I cross my arms. “Lucy let you drink now?”
“Who the fuck is Lucy?” Marquise asks, laughing.
“No damn body.” Bryson narrows his eyes at me and I lower mine. “Gimme some Henny.”
Marquise shrugs and tilts the bottle over his lips, waterfalling it into his mouth.
My tongue curls behind my lips because I can’t forget the way it burned when I tasted it from Ace’s cup and the way he makes everything taste better—even nasty ass Hennessy and obsessive instructions to Mama. It’s more confusion for me to obsess over.
They let out hoots when another boy comes behind Marquise with a bottle of something I don’t know the name of. They push it my way, but I shake my head even if it is a “fuck Ace” night and my mouth is watering for him. It’s pathetic.
“C’mon!” Bryson shouts in my ear. “You gon' let me drink alone?”
“Yup.” I smile, bouncing my shoulders when DJ G5 switches songs. “This ain’t kindergarten, boy. We don’t have to do everything together. You got to grow up one day.”
He smiles like he did when I used to sneak over to his house to help Lucy make the masa for tamales. I almost feel bad for being stuck on a different planet with another boy until DJ G5 saysfuck all that.
“Man... please tell me my niggaHollywoodis in the building, or—or like that boy Dough say ‘The motherfuckin’Kid.’ I need to know the story behind this joint right here. I gotta take y’all back toCali-Califor a minute and if y’all see Hollywood on campus, tell that boy DJ G5 said welcome home to the H! Shit, you innocent in my book!”
I grin.
The Williams must be a religion in his house, too.
There are some feelings I can’t name—like the way the air tastes when I finally breathe it in after being stuck in the house for a long time or the tingling in my throat from rapping the words to one of my favorite songs about a boy I hate and like. That air I haven’t tasted in a while is sweet with Ace’s flavor fluttering in it as I shout out the words to a song I know by heart. It sounds different in a place full of other people that know it too. It sounds the best in Ace’s spaceship though.
The music cuts out and we’re left shouting about how Dough “been through some shit that’ll make the coldest nigga’s heart bleed” but he “came back likethe kidin the sweet sixteen.”
“He the lil’ nigga that laced me up, taught me to find home in my bitch now weglockedup,rockedup, all up on yachts andstuff, eatin’ lobster that Ason Williams’ private chef plateup.”
“Damn!” LaQuan shouts. “I told that nigga to come! I told him!”
I smile at his dimpled cheeks and my stomach flips with another feeling I can’t name—the one where life is sometimes as simple as overhearing the DJ shout-out your loner of a teammate after the world turned on him one summer.
“Bro, I got that on my story!” Marquise bounces on his toes. “Everybody rapped that shit! Everybody!”
A hard hand grips my waist and I look up, catching Bryson’s heavy eyes on me.
“You still obsessed with Dough?” he shouts, rolling his eyes.
I shrug, biting into my bottom lip and fighting off the butterflies swarming in my stomach.
The beat changes to a classic and another bottle I can’t name lands back at my lips. It teases me with the possibility of Ace’s taste swimming inside it. He was right about what he told me in our driveway. Getting a taste of what was in his cup that night didn’t make me want it ever again. Instead, it made me wanthimeven when he did things I didn’t like.
Bryson circles his hand around my waist while I stare into the clear liquid. “Come on, drink that shit!”
So I do.
I open my mouth and wait for him to pour. When it splashes against my tongue, I hold in a choke while I wait on Ace’s flavor, but he never told me it was so hard to find it on Earth.
That warmth he told me about in my driveway covers my entire body this time. It wraps me in its arms like Mama used to do when she was still herself and I’m still that lightweight that does stuff without Ace’s permission, so my body moves to the beat. Bryson’s hand sneaks around my waist as the music gets raunchier and I try to remember how Ace feels under my bare legs.
DJ G5 starts another song that reminds me of the type of boy Ace is. He’s the type that can produce little ugly reminders on my body that I’m one of those lifelong residents he was referring to, and he can make any rapper sound smoother just from dropping his name in a verse. They all swore they were “ballin harder than Ason Williams’ son,” but none of them really were.
“Oh, shit!” DJ G5 shouts. “We going up in the corner up top—throwing ass and taking shots! It’s definitely a Texaslituation!”
I swipe Bryson’s hand from crawling under my sarong as the music strokes my legs and I swallow another burning mouthful of clear liquid somebody dangles above my lips. Acehasto be floating in this one.
“Ugh.” I grimace as Marquise laughs.
