“Nah, nah.” Mama gags. “Phat always trying to give me that chalky ass shit.”
“Yeah, but you never had it like this. I got something special just for you.”
“For real?” Mama gasps like he went to the factory and mixed up a special bottle of Ensure for her.
I choke on a giggle until I hear him rustling through a plastic bag.
“Yeah. I told you, you an OG Kush type of lady. I soaked them in clear Ensure just for you. All you need is one. It’ll calm your stomach and by the time you done at the clinic you’ll be ready to eat all the shit you never thought you’d want anymore. How that sound?”
“Mhmm.” She hums. “You and Marcus one and the same, you know that, right? Coming in here sweet talking and bearing gifts. What you want?”
They laugh together again until Mama’s low humming bounces off the walls. She only hums when she’s eating something she has no business eating. Ace’s deep laugh makes my lips climb higher until he blurts out a string of words that make Mama’s humming stop.
“Can I spend time with Lourdes while you’re at the clinic?”
Their voices stop and my foot gives out. I stumble over the side of the tub, gripping the edge of the sink and missing Mama’s answer to his bold question. It doesn’t sound like something a boy like him would even think to ask, but everyday I’m learning more about how wrong I am about boys like him.
A gentle knock on the door makes me pull myself upright.
I clear my throat. “Yeah?”
“You lost in there?” he asks.
“Nah… I—I’m coming.”
“Yeah, I know you are. Come on. I’m waiting for you.”
* * *
Mama’s appointmentsat the infusion center last for four hours. So, that’s four hours of being stuck with Ace and a body full of angry hives after we drop her off. She was so happy to ride in a Porsche she didn’t even notice the cup in his hand on the drive to the Medical Center. Shit, her eyes were so heavy from Ace’s concoction it wouldn’t surprise me if she was already asleep at the clinic.
“You can go to jail for that,” I mutter, glancing at the red solo cup in his left hand as he whips underneath the highway.
His buttery leather seats hug my back and I try hard to train my eyesnotto stare at him, but it’s an impossible thing to do—especially ever since he asked Mama that question.
“I ever tell you what the one and only rule is in the spaceships on Planet Ace?” he replies.
One of those half-smile half-frowns covers my lips.
Planet Ace.
That shit didn’t freak him out.
I roll my eyes. “Nah. What’s the rule?”
“Pilot.” He flicks the turn signal on with the hand holding the solo cup and then gestures toward me with it. “Co-pilot.”
His rules are just gibberish because I’m hungry again. The thirty-minute ride to drop Mama off worked my appetite up so much that I’m jonesing for his taste. I’m not brave enough to articulate to him that the way he describes my craving for him is even hive-inducing.Hunger. I don’t think I’ve ever been hungry for a boy until now.
“Well…pilot. You going the wrong way. My nail shop sure ain’t this way.”
“Never question the pilot,co-pilot.” He snorts, dropping the solo cup in the cupholder between us and pulling a Dum-Dum from the other side of it. “I know where the fuck I’m going.”
“You sure about that? That tattoo on your stomach says otherwise.”
LA.
The quintessential hand-sign thrown up by a girl wearing acrylics and rings sits at the base of his stomach, covering his bellybutton. It was the only tattoo I had time to drool over before he dropped his t-shirt back at the house.
