“No, what’re you talking about?”
“Bryson texted you, talking about he wants you and him to hit Splashtown together this weekend.” He snorts. “I guess that means he wants to take you out on a date. I don’t speak basic. So...”
“Ohhh,” Cree sings, batting her long lashes. “Who’s Bryson? What’s Splashtown?”
“Un niño pequeño.” Ace flings his hand out, pinching his index and thumb together. “Y una fiesta de fraternidad.”
“¿La estás dejando ir?”
“Es tan curiosa como tímida. ¿No recuerdas tu primer año en la universidad?”
“Shit, no. It’s a blur.” Cree smirks. “Entonces, ¿qué va a hacer Papi mientras ella explora?”
“English.” I roll my eyes with a gasp. “Please.”
Cree smirks and takes another hit of the blunt before passing it to him. I wait for him to break another one of Coach Williams’ zero-tolerance policies. Bryson finally gaining the courage to ask me out isn’t at the forefront of my mind—Ace and this strange world he lives in is.
Cree’s red-rimmed eyes stroke my face, and she smiles bigger. “I was telling Ace that you must be a real good girl. He said you were and you’re pretty too.”
“Right.” I snort. “Girl, I’m from Texas. I know when a bitch is talking shit in Spanish.”
Cree and Ace howl out wild laughs. The humor doesn’t hit me in the same way because I’m the only sober one as usual.
“I’ll give ya’ll a minute to sort this out. I have a call to make,” she says, backing out of the bedroom and from the middle of another one of me and Ace’s impending battles.
When she tugs the door closed, my hands go back over my middle while he breaks another one of Coach Williams’ zero-tolerance policies. His pink lips cover the end of the blunt and I remember exactly why I hated his fine ass.
The wait for this one was worth it.
* * *
Ace
“Cree can’t dressyou like that, you know?”
“Like what?” Phat asks, shifting her body under my gaze.
“With you being uncomfortable.”
There’s nothing about her that reminds me of LA. She’s not like the girls there that know what it means when a man says, “I’m taking you somewhere.” She even packed a cute overnight bag like we were going to have a sleepover because she doesn’t have any expectations of me or any other man and I don’t like it.
“Well, I’m half-naked in front of you and some chick you went to prom with back in high school who acts like...like...” she sputters, and I wait even though I know what she’s getting at. “Like a girl you messed with, even though she claims she’s a lesbian.”
“I didn’t know you cared about the girls I messed with.”
“I don’t.” She frowns, like she’s trying to convince herself and me.
The truth of it all is that she’s unsure of me because she’s still listening to the outside world and the things they say about me. Mom says it’s what little ladies struggle with most—learning how to exist in a world that’s always telling them how to think, dress, and act.
That realization makes me take the biggest toke of the blunt I can muster. When the cloud of smoke dissolves in front of my face, Phat’s standing behind it—self-conscious, agitated, and hungry in a cheap ass bra and another pair of flowery panties I need to replace.
“Stop being weird and come here.” I cock my head back. “Let me talk to you.”
She huffs and crawls between my legs because I finally cracked her. When her back touches my chest for the first time, I get higher.
“How much will another forty-five minutes cost us?” she asks.
Us.
