Page 28 of The Wright Man

Angelica blinked. Touched her mouth lightly, and kept looking at me like I'd just invented gravity.

"...That was nice though, right?" she whispered.

I shrugged again. "Yeah, it was."

She laughed, and I did too, and we didn't talk about it after that.

But that kiss—simple, soft, and buried in a playground that no longer exists—lived in the back of my mind like a baseline. The one I compared everything else to. The one that never really left.

* * *

Maleek

Now

Riq jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow. "Yo. You good, bro? You been sitting there looking like somebody's grandma just showed you an old photo album and you don't know whether to cry or fold laundry."

Sticks chuckled, low and dry. "He definitely wasn't here with us."

"Hell nah, he was in a soft-focus montage, barefoot on a beach somewhere, braiding her hair and whispering poetry like a romance novel."

I rolled my eyes. "Y'all done?"

"Nope," Riq grinned. "Not until you admit you got it bad, my boy. Real bad. Usher bad."

"He said Usher," Sticks echoed, shaking his head like he was genuinely disappointed in me. "Don't let this man cue up 'Confessions.'"

My phone lit up on the bench just as Riq finished his third round of Usher references.

I glanced at the screen and couldn't help it—a grin tugged at the corner of my mouth before I even answered.

"Who is it?" Sticks asked, noticing.

I tilted the phone so they could see the name.

Bella Reed.

Riq sat up straighter. "Oh, this finna be good."

I answered with a calm, "Hey Bells."

"DON'T 'HEY BELLS' ME, PUNK!"

Her voice hit the air like a thrown shoe, loud and sharp and righteous.

"Yup," I said, still smiling. "There it is."

"You been back how long? A week? What, were you waiting for the ancestors to send you a sign?"

"I've been busy—"

"And then you go on about your happy nappy way, working on opening your little gym like it's business as usual, after eight years of FaceTimes and birthday DMs."

"And gift cards," I added, dry.

"Damn the gift cards Maleek! We're supposed to be family!" Bella said with a pout I could almost hear.

"Put it on speaker," Riq mouthed, grinning like a damn child.