“Don’t be lame. I promise I’ll keep my smart mouth in check as long as whoever it is don’t be talking slick shit—”
“Kid?”
My tongue gets caught on the roof of my mouth.
I know this voice.
I’ve listened to it rap millions of verses. It’s the only other voice besides Ace’s that can shut me up. It’s smoother than it is on wax and if I stay conscious throughout the night, I’ll try to commit it to my memory so I can describe its vibrato to Chelsea.
“I heard you a Houston nigga now. How that happen, Twin?” Dough laughs.
Even his laugh sounds good and full, like there’s no other place he’d rather be than laughing on a rooftop in Houston with me and Ace.
Ace takes my hands and laces his fingers through mine. “Still wanna dip on me and hit up Dave and Buster’s?”
“No—no,” I stutter, swallowing the nerves that come with meeting somebody like Dough for the first time.
“I thought so.” He smiles, turning around and keeping me hidden behind him.
Maybe he knows that this “just because” celebratory date might be the one to send me up into the sky with Marshall and Angie.
My sweat settles between our palms, and I rock back and forth on my heels. If Cree was here, she’d pinch my arm because creasing Chanels is just as blasphemous as keeping them hidden from the world.
“You know you never explained that I wouldn’t wanna go nowhere else when I found my way back home,” Ace says to him, laughing.
“Nah... see, I left that part out ‘cause I ain’t wanna scare you, but I guess I could’ve warned you that no other place feels as good.”
My stomach rumbles with the butterflies that didn’t use to exist there because they’re talking about me—little ole’ me that has the world at my fingertips ever since I fell in love with a man I couldn’t hate.
Ace tugs me from behind him and I choke on a butterfly’s wing when I see the cause of my sudden need to hyperventilate. Chelsea said it was the tattoos that had us hypnotized and God, I wish I could tell her how crisp they look underneath the lights strung across the restaurant’s patio.
He holds out his hand toward me. “Come ‘ere.”
Ace nudges me at the small of my back and I inch toward his butterscotch hand.
I grab it, and he squeezes it tight.
“Clo’ couldn’t come because flying makes her nauseated right now, so it’s just you and us tonight, baby sis. I wanna hear all about this rehab shit my brother been texting me about.”
I belt out a sigh and whip my head around. “Rehab?”
Ace’s lips ease up, and he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I told you I’d always fix it—even the hard stuff.”
* * *
Ace
Pops doesn’t believein fancy rehab facilities off the coast in Malibu, just like he doesn’t believe in losing.
“I see things ain’t changed much.” He takes a slurp from his thermos and leans forward, squinting at the grey brick building.
It’s so early that a rooster crows from the front yard of the house next door. My engine hums, covering the voices from the people walking across the parking lot. They all have salt and pepper heads and styrofoam cups of coffee.
“You sure about this?” I ask, twisting my keys out of the ignition.
“Would I ever let you do anything I wasn’t sure about?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
