He walked away. We watched him for a couple of seconds and eventually got into the whip. As soon as we did, Kiss and I exchanged looked. Zeke, from the backseat, gripped the headrests and moved up, to be positioned in between us.
“Jayceon,” Zeke said. “Out in Kingston. That’s the third time, brodie.”
I nodded and shifted my eyes to the rearview mirror, watching Scarface and his boys as they walked off. “I’m hip.”
“How we movin’?” Kiss asked. A second later, the sound of a lighter flickering off told me he’d sparked fire to a blunt.
“We not,” I told him, steady watching dawg and his niggas as they made their way back over to the courtyard. “Not yet.”
Looking away from the rearview mirror, I pushed the start button, starting the engine.
“Dumb ass nigga just out here droppin’ names,” Zeke said, sitting back against the seat. “Don’t know what type of time we on.”
“‘Xactly,” Kiss added.
I didn’t say anything. Drove off with a lot to think about.
“I can’t leave,”I said, talking to Jada. “Relax. You can chill for a couple of days, Jada.”
She pouted. “But, I miss you. I’m bored and—can I just come over there?”
I shook my head, resting against the back of the couch, arm crossed over my chest, watching The Bernie Mac show with moms. “You already know the answer to that question.”
Jada didn’t come around. Not because there was an issue or anything like that but because I was very intentional about the energy I allowed in my mom’s crib. Which was why I wasn’t fucking with no white ass nursing companies out here. Fuck that. Didn’t want no pasty ass white bitch moving around the crib, passing judgement and shit on us. I wanted someone from around the way. Someone with skin and roots that closely resembled ours. The home health companies out in Wildermere didn’t employ black people. All of that equal opportunity employer shit didn’t fly out here. They didn’t give a fuck.
When it came to Jada though, I kept her away because shit… her energy wasn’t always right. She came around one time and put on a façade. Got overly sweet. Started to overdo it, trying to impress OG. That was years ago. Before we moved moms out here. When I was fresh out from behind them walls. After that, I said nah… it’s a dub on shorty. I was big on authenticity and she lacked that. Which was crazy as fuck to me because she wastrying to impress a woman who wasn’t even all the way there mentally. Fuck was she putting on for someone who didn’t even know she was there?
Jada sucked her teeth. “I wish you would let that go. I was nervous.”
“Nah,” I snorted. “You was fake as fuck.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Shid,” I paused, smirking at Bernie Mac’s dumb ass. God rest his soul. We lost a legend, for sure. “Don’t you got about five hundred k followers? Talk to them mafuckas.”
Again, she sucked her teeth. I hated that shit so fuckin’ bad, bro.
“Six hundred, thirty two k,” she corrected. “And I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to talk at all.”
I shifted my eyes from the TV, to the phone. As expected, she was biting her bottom lip, on freak shit. I slouched down a little into the couch cushion, smirking at her. “And you think you about to come over here and eat dick while my ma in the next room?”
She grunted, slammed her hand on the mattress, having a tantrum like a little ass girl. “You get on my nerves.”
“You love it though.”
Rolling her eyes, she shrugged. “I guess. Can we do lunch tomorrow? Something? I’m bored, X.”
“What you do today?” I asked, shifting the conversation.
She placed a piece of her honey blond hair behind her ear. “Um.”
I stared at her, waiting for her to tell me what she’d done all day. I knew. I just wanted to see if she would be honest. If Jada was smart—which sometimes I wasn’t too sure if she was—she’d keep it one hundred with me. Her nerves and hesitation told me she wouldn’t. I didn’t press though. I stared and waited. Watched as she pulled her lips into her mouth. Noticed when shelooked off. And when she looked up at the ceiling, I noticed that too. She was nervous as fuck.
“I crossed the bridge.”
“What you do tho’?”
“You know what I did if I crossed the bridge, Exodus.”
