He shrugs and looks off into the living room while his mama yells outside.
“Did they get into trouble at least?”
He looks back at me, shrugging again.
“Hm…you’re quiet like your daddy,” I blurt absentmindedly.
His eyes perk up. “You know where my daddy is?”
“Wait, Rich isn’t your…” I wrinkle my eyebrows.
“Rich?” He wrinkles his eyebrows too.
I point behind me toward the backyard as Rich’s deep voice slithers under the back door.
“Oh, you talking about Pup.” He lets out a babyish giggle that makes me want to hold him to my chest like Rich did. “Nah, Pup ain’t my daddy, but my mama said he was supposed to be.”
Pup?
I snort out a chuckle at the nickname while ignoring the weird pang in my stomach. He grows quiet while I study him for any other injuries I might’ve missed.
“Jeremy Evans says I’m a faggot ‘cause I won’t hit him back,” he finally says, kicking his legs back and forth.
My body goes still. “And where did he learn that from?”
“His daddy.”
“Does Rich know all of this?”
He nods.
“And what does he have to say about it?”
“He say ‘Fuck Jeremy and his punk-ass daddy.’”
I let out a yelp and Ky laughs at the horror that’s probably on my face.
“Slim!” Rich yells from the backyard. “C’mon!”
Ky sucks his teeth. “Mama out there gettin on his nerves. I told her she can’t be doing that, or he ain’t gon’ wanna hang out with us no more.”
I shake my head and swath his nose with the rag like I used to do to mine. “Squeeze your nose and keep your head back.”
He rushes to hold the rag to his nose with both hands, and I scoop him back up because somehow I recognize that tone Rich used. It’s the same one Uncle Kenny uses on Aunt Faye when he’s heard enough of her complaining.
When I open the back door, she’s talking about me while Rich ashes his blunt out on the side of the house.
“So, who is that?” She frowns, folding her arms.
“Man, that’s Kenny and Faye Fairchild’s lil’ niece.”
“They know she be curled up in the back of your truck like that?”
Rich lets her question linger while he brings the blunt back to his lips. He puffs his cheeks out and blows out another cloud of smoke.
“You think I got the balls to fuck Kenny and Faye’s married niece with what I got going on with Kenny?” he asks.
His answer makes me pull Ky closer into my chest and head their way.
