“Don’t youeverwalk up on her like that. I don’t give a fuck who your daddy is,” Rich’s icy voice booms from behind me.
The boy stops in his tracks. “My bad…I’m…I’m just nervous.”
“Rich…” I hiss under my breath. “He’s scared?—”
“Be quiet.” He reaches over, tugging my arm. “Come here.”
We’ve been here before with Wendell, but back then Rich and I were practically strangers, but now he’s seen me naked…and heard me moan his name out… and I’m in too deep to not do whatever he says.
So I grab my bag, crawling over the middle console until I land in his hard lap. He wraps his arm around my waist and the icy feeling of metal glides across my wrist.
My eyes jolt down.
He had snuck that intimidating black gun out of his middle console when I wasn’t looking and his finger hugs the trigger while his warm arm hugs my waist.
“You nervous, but you got a gun? How that make sense?” Rich asks him.
I narrow my eyes at the boy’s body until I see the bulge in the waist of his jeans that I missed.
“On my mama—it ain’t even loaded. I swear to God, man.” He yanks up the bottom of his hoodie, exposing his white T-shirt and the tops of his boxer briefs where the butt of a gun pokes out.
A car’s headlights flash on his round cheeks and soft features as it barrels past us through the intersection.
“Rich…” I mutter. “I…I think he’s just a teenager. He looks young.”
“Yeah, a teenager with a gun.”
“Man, I ain’t never even used it before. I swear,” he pleads, putting his arms back in the air. “I promise you—I don’t want no trouble with you, Pup.”
His arms tremble while he stands still even though Rich isn’t pointing his gun at him.
“Rich…just put it up. Put the gun up.” I gulp.
“Shhh,” he coos under his breath. “Look…”
I glance at the gun tucked into his hand. He swipes his finger over a tiny lever on the gun’s body, revealing a sliver of red.
“It’s just like an on and off switch,” he mutters. “It’s off now.”
The lady rests her arms against the driver’s side window as if she’s a casual spectator of our late-night drama. She’s so close that I smell a hint of whatever tart liquor is in her cup. It sits on top of her gourmand-scented perfume.
“I…I swear I ain’t see your mama, I swear I ain’t mean to walk up on your girl like that,” the boy stammers. “I swear.”
My mouth goes dry.
Mama?
Girl?
I take a deep swallow to quell the sticky dryness, and my eyes roam to LaTanya, who’s still resting against the side of the truck with her eyebrows raised. Now I see Rich in her full lips and the richness of her deep skin that I’m seeing up close for the first time. God, he looks just like her.
“Miss…” the boy rasps.
I stare at LaTanya’s lips and wait for her to say something to him, but she points past me instead.
I turn my head and the boy stares at me with his bushy eyebrows furrowed as another car drives by, honking. “Miss, I apologize. Can you please explain to him I was just distracted?”
Rich looks down at me while LaTanya takes a sip from her cup. I lean forward until Rich presses his hand into my stomach, signaling that I had moved far enough.
