“Have you at least talked to her?” Jelani asked. “Money said her pops died. Is she good?”
I bristled. Why the fuck were they so interested in my love life?
I turned to Slim. “I ever bother you about the chick in Brooklyn? Or you going back and forth with my sister?”
His face dropped.
I looked over at Jelani next. “I ever press you when you and Monica were beefing and making up every other day?”
“Hold up,” Jelani said, holding his hands up. “Not too much. Me and Monica good right now.”
“Exactly, I let y’all niggas work your shit out the way y’all see fit. We not doing group therapy about me and Nai. Leave it alone.”
Slim leaned forward. “I thought there was no you and Nairobi. You talkin’ to that new chick—what’s her name?”
“Patricia,” Jelani chimed in. “Ain’t she Nai’s handler?”
“Parker,” I snapped as heat crept into my chest. “When the fuck y’all niggas start gossiping like bitches?”
Jelani shrugged. “Just saying. Don’t be out here acting like you tough when we all know her being back is fucking with your head.”
I ignored the familiar ache that pressed behind my ribs. “Whatever. Tell Sean to holla if something’s wrong with the truck trackers,” I said, already turning to leave.
“That’s why y’all work so well,” Slim called after me. “Soon as shit gets uncomfortable, y’all both run.”
I flinched but kept walking and let the door slam shut behind me.
I was letting myself into Nairobi’s apartment an hour later.
I told myself I just wanted to see if she’d changed the locks, knowing she hadn’t. Nothing about this place had changed. The familiar warm scent of tobacco and cream clung to the air like she’d just left.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat at the kitchen island, and as the minutes passed, I started to doubt myself. This was doing a lot. Not that I hadn’t pulled this move before, but she was purposefully avoiding me. She didn’t want to see me, and all I was doing was setting myself up to be pissed off and hurt all over again. But I didn’t leave.
My chest tightened hearing her keys in the door.
“I’m trying to understand how twenty million dollars just disappears between several accounts,” she said to someone on the phone, tossing her keys in the bowl by the door. She dropped her bag and kicked off her shoes, not even glancing in my direction.
“My mother says you’ve been Sterling’s accountant for fifteen years, and suddenly you don’t know where his money’s gone?” she continued, voice sharp. “How the fuck does that work, Mr. Cloverfield?”
I took a slow sip of my beer, watching her pace the living room like she was ready to throw her phone through the wall.
“The man paid you a six-figure retainer, and you can’t tell me shit about shit.” She threw her hands up. “I promise, you really don’t wanna know what’ll happen if I find out you had something to do with these accounts being drained.”
She turned, halfway listening to whatever excuse he wasspinning on the other end, freezing when her eyes landed on me.
I held her stare, raising my beer. “Hey,” I said.
She hung up. “We’re doing this again?”
She breezed past the kitchen without waiting for an answer and headed down the hall. I heard the shower running a moment later.
I laughed under my breath and followed her. The bathroom door was wide open, the mirror already fogged. This felt like déjà vu—a scene from two years ago playing out all over again.
“What happened the last time you broke into my house?” she asked, peeling out of her clothes like I wasn’t standing there.
“I still have a scar from that.”
“I should’ve shot you.”
