Page 11 of Cooly

We sat down on some random brownstone steps.

"Does Diamond know? About the warehouse?" she asked.

"No. You're the first person I've told."

"What are you going to do now?"

"She told me to fuck off. I’m gonna fuck off. I got pride."

"I think you should tell her. It might give you some closure."

I grunted. "Maybe."

Chapter 5

I hoped Diamond would hurry the fuck up. We were sitting on some random brownstone steps, waiting. The darker it got the colder it got.

“Smoke this. You need to calm down and warm up.”

I stared at the vape pen Ayo had seemingly pulled out of nowhere.

“What is it?”

“Purple Urkle.”

“You still a weedhead.” I laughed, set my bottle down, and took it from her.

She used to spend all her money on weed in college. She’d smoke before she ate. It was the one bad thing the good girl did.

I inhaled. The vapor hit my lungs smooth and sweet, warmth spreading through my chest. It had been a minute since I’d smoked.

“Did you really stop working for your father after I left?” she asked out of nowhere.

“I stopped before you left. You just didn’t believe me. I never wanted that life.”

“You’d lied before. When you didn’t tell me... when you went missing for days.”

“So had you. You said you would stay.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. She looked down at her hands, slowly turning the Hennessy bottle between them.

“I kept up with you. I knew about the IT stuff before you told me earlier,” she admitted after a moment.

“Did you?”

“Yes. I still have the magazine from when your company made the news a few years back.” Her gaze moved over my head. “The locs were better. You looked hood debonair in those pictures.”

I laughed. “Hood debonair?”

“You know what I mean.” She smiled. “Expensive suits. Gold chains and fangs. Locs. Like a king who could still catch a body if somebody looked at him wrong.”

“You studied those pictures pretty hard.”

“For professional reasons.”

“Being a lawyer requires you to study me?”

“Yes.” She took the vape back from me. “We investigate criminals.”