She looks as hopeless as she did the day she told me she tripped and fell at Jamari’s apartment when I asked about a bruise on her arm, and her tears are back. They shoot down her cheeks while her knees fall into each other.
She sucks in a gasp. “You’re fucking her niece and she still thinks she’s Daddy’s. She’s tryna save our family and…and stick her nose in our business. This isnoneof her business.”
“Get out, Arnez.”
“Jamari was my man—mine.And you’remybrother. We ain’t hers?—”
“Get the fuck out.”
She shoots up from the bed, snatching her purse off the floor. “Fuck you, Pup.”
Senior doesn’t even let out a sigh as her feet pound against the floor and she charges toward the door. She yanks it shut on her way out, and the dream catcher she bought him slams against it with a loud clank.
“Everything all right back there?” Beatrice yells.
“Yeah!” I answer. “We straight.”
Me and Faye stare at each other like two strangers meeting for the first time.
She pushes the cap back onto the Sharpie she’s holding, and the quiet click echoes throughout the room. She folds her arms, leaning against the console table and letting her eyes brush the floor in front of my feet.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I know it’s Slim, and I don’t know how to tell Faye that Slim was the first thing on my mind when I woke up this morning—not what I did, not Arnez, not Melo, not Senior—just her niece.
“I thought it was Terrica that wanted you,” she mutters. “I thought it was the same as it was back in the day when Loviewould plot with Terrica because Terrica called herself liking one of the guys from the gym.”
“I ain’t…we ain’t sleep together,” I stutter, leaning forward.
She rubs the back of her neck, and her eyes trace the scratches across my face from Slim’s nails. Rasheeda had looked at them the same way when I met her on 288 to fix her flat tire yesterday. She tilted her head then folded her lips under her teeth as the cars on the freeway sped by, and I stuttered while telling her I couldn’t follow her home to fuck her and listen to whatever problems she had with her husband this week.
“I…I told her we shouldn’t be hanging out,” I mumble.
“You know, I saw the look on her face on your birthday and I knew something felt different.” She pulls her arms tighter against her chest. “She was asking a lot of questions she’s never asked before, but she’s been acting strange since she came back—stranger than normal. I mean she’s always been a strange kid, but I don’t mean that in a nasty way. She’s just been through a lot.”
She mutters the last part to herself as if she’s trying to keep all the shameful parts of Slim’s life from me, but I probably know more than she does.
She sighs. “I just thought?—”
“That she wouldn’t be interested in me even if we did cross paths. Because you raised her like her mama wanted her raised—away from here and away from people like us. You sent her off to private school, college, then let her go off to New York. You kept her as far away from the Bottoms as you could.”
Her eyes touch mine for a second, then dart back toward the floor.
“But you been distracted lately.” I glance at Senior while a hot pang stings my throat.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she utters.
“Come on, Faye. Ever since you popped back up at the house, you been easing back into your old self. You telling Kenny that you cleaning my house, but you come here instead. You telling Lovie you running errands for Kenny, but you here feeding Senior and keeping up with his appointments. I ain’t judging you because I do my best to not get in you and Senior’s business, but…” I huff. “Your life is different now. You got other shit to tend to.”
“I’m just trying to help. That’s all.”
“You said you would help withmyproblem even though nobody asked you to—not with this.” I point behind her toward the calendar.
“Look, I told your daddy I’d never go far, and I meant it for this very reason.” She glances at the bedpan on the floor beside his bed. “He can’t even get up and use the damn bathroom anymore.”
“That’s why B is here. She’s here with him twenty-four seven.”
“But Beatrice ain’t share a life with him. I did.”
I rub the back of my head and sigh. “Faye…c’mon, man.”
