“What about this?”I asked, pulling a tee from my closet.
Bobby gave it one look and said, “No.”
“What’s going on?”Keme said.
“It’s romantic,” I said.
“It’s a video game T-shirt,” Bobby said.
“It says ‘I’d pause my game for you.’That’s true love.”
“It’s dorky.”
“Bobby!”
“In a cute way,” he amended.
“I’d pause my game foryou.”
“I know, and I love you too.But that shirt is still a no.”
“I don’t know why you guys dragged me up here,” Keme said, “but I’ve got to go.”His voice was a little too loud, and his dilated pupils suggested an adrenaline rush.He was still clutching the flowers as he wheeled toward my bedroom door.
Bobby intercepted him, and with surprising gentleness, he loosened Keme’s death grip and set the bouquet on my nightstand.Hands on Keme’s arms, he squared the boy’s shoulders.
Keme’s eyes welled with tears.His breathing ramped up to a ten.
“It’s going to be okay,” Bobby said with a smile.“We got you.”
“That’s right,” I said.“I ampersonallygoing to guarantee that you will be spitting, uh, the dopest juice, and you’ll be ultra-fly, and all the single ladies—”
“Make him stop,” Keme whispered.
“Deep breaths,” Bobby said, chafing his arms.“And hang tight.”
Bobby did a quick—and brutal, and excoriating—survey of my closet before we moved on to his clothes.It took some convincing to get Keme to trade his hoodie for an oatmeal-colored chambray shirt.His hands were shaking so badly that Bobby had to take over and finish doing up the buttons for him.When it was time for shorts, he tried to insist on a red pair while Bobby and I urged him to take the navy ones.
Finally, I settled it by saying, “Do you want to look like mein a pair of shorts?Or do you want to look like Bobby?”
Keme decided to go with navy.
The sneakers looked like someone had made them out of the world’s coziest sweater, but in a good way—urban professional lumberjack, maybe?Obviously they were Bobby’s, and they came from one of his fancy display boxes, and he didn’t even wince or cry or anything when he handed them to Keme.
Shaking his head, Keme said, “I can’t—”
“Put them on, dummy,” Bobby said.
And for some reason, that worked.
“Hair?”Bobby said to me.
“On it,” I said.When Keme opened his mouth to object, I said, “Not up for debate.”
He endured it as long as he could, squirming and trying to wriggle away and growling when Bobby and I boxed him in.I finally decided enough was enough when he started baring his teeth (I was also pretty sure there was a growl happening).When we let him go, he scrambled over to the mirror to inspect himself.
“You look very handsome.”
He scowled at me.
