That heavy card he swiped at Uptown Nails and in the bookstore isn’t stuck at the bottom of my backpack anymore. It’s sitting in my wristlet even though my first date with Bryson was long gone. I didn’t use it until Ace called me one night when I was starving and Marcus was missing in action, asking why it wasn’t being used like the control-freak he is:“How the fuck you sitting there hungry? You got a credit card in your wallet with a honeybun for a limit. Use that shit.”
Seeing his name pressed into the front of it every time I take it out to use it is another irrational thing that makes me high and want to follow him wherever he goes—even to the end of Planet Ace.
“I don’t know shit about Aspen in March.”
“You better not. That’s for me to teach you—nobody else.”
“Ain’t you supposed to be paying the credit card bill—not harassing me about men that I’ll never come across?”
“You damn right you never will. I won’t let you.” I smile against the phone. “I know one thing—you gon’ have us living in a cardboard box ‘cause you wanna buy jackets to wear in eighty degree weather and make Mom live off Uber Eats because I don’t make you cook like I should.”
“Take the card back then.”
“No. It’s an essential. That’s not something I take away. Twitter’s not essential, drinking when you not twenty-one isn’t essential, Brysonfor sureain’t essential.” He sucks his teeth.
I let out another quiet giggle at the slur in his words. “You can’t shoot threes when you drunk.”
I brush my hand against a plate while I listen to his soft breaths over the phone.
“I’m not drunk.”
“Then what are you?”
“I’m celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.
“The quicker you get Mom better and clean up the house, the quicker you’ll find out. How you wanna get home?” He talks fast in excited spurts that make me lightheaded.
When I don’t answer, he grunts out another drunken hum. “I asked how you want to get to me, baby? I’m letting you be grown again. Don’t fuck it up.”
Baby.
My stomach and ass get warm. It’s that anticipation again. It’s a wild way for my body to behave and I don’t think I’ll ever get used to him referring to me as something so intimate. I don’t know how we got here, but we are. It makes my stomach tingle with butterflies again.
“Gus...” I sigh. “Can Gus come get me?”
He chuckles. “Why you want Gus?”
“’Cause I been acting right this week.” I shake my neck like he’s there to see it. “I deserve to be chauffeured across town.”
It wasn’t like my other options were doable—an Uber would have him tripping out more because he couldn’t control who was behind the wheel and he wasn’t fit to drive his truck at the moment. Gus is the only realistic option, but I can’t let him think that. It’s a part of my addiction. I’m at the point where I know my substance inside and out and a part of knowing Ace is knowing how to control his control-freak ways.
“You been a’ight,” he mutters. “Let me see what I can do. You just get Mom taken care of.”
I smile while trying to plan all the excuses I can feed Marcus to get out of the house.
It’s not Lucy’s other day off so I have to keep my get out of jail free card tucked next to Ace’s black card in my wallet. Ace is way up on Planet Ace where I’m “baby” and nobody else can take care of “baby” or “Mom” like he can, so he’s tripping. I can’t have him call Jazmine while he’s tripping because I’ll fuck up the little slack he’s giving me to be “grown.” His grown is different from Mama and Marcus’—it’s not cursing, drinking, or going out to parties:“It’s just figuring out everyday life shit without me sometimes because I want to feel confident that you can take care of home if I ever have to step away.”
That’s the explanation he muttered to me on the phone after the credit card fiasco.
“You hear me, baby?” he asks.
“Yeah, Ason. I hear you.”
“I’ll send you Gus’ number.” He hangs up and the phone slides down the crook of my neck.
I scrub faster and rinse the last plate off so good Mama won’t have anything to say about streaks.
