“Teaching the boys how to throw jabs? A German Chocolate cake from Copeland’s?” I mutter back. “You wanted me to sneak away again.”
He lets out a low snort, jutting his chin toward the gym’s entrance. “Who was that dropping you off?”
“There’s this nifty service that exists. It’s called an Uber. I took one.”
He laughs harder, mumbling out, “Okay, smartass.”
I teeter around in my heels, waiting for the shame to cover my body because of how easily I let him lure me here, but it never comes. It’s somewhere in the abyss.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t sneak away anymore?” he asks. “You don’t know me, remember?”
“I know it’s your birthday. That’s one of the most important things to know about somebody,Pup,” I shoot back, waiting for that mucky feeling to consume me like it had all week.
It doesn’t come, though. It’s in the abyss with that shame he won’t let me feel.
He smirks. “Pup?”
“That’s what people call you.”
“Yeah…but not you.”
“Well, I hear everybody else calling you that. Mr. Copeland sayseverybodycalls you that. He says you’re the last of a dying breed around here.”
He laughs, lazily waving his hand. “Mr. Copeland talk a lot.”
“Right. So where should I put this cake? I have somewhere to be.”
I thrust the box out at him to remind myself of my mission: sit the cake down and go.
He twists his busted lip to the side. “So you told Faye you was gon’ go pick up my cake and bring it to me…straight like that?”
“I—”
“And before you start… lying is a sin, remember?” He blinks down at my empty ring finger.
This time, I stuffed it deep into the bottom of Yesenia’s purse before I left home.
“I told her I’d drop it off to you on the way to my friend’s place—not that it’s any of your business or anything.” The words shoot out of my mouth and my stomach sinks until Rich flashes his white teeth at me.
His gums are healing. Their natural pink color enmeshes with the purple that’s disappearing, and ever since I saw him at Lucky’s, I’ve been imagining what my tongue might feel like gliding against them.
“Oh, that mean friend you always lying on when you tryna come see me? The braider?”
“‘When I’m trying to come see you?’” I scoff, rolling my eyes.
“That’s what I said.”
“You know, this is what I get for trying to do something nice for somebody so cocky. Faye acted like the world would end if she didn’t get this cake to you today, so I did her a favor and brought it to you while I was on my way. That’s it and that’s all.”
I look past him, inhaling the mixture of metal and sweat that sits in the air inside Worthing.
He lets my words linger in the quiet space between us, and I start to apologize for taking things too far until he rasps out, “You wore shoes like that in New York?”
I look away from the George Foreman poster tacked on the wall and find Rich’s eyes trailing down my legs again. They stop on my boots that I fretted over. I don’t think he even heard anything I said.
I twist my ankle, looking down at the heel. “Yeah. Why?”
I can’t even dissect the obvious red flag he waved at me because I’m too consumed with hearing his answer. How’d he even know I lived in New York when I never told him? Maybe Aunt Faye told him.
