Page 3 of Just Like Summer

Kamilla saved face and nodded. She didn’t know the address. She’d been in the spin cycle of grief and barely remembered her name. All her energy had been used to remember her mother’s voice, her scent, the faintness of her laughter, and her face. She needed all of those things to stay at the front of her mind. Addresses weren’t important.

C4 studied her briefly. “Burger, pizza, tacos?”

“Home,” Kamilla offered in return.

“Not for nothing, I respect that, but you damn near cracked your skull open on a dirty corner store floor. Before I return you to whoever you belong to, in good conscience, I need to feed you.”

She muttered. “I don’t belong to anybody.”

He heard her. He felt that statement in his chest, and it threatened to gut him, but he remained poised. “So, tacos.”

“Home,” she repeated. “Just home.”

“Aight,” he conceded. Knowing she had no clue where she was, he took the scenic route, opting out of pulling up on the taco truck and settling for Loco’s Tacos drive thru. Rolling the window down, C4 rolled an order off his tongue so smooth, she almost found herself focusing on something other than what’d been occupying her.

He crept to the window and grimaced at the woman hanging out the window awaiting his arrival.

“C4,” she purred. “I thought that was your sexy ass.”

“You talk to all your customers like this?” he posed.

“Nah, just you,” she continued. “Who’s that?”

Kamilla caught the change in her tone and paid no mind to it.

“My friend. You gon’ keep pressing me or get my food?” he asked, uninterested in anything else she had to say.

“Damn, I’ve been trying to be your friend. She’s not even all that cute,” the woman muttered before snatching the money out his grasp and slamming the drive thru window.

Kamilla turned her attention out the window but could feel his eyes lingering longer.

“Where you from?”

“Does it matter?” she quipped.

“Yeah,” he toyed. “We friends now.”

“I have no intentions of passing out again so…it doesn’t matter.”

A soft scoff left his lips. “Aight then.”

Minutes passed before the tacos and drinks were flung out the window, and he pulled off. Another ten minutes of almost silence before he crept down her block. Aunt J’s car was back in the driveway, and the porch light was on.

“Do I need to run to the door or something?” she sassed.

C4 swayed his head. “Don’t nobody fuck with me like that. They won’t fuck with you either, which house?”

“The gray one with the porch light on,” Kamilla shared, as the car came to a slow stop. What she expected was C4 to unlock the door and watch her get out before speeding off. Him opening the door, handing her the second bag of food and a drink seemed to be off the beaten path.

“Eat and stay out of mix,” he directed.

All she offered was a nod before quickening into the house. Little did she know... that small, seemingly innocent enough gesture marked her.

two

“Little Milla,” a sinister croon came from the small kitchenette table where Aunt J was scrolling on her phone.

Kamilla curled her lip at the voice, not wanting to be triggered further than she already was. With the bag of food in her grasp, she closed the door, and her ears trailed the sound of the engine along with the beat she’d heard on a loop moving further way. A soft sigh fell from her lips and her eyes cut to her aunt.