She bites into her lip and glances at the space where our skin connects.
“I care about a lot of things,” she mumbles.
“Like?”
“Nothing.” She shakes her head. “Who was he anyway?”
I reach out and pinch a piece of the bear claw dangling from her hands. The little taste of her I sucked out of the Bubble Yum was long gone and I wanted more. I was just as hungry as she always was. I even wanted whatever was underneath that “nothing.”
I push the dough into my mouth, trying to suck as much of her as I can off of it. “A sports agent who says he can make my wildest dream come true.”
“And that is?”
“Playing in the NBA.”
“That’s your wildest dream? To play in the NBA? He thinks you need help with that?Youactually think you need help with that? Your daddy is fucking AW. You can speak different languages. You live in a penthouse with a view of the city. Yeah, some shit went down, but keep it a buck. That’s really your wildest dream?”
“That’s what he thinks my wildest dream is.”
Really, it’s Pops’ dream and he’s so good at twisting my brain around that sometimes I think it’s mine too.
She huffs, shuffling against my stomach and sucking the tips of her fingers Hakeem Olajuwon hadn’t touched. “If playing in the NBA isn’t your wildest dream, then what is? What else could you possibly wan—”
“To hear my Mom’s voice again,” I blurt. “To ask how I’m supposed to survive this dumbass world without her? That’s my wildest dream. I don’t think he can resurrect the dead though. Do you?”
Her finger pops out of her mouth and her lips droop into a frown that I want to suck on because I’m saying too much shit.
“You know, she’d probably tell you it ain’t always you against the world.”
“Then who the fuck else I’m supposed to go against it with?”
She stares at me and her lips lift a little. She’s looking at me like she sees Mom somewhere in my eyes and how hard life is when the world don’t look at you with hope anymore.
“Your co-pilot.” She drops her hand, shrugging. “Wasn’t just one person on the dream team.”
I thrust my head back and close my eyes. “You something else, kid.”
“Nah, you are. Your mama wouldn’t hate none of whatever it is you got going on up on Planet Ace. I give you permission to torture yourself with the what ifs sometimes.” She rolls her eyes up. “As long as you give your co-pilot permission to tell you when you had enough. It helps.”
“I thought I told you there’s nothing that can change what happens in the present and to stop harping on it.”
Waiting for her voice with my eyes closed has my other senses so heightened that I feel all of her—her hot pussy, the sticky wetness on her thighs, and the gentle thump of her hands falling on my chest.
“That’s that shit your daddy put in your head,” she whispers, scraping her nails down my skin. “But at home you can harp on whatever you want. I won’t tell nobody thatThe Kidmisses his mama sometimes. Shit, sometimes I be missing mine and she still here. My pilot is the only person who understands what I’m saying when I say that though.”
Only kids with mothers like ours would ever get what she’s saying.
I pull my eyes apart and find her staring at the tattoo of Mom over my left pec.
Mom’s smile rests underneath her fingernails. It’s bright like it was on the program CeCe wanted. The mega-church pastor Pops asked to preach at her funeral flashed it to the empty church. He told us to remember her as the Angie she was before the sickness got ahold of her, but he didn’t know any better. Moms like ours were to be cherished as the ladies they were before and after.
“We both know Angie and CeCe ain’t just have their friendship in common. It’s deeper than that. I’m learning that all of this shit might be deeper than what I thought.”
I hope that last line is for me. I’m desperate to tell her that shitreallyisn’t what it seems and out of all the girls I’ve ever touched, she’s the only one that would get it but Pops and Quame made sure I’d never have the chance to open my mouth about that night ever again.
I push up from the truck’s hood while she stares at my chest.
I’m still hungry and I need more than the innocent little tastes I give her to settle that burning emptiness in her stomach because I’m bigger, with more experience and baggage than I hope she’ll ever have.
