My eyes drifted toward the ceiling again, but this time my thoughts weren’t on blood or money transfers. I found myself trying to picture what the apartment would look like with furniture inside it. A couch, a real bed, and maybe even a dining table would really spruce this place up.
“You thinking again?” Booda murmured.
“I can’t help it.”
“You overthinking?”
“Maybe.”
“Then it’s time to get up. Fuck that rain. A little water ain’t gon’ hurt us.”
Booda unraveled himself from around me before standing and holding his hand out toward me. I stared at it for a second before finally taking it and letting him pull me up from the floor.
A couple of hours later, we were walking through one of the bigger furniture stores on the north side while it continued to pour outside. I slowed near a cream-colored sectional big enough to damn near swallow my whole body and pressed my hand against the fabric.
“This will be comfortable as hell,” I said, a giant grin spreading across my face as I thought about no longer having to sit on the floor.
Booda dropped down onto it immediately, spreading his arms across the back. “Yeah, this is hard.”
I smiled a little at how fast he made himself at home. Even relaxed, wearing a dark hoodie and jeans, he looked like he owned half the city, and I loved every minute of it—until people noticed him. Women especially.
My eyes narrowed when a saleswoman walked past slower than necessary, her attention lingering in our direction.
“What?” I asked, trying to figure out why she thought it would be cool to stare at him while I was standing there.
She blinked. “Nothing.”
“Mhm.”
She hurried off after that, suddenly real busy with fixing pillows on another display.
Booda laughed under his breath. “You stay ready to cuss somebody out.”
“‘Cause bitches stay staring.”
“They keep staring at you.”
“No.” I waved him off, still watching the saleswoman out of the corner of my eye. “That hoe was definitely looking at you.”
Booda grinned but didn’t argue.
I ended up buying the sectional, a glass dining table, a king-sized bed, and enough other shit to make me slightly nauseous every time another total popped up on the screen.
And somehow Booda still kept finding more things.
“Get the rug too.”
“We do not need a damn rug.”
“Yes, we do. Rich people got rugs.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nigga, rich people got sense too.”
“Nah. They definitely be buying dumb shit,” we argued playfully.
By the time we finally left the furniture store, my phone had rung seven times. Giani had called again and again and again, and I ignored it each time. After what had happened last night at the club, I wasn’t ready to deal with her yet, if at all. One thing I was not going to do was play with a bitch or keep anyone around me that didn’t mean me any good.
“Where we going next?” Booda asked as we headed to the car.
