“My fault, Gus.”
He sucks his teeth again. “Meh nuh cancel myLA Timessubscription yet and meh know yuh nah do it neither. Cool write-up dem ah give you two—me nah like de tacky headline though.”
“Ha!” I blubber out a guffaw. “That cool write-up got her hiding.”
That, my smutty ass past, and the pictures Blake had been bribing a Getty staff photographer to hold on their cloud until my time was up. It wasn’t like he gave me long. It only took a month for him to let loose on the havocIwrecked in just two months and at the end of it all, I still wasn’t anywhere closer to Pops’ NBA dream. After that night at the Toyota Center, Blake had probably tarnished my rep even more to any agent that would listen because he didn’t understand how precious perfect little ladies were.
“Meh figure so,” Gus replies. “Poor baby. She’ll come around.”
Poor babyis right.
My baby is curious, defiant, and worst of all—afraid. All of this shit had her regressing to the immature freshman I knew she was back when I first met her. All the trust I built between us went crumbling after one fucking night.
“But wha yuh expect? She’s nah built like yuh.” He glances at me in the rearview mirror.
“That’s supposed to be a compliment?”
It’s a funny thing to say because a nigga like me was made up of fucking putty—at least my brain was. It was so malleable from all the shit I was always chasing to make it solid like reporter’s voices and expensive tequila.
“Nah no compliment, an observation dat.” He hisses after rolling over a pothole. “Many men been in yuh position. They bask in glory when they up, but few could withstand the fall. You, meh friend, have withstood not one but two falls.”
“You fucking right I have.”
He chuckles while merging onto the highway.
“Hell, maybe even tree if yuh count this wholeLA Timesdebacle. Dem bastard reporters know how to irritate old wounds, eh?”
Boy, did they, and the funny thing about falls is how time consuming they are. You have to take the healing second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour or my favorite—peeling that corner of the bandaid little by little.
This fall ain’t no different. It’s been three days and twelve bandaids since I had my mouth on Phat’s. I should really fucking stop counting just like I should stop reading that article, but my soft ass brain didn’t have an off switch for things like that.
“I guess this is what happens when I go about things on my own to learn responsibility?” I snort. “Pops told me he’d been doing me a disservice and then says ‘fuck it’ and leaves me to fend for myself against a crooked ass sports agent all because of some pipe dream he’s holding onto.”
“Yuh ah give meh more loot to add to yuh chest?”
“Maybe...”
There wasn’t a lot left to add. Gus had it all in that chest—the backseat fights between me and Pops after he settled the dust with Cheyenne and her family, Mom’s crying fits every time a new reporter decided people hadn’t already heard enough about what happened to Cheyenne, and me. It took a year for the shock to wear off and when it did, I couldn’t keep anything down except that stinking tequila Gus always hated.
“Your fadda is human, Junior.”
“Aselfishhuman.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“I don’t know what it is about me that makes the world want to fuck me over.” I sigh, glancing at my phone, where more unanswered texts from Cree stare back.
Cree: Can you at least hit me back so I know you and Phat are good?
Cree: I told Javi I needed to stay back. I can talk to her if you need me to.
Cree: Can I call her?
It’s just like before. She’s stuck somewhere between the truth and a grey area under Javier’s watchful eye. Two years later and she’s still struggling with her loyalty to both of us.
“Listen... de world fucks usallovah, but what can we do ‘bout it?”
I flip my phone over and try to answer his impossible ass question, but nothing comes out because life is that bitch I can’t fuck and ghost no matter how many times I try to. She just keeps coming back through other people.
