I didn’t say nothing.
“You could’ve died in there,” she said and her voice dropped just slightly on the last part and that drop was what got me more than the words. “That man has knocked out almost everybody he’s ever faced and you just walked into that cage like it wasn’t nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing. You see I’m good out here. You don’t really know me like I thought you did baby girl.”
“Stop. Stop downplaying things!”
“Bri—”
“I’m serious.” She took one step closer and lowered her voice. “I see you. Okay? I don’t know everything that’s going on with you right now but I see you and I need you to know that.” She held my eyes when she said it. Not performing, not making it into a moment. Just straight. Direct. The way Brielle had always been with me when she wanted me to actually hear something.
That shit touched me in my chest in a way I wasn’t ready for. I didn’t know what to do while we were face to face after all this time, standing in front of a building at midnight beat up with forty thousand dollars in a bag twenty feet away from me.
“I’m good Bri. Thanks for caring. I didn’t even think that you cared about a nigga no more. The way you always disappear for years at a time,” I said. Quieter than I meant to.
She looked at me for another second like she was deciding whether to push or let it go. Then she let out a slow breath and that small tension in her shoulders dropped.
“You hungry?” she asked. She dropped the subject to something lighter.
That caught me off guard. “What?”
“It’s almost midnight and I know you ain’t eaten. I remember when you first started that street fighting stuff, you told me that you never eat before a fight. I remember that.” A small something crossed her face when she said it. A flash of all those years of knowing me that neither one of us talked about. “There’sa spot on Riverside that’s open late. Me and Simone was gonna go anyway.”
I looked over at Gutta and Simone. Gutta was still talking and Simone was still pretending she wasn’t amused by it and losing that battle steadily.
I looked back at Brielle.
Every logical part of me said I needed to get that money counted, put away and get in contact with Tavarus’s people to set up the drop and then handle the three niggas from the alley who were still very much on my mental list. They had to know that what they did wasn’t forgotten and wasn’t gonna be until I personally addressed it.
But Brielle was standing in front of me after having waited outside a grimy underground fight venue just to make sure I was standing and asking me if I was hungry. That shit was really all that mattered right now.
“Yeah, I could eat.” Was my response.
Something in her face shifted. Small. Quick. Gone before it fully showed up. “Okay.”
She turned to tell Simone and I stepped back toward Gutta who was already looking at me with the most entertained expression I had seen on his face in a long time. The nigga was really feeling Simone and he knew damn well, she didn’t go for niggas like him.
“Don’t even think about it. Get it out your head man. That’s a good girl.” I said low.
“I ain’t even did nothing, nigga.”
“You was thinking something loud as hell.”
“I was thinking we bout to go eat with two bad ass women at midnight after you just knocked out the most feared nigga in the underground and everything in life is good as fuck right now!” He picked up the bag and put it back on his shoulder. “I don’t see the problem. Worry about Bri stuck up ass, and I’m gonna focus on Simone. Cause what you don’t know is, good girls love hood niggas. Don’t be fooled.”
“Just come on.” I shook my head.
We fell in behind them and I watched Brielle walk ahead of me talking to Simone and something came over me. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. Not peace exactly. Something closer to it than I usually got. I guess that I was just content at the moment. Which made me nervous in a way that not even the thirty thousand deadline, the three men in the alley hadn’t made me nervous.
Brielle had always been the most dangerous thing in my life. I didn’t belong with her. I wasn’t the kind of man her family expected her to be with. As a kid, they made it known that I’d never be good enough for her. We came from two different sides of the tracks. She was born into wealth and money, while I was from the trenches. Raised in a hood by a single mother who did everything she could to give us the best out of life, even if that meant breaking herself down and working like a slave. The odds of me and Bri ever making it, that shit was slim.
The spot on Riverside was a twenty four hour soul food place that stayed open for the after hours crowd and smelled like fried everything the second you walked in. We took a booth in the back, me and Bri on one side, Gutta and Simone on the other, and I eased myself into the seat slow because my ribs were notcooperating. I wasn’t gone lie like I didn’t take a beating tonight. Hell, now, I was really feeling that shit.
Bri noticed. She didn’t say anything. She just gave me that look. She always wanted to be my momma and chastise me since I met her ass. This time, she didn’t say anything. The look said enough.
We ordered and the food came fast. I ate like I hadn’t eaten in two days which was close to accurate. Gutta and Simone had found some kind of common ground that involved them arguing about something I wasn’t listening to while still clearly enjoying each other’s company. I let them have that noise in the background.
It was me and Bri in our own separate conversation. Since I was a kid, whenever we were in the same space, she was all that I could focus on. The rest of the room just kind of fell back.
