He cocks his head back. “He said what?”
“He says men are stupid.”
He swipes a bead of sweat from his forehead, muttering, “I warned Faye about this shit when she let you go down there. It’s bad enough he’s at my gym…but now…he’s talking to you. Next thing I know, he’ll be in my damn house eating at my kitchen table.”
“You make it sound as if he’s trash.”
“Listen, he ain’t what you think he is?—”
“And AJ isn’t who you think he is.”
“Me and Faye gotta sit down sometime this week.” His eyes scrape the coffee splatter on the porch. “I’ve done things her way for eighteen years, but I gotta draw the line some goddamn where. All of this is crazy.”
“So I guess this is my answer, huh?”
“Wha—”
“You never liked me living with y’all. It sounds like you just tolerated it.” I back away from him.
“That ain’t what I meant. You…you just need to stay away from that dude. You’re gonna get yourselfkilled.”
He hisses out that word I can never say. The one that Rich knows I hate. The one that Tony controls.
“You don’t even know him!”
“I know enough! And since he’s running his goddamn mouth to you, you oughta ask him the real reason Faye brought him over here to ask me for help. Ask what the streets are saying about him!”
“He told me why!”
“No, what he told you is a lie!”
A loud “oomph” barrels from the back of my throat as my back hits something solid. I turn and pull the knob on the back door, yanking it open.
“Lovie! I’m telling you, that dude is a wolf in?—”
I stumble inside and pull the back door shut.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
RICH
“Getthe fuck away from my door, Pup!” Arnez hollers.
Smitty huffs from beside me, leaning against the maple wood headboard we carried through Oak Garden’s courtyard and up the six flights of stairs to Arnez’s apartment.
I knock on the door again.
One of Arnez’s neighbors opens her door and pokes her head out, letting a cloud of smoke filter through the crack. Her red eyes float from me to the pieces of the queen-sized bed I bought, sitting on the ground next to my toolkit.
“If you would’ve told me y’all was fighting, I would’ve stayed my ass at the house,” Smitty mutters.
“We ain’t fighting,” I grunt, pounding on the door again. “Nez?—”
“You can leave the bed…and Smitty, but you gotta go!”
Smitty snickers.
