My eyes jolt open to the back of his head.
He’s watching Sunny give me the best pedicure I’ve ever gotten while questioning me about the unfair life shit he knows too much about. Maybe this happens when I don’t follow the leader, or it could be what happens when he’s tipsy and consumed with a place that reminds him of Angie.
The Kidis on Planet Ace and he’s waiting for me to get back there to be with him.
I try to control my breathing as he cradles the solo cup in his hand and stares into the pedicure bowl, waiting for me to stop thinking about the small things in life—like the cost of a refill and pedicure.
“Because… it’s—it’s scary,” I whisper. “So Marcus don’t make me go and neither does she.”
He doesn’t say anything—not even when I touch the back of his head to see if his hair feels as soft as it looks like Brandy did. Instead, he leans into my fingers and lets me rub his curls with a curious stroke.
“It’s okay to be scared,” he replies. “I used to be scared, too.”
“Of the clinic?”
“Nah… of what happens at the end of it all. You know, when God decides they had enough and all the pain stops.” He pushes his head back into my fingers while I try to swallow his words, but they taste bitter.
I think I know why Angie stopped eating, but I can’t say the word. It’s a nasty word that we tiptoe around at home. Bryson blurted it once, and Marcus had to peel me off him afterward.
Ace nudges my hand off his head and twists his neck around to study Hahn’s perfect coffin shape. I squirm while he picks up each finger one by one like he knows better than a professionally trained nail tech.
He slides his fingertips against mine. “Neuropathy.”
“Huh?” I ask, crooking my head to the side and staring at his swollen lip Mama wanted me to ice.
“That’s why Mom loses the feeling in her fingers sometimes.”
“Who told you about that?”
“I heard you on the phone the other day when me and Marcus played ball.” He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth while I study his face, because he’s not like the other boys I liked.
That fat lip he’s sporting tells me all I need to know.
I reach out and pluck another one of the little curls on his head, poking my finger through its swirly opening until he tosses his head back and downs the rest of the champagne.
Afterward, he shoves a hand between my closed legs and scrapes a finger down the new welt that’s lying against my inner thigh. He stays glued there, watching Sunny and Hahn work while talking to them about their favorite topics—Hahn’s upcoming wedding with her partner Valerie and Sunny’s girl’s trip to Miami. He’s got the answers to their problems like whether Hahn should keep her crewcut for the ceremony and if Sunny’s friend-group should stay at the SLS on South Beach or FONTAINEBLEAU. The best part is when he ropes me in as if I know what any of it means.
“SLS for sure. It’s only right you hit up Hyde Beach,” he says. “Right, Lourdes?”
I nod, staring at his fingers massaging my inner thigh. “Sure...”
“Ace like to party, Lourdes. He like to dance and have so many friends.” Sunny giggles, wiggling her shoulders.
I don’t know this Ace she’s talking about, but I also can’t focus on what she’s saying because Ace’s fingers inch further up my thigh while he stares at Kendrick Perkins yap on his phone. She left out the part about him also being a good multitasker.
“Nahhh...” He smiles, squeezing my meaty thigh.
His eyes don’t leave his phone when he responds, but I see a flicker of sadness in them when he swipes to read a text message. The rough squeeze he gives my inner thigh tells me I need to put my eyes back on my phone.
At the end of our three-hour rendezvous, the bill is a whopping three-hundred dollars that Ace doesn’t flinch at. He thumbs through his wallet like he did at the bookstore and pulls out that heavy black card he’s always using. I search for Coach Williams’ name on the face, but Ason WilliamsJr.taunts me back for being nosey.
I hang beside him at the entrance, admiring Hahn’s coffin shape that makes me regretful that I’d been getting subpar sets from Minh. The shape is sleek, and the acrylic is so thin, they look like my own. I’m already rehearsing my lines to run Marcus’ pockets for the money to get to Uptown to visit Sunny and Hahn again.
Ace scribbles out a hundred-dollar tip like it’s five bucks and slides the receipt back to Sunny.
“You come back for champagne and rose pedi next week, Lourdes?” she asks, grinning from behind the register.
“Yea—”
