That makes my hands fall on her soft stomach and stroke the little red welts that are always there when they shouldn’t be. “What you need forty-five more minutes for?”
“‘Cause y’all blowin me.”
I chuckle, letting my head fall to the side.
“Now tell me how much,” she adds.
“Well... the kid’s frustrated today. She had to get picked up by a strange man after taking care of Mom all day, sit in Houston traffic, got in trouble for telling Twitter our business, got asked out on her first date... and now... she’s just tired from trying to control the vibe. Most important, though,she’s hungry.”
I knead her stomach with my free hand while the blunt I shouldn’t have burns in my other.
She lets out a tiny yawn and pulls her knees up to her chest. Having her so close while I’m lifted isn’t good because I know we can’t go back to how things were. I won’t let us.
“By the time Cree finishes taking care of you, it’ll be twenty-four hours since she landed in Houston. So hourly rates turn into daily rates. That’s two-thousand dollars for a day spent fucking with us, kid.”
She nods and closes her eyes as if the wasted two-thousand dollars is my punishment for pushing her limits and tricking her into being my brain for the night. This is version two of her—the one that gives me hell.
“And we have to tip her, too.” I grip her braids this time to peek at the welt on her neck. “Can’t forget that shit. She’s a new business owner.”
“How you end up being friends with her anyway?” she asks, pushing her head into my chest and forcing my hand away from her hair.
Cree’s voice grows louder in the living room. We’re holding her up from getting back to Javier, but she won’t say it out loud to me. She never does. After everything that happened, she tiptoes between us, keeping us as separate as she can.
“I’m waiting...” she sings. “You took my entertainment away. The least you can do is tell me about your lil’ prom date.”
“Me and her brother Javier were cool first. We met at a basketball camp my Pops put on when we were younger. He ended up playing ball with me at UCLA.”
Her body tenses, and she lets out a tiny hum.
“Me and him don’t talk anymore, but I stayed cool with Cree after...”
“After what?”
“After... things changed.”
I don’t know how to describe that time in my life. I don’t think Pops does either because the change happened so quick—in one night, to be exact.
“Hm... what about your other friends?” She ignores my vague words and picks at a piece of lint from the rug Mom picked out last summer.
“What other friends?”
“All the ones Sunny was talking about.”
“They were never my friends.”
She twists her neck, looking up at me with wrinkled eyebrows. “But you have at least one friend besides Cree, right?”
“Ain’t no real friends in my life. It’s always been a bunch of takers around—people that want, but don’t give. So, it’s just me and Cree.”
“She’s not a taker?”
“Nah... she just wanna see me live.”
“And you mean to tell me you neverfuckedher?”
I smile, squeezing the pudge at the bottom of her stomach until she pushes my hand away.
“What you know about fucking?”
