Shabu emitted a low chuckle. “Nigga, yo ass in love,” he jested, and Relic scoffed.
“Me and Larenn are different, ti frè. We don’t process emotions or situations the same as you all do. It’s not love, but we understand one another. I never had that before.”
“Just because y’all speak it differently from us doesn’t mean it ain’t the same language, bro.”
“You don’t get it. Does Savvy know where Kennedy’s parents live?” he asked, shifting gears before Shabu drove their conversation in a direction he wasn’t willing to go. “I don’t want to ask Tekken, but I will.”
“Why can’t you ask him? He ain’t feeling you fucking with his aunt?”
“According to what Toot told P in so many words, no, but that ain’t my problem.”
“It needs to be. Would Jah not fucking with Kennedy matter in how you see her?” Shabu countered. Relic didn’t respond but took it into consideration. “Whoop is on her way to the restaurant, though, so I’ll ask her. I doubt she’ll tell you ‘cause she’s team Kennedy right now.”
“I guess it’ll be a bummer for her when she finds out we’re still on the same team then.”
“A lie don’t care who tell it, but if that’s what makes you feel better while your so-called teammate is ducking and dodging yo ass, you got it.”
“Get the fuck off my line. I’m ‘bout to pull up on you ‘cause we got a situation to take care of before shit gets out of hand. Be outside.”
Relic deaded the call and stuffed his phone inside his pocket. Drish shot him a glance as he passed the shopping plaza, turning on the side street where the restaurant was located.
“I used to want a relationship like that with my big brother before he died.”
“What?” Relic shot him an exasperated side eye at the attempt to start a conversation, but Drish laughed it off.
“How you and your brothers are close and shit. I used to want that. Me and mine barely saw each other or spoke, but I told myself once I hit eighteen that I’d reach out and try to build a genuine bond with the nigga. I ain’t get that chance.”
“Why’d you have to wait to eighteen?”
“So, I could make my own decisions. My father’s side didn’t like the life my brother lived, so they kept me away from him and my mom. My momma didn’t fuck with my dad’s side either, so I figured it’d be easier without them having a say. It never crossed my mind he’d die before I got the chance.”
Relic’s gaze drifted to Shabu, who was sauntering out of the restaurant as they pulled up, and the regret he held for his brother intensified because Drish was enamored by an illusion they’d painted. On the surface, they were tight knit, but below it was nothing but trauma and resentment they’d both learned to wade over instead of diving into it. Relic avoided it the most, and he wondered if it made him as much of a pussy as he felt in that moment.
His mouth managed to quirk into a smirk after Shabu flicked him off before placing Navy to her feet. She dashed for her electric convertible that was waiting in the middle of the lot, and Relic slid out his truck, watching her sandy curls bounce wildly before his attention veered elsewhere, and his heart staggered. The silver sedan from earlier was creeping down the street in stealth mode.
A gun materialized through the driver side window, causing his mind and body to shut down—disconnecting with his surroundings before he accepted his pending fate. Another gunpeeking out the car’s back window to target his folks altered his decision in an instant and kickstarted his heart again.
“Grab my fucking niece!” he bellowed, snatching his gun from his hip.
He didn’t check whether Drish or Shabu noticed their opposition speeding toward them before he started letting off, striking their windshield just as a barrage of bullets lit up his truck and shattered the restaurant windows. Relic’s vision blurred in a blind rage, and his blood flow pumped in his ears, drowning out the sounds around him while he ducked behind his truck for protection, letting loose more rounds over its hood.
His senses glitched, but it did nothing to erase the last thing he’d heard that refused to stop blaring in his head... Navy’s tiny voice screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Can y’all hear it?I swear, it sounds like they’re fucking in the dressing room.”
“Swear! It was like thumps at first, and you can hear Aura moaning. We gon’ try to get closer. Hold up...”
Kennedy paused the braid she was putting in her hair and snatched up her phone from where she’d sat it on her vanity. When Lexi sent a video to the group chat for a kee, she didn’t think much of it, but hearingAura and fuckingin the same sentence had her invested.
Heat swarmed her chest as she restarted it and placed her phone against her ear. Her stomach knotted when she, undoubtedly, heard a husky baritone and Aura’s strained voice whimpering like a bitch struggling to take dick. The teenagers recording sniggered, and Kennedy couldn’t help but feel like she was the brunt of their fucking jokes for the simple fact, she hada clue who was in that dressing room with Aura. Her fingers moved with haste to inquire about it, and those three dots antagonized her until the reply she expected popped into their thread. A picture followed.
Kennedy stared at Relic’s smug ass expression as he was caught in 4K, mid-stride. Her tongue swept her teeth as she sent ashaking her heademoji before turning on her do not disturb to avoid their discussion about a nigga who dug her guts out like he was pussy deprived anytime they fucked, yet screwed other bitches in his leisure because he could. While he should’ve been putting Ronnie’s face on a shirt, he was getting his dick wet, and she couldn’t respect that he was putting irrelevant hoes before her needs.
Relic made it painfully clear he refused to reciprocate the unexpected feelings she’d grown for him. The least his ass could do was return her loyalty.
Kennedy untangled the braid she’d started and redid it while accepting that he’d chosen to do neither, refusing to beat those fuck nigga allegations. Her eyes wandered to the prepaid phone she had purchased while buying a new main phone since she refused to step foot in her apartment for the one she’d left in her closet. Unsettled nerves caused her fingers to stumble over one another because she knew once that phone rang, and she made her presence known; there was no turning back.
A hard knock at her room door made her glance over a shoulder, and she grinned as her dad opened it before he swaggered inside with a beaming smile that hadn’t left his face from the time she’d shown up at her childhood home on a whim. She hadn’t realized until he’d yanked her into a hug; she’d missed her parents as much as they’d missed her.
