodded and took the set from me and went to the front.

“Maverick, what in the world is going on?”

“Marriage, Kora… I’m marrying this woman because if I don’t then we won’t be the third founding fucking family anymore.”

“There isn’t any other way around this?”

“No.”

“If this was legal documents, I can probably find a loophole,” she muttered. “Are you forcing her to marry you?”

“We have an agreement. I keep her father and shitty best friend alive, and she marries me,” I explained as I picked up a set that was shaped like an old school radio. “Think she would like this?”

“Maverick, you getting married scares me.”

I paused. “Why?”

“Well, you have never had a relationship… not since.”

“Don’t go there.”

“I’m just saying… that relationship never counted. I think it truly fucked you up from giving real love a chance.”

I ignored my sister and continued to pick out different sets, sitting them on the floor while Josh ran behind me to grab them and put them behind the counter.

A man that is about business.

“We’re not going there.”

“How do you expect a marriage to work?”

I paused, blankly staring down at my sister. “She’s living with me.”

Kora nearly toppled into the display of ‘Twilight’ sets when I mentioned she was living with me. “Living with you? So, this is real… why haven’t you told me? You’re in love, Mav, I can tell.”

I laughed. “You can’t tell shit because everything is new… I barely spent time with her because I was in Japan, and then she went off on me last night because I didn’t call her while I was away.”

“Why didn’t you call her?” Kora folded her arms with her expensive ass bag still on her arm. To know Kora was to know that she was going to spend money on purses and clothes.

We had that same thing in common. I could get a pack of regular white T-shirts, but wearing a nearly two-thousand-dollar shirt felt better because I could.

I’d like to think every time I spent money my uncle was Harlem shaking in his grave with anger.

“Why should I?”

“Maverick, seriously? This woman is going to become your wife, share our last name and you’re asking why you should call her? She’s not Kim… this is different from how you treat her. Have you taken her on a date?”

“Nah.”

“Jesus, even Landon knows how to treat a woman. How are you this dense when it comes to understanding women?”

“I understand how to fuck, Kora… all I’ve ever needed to understand.”

She paused, looking at the car Lego set. I watched as she put it on the floor and then continued to look up at me. “It’s clear I haven’t had a heart to heart with Jeffie in a while. What does she think of this?”

“It was her fucking idea.” I read the back of the Lego set four times while listening to my sister ask a million questions.

“I haven’t been to the house in a wh⁠—”

“Six months.”

Kora took the box from me. “You only count obsessively when you’re stressed or nervous. Which one is it, Maverick?”

“I don’t like the way I feel when I look at her, K.”

She was trying to figure out where I was going with what I was saying. “Is she a negative person or something? If you have a bad feeling about her… don’t go through with it.”

“Last night I came home, and she was in the living room eating snacks and crying watching a movie… loud as shit by the way. I didn’t pay attention to the crumbs I’m sure was on the couch or the volume of the TV, I was more concerned about why she was fucking crying… I don’t like that shit.”

Kora smiled as she pushed the box back onto the shelf. “You like her, Mav.”

“I still don’t know why the fuck she was crying and the shit still bothering me. Then she don’t want to tell me because this is business.”

“You’re Maverick Caselli. You don’t ever have to put in any work when it comes to a woman. Kim would come to you right now if you called her… there’s never been a moment when you had to let your walls down and actually get to know a woman, and I’m not talking about her. She must be remarkable for you to actually care. Mav, you have to make her comfortable, allow her to lower her walls to let you in. Plan a date without Jeffie’s help and actually take her out to know her.”

There has never been a time when I had to put in the effort. I never cared to get to know a woman’s name. There was never intimacy, or a deeper connection with the women I’ve had in the past.

Soon as we fucked, I was sending them back home in a black SUV. I never did that cuddling shit or pretending that it was more than just me getting a chance to relieve some stress. I learned early on being direct was what made things easier in life.

There was never any confusion when it came to being direct. I hated confusion and that was probably why I was counting the Lego pieces in the display that was above my sister’s head. If I had to blame anybody for this shit, I would have to say it was Ghost and fucking Rahmeek.

“Now you want me to do shit that I pay Jeffie and her flunky a lot of money to do?”

Kora laughed and checked her phone. “Yes. That shows that you cared enough to do something for her. As much as this was a nice little outing, I have to run.”

“Somebody always has to run, and then I never hear from none of you bitches until weeks later.”

Kora laughed. “I will call you this coming week. Maybe we can do something at your house… all of us get to know your wife before she actually becomes your wife.”

“Yeah.”

Kora hugged me quickly, knowing I would have denied her request for the hug. “Love you, Mav… okay?”

“Love you, too, K.”

She smiled before she picked her phone up and headed out the store. I nodded toward Josh, and he grabbed the last remaining Lego sets I wanted and then rang me up. I tapped my titanium card, while Josh and the other employees all decided to shut the store down to help carry all the bags out to the car for me.

Her ass better be so happy that she shows me all her damn teeth once I show her all these Legos I bought her.