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“Don’t say you’re hungry and then tell me you don’t know what you want.”

“I just realized I was hungry. Give me a damn minute.”

I chuckled slightly after my statement.

“You got five,” he said as he looked down at me.

“Or what?”

“Or I’m picking.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“And what happens if you pick something I don’t want?”

We remained locked in a stare as we continued with our playful banter. I swear that I could just get lost in his deep brown eyes.

“You shouldn’t have said you didn’t know.”

I stared at him for a second before shaking my head and stepping out of his arms.

“You’re irritating.”

“And ya ass is hungry.”

I laughed as I headed toward the kitchen with Tahari following behind me, and for those few seconds, the apartment felt like ours again instead of the place where everything had changed.

The problems waiting outside of it hadn’t gone anywhere. Ghost was still missing. The FBI still wanted answers. Daddy was still in a hospital bed facing a recovery none of us knew how long it would take. All of that would still be there when we were done eating. For the moment, neither one of us was running toward the next disaster. For a little while, we could just be here. Be here enjoying the moment together.

Chapter 11

Bleek

THREE WEEKS LATER…

“Stop using your arms to do all the work.”

I cut my eyes toward the physical therapist standing beside me but kept my hands wrapped tightly around the parallel bars. It was easy for her ass to say. Sweat had already gathered along my forehead and the back of my neck, even though we hadn’t been at this shit for more than twenty minutes. My palms were damp against the bars, my shoulders burned from holding up more of my weight than they were supposed to, and the muscles in my legs felt like they had spent the morning trying to decide whether they belonged to me or not.

Three weeks of this shit, and I still hated every second of it.

“Malik, I need you to trust your legs a little more,” she said in this condescending tone that had been annoying me since I started treatment with her.

“I trusted them for forty-something years. Look where that got me.”

A laugh came from somewhere behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Eternity.

The physical therapist smiled but didn’t let me distract her.

“Shift some of your weight out of your upper body. We’re not trying to make you walk across the room. I want you to feel your legs supporting you.”

I looked down. Both of my feet were planted on the floor, which was already more than I had been able to do when they first started working with me. The swelling around my injury had improved, and with it had come small changes that everybody around me seemed a hell of a lot more excited about than I was. I had more sensation in my legs now. I could move them better than I could in those first few days, and getting me upright no longer required what felt like an entire damn medical team.

According to everybody else, that was progress. To me, progress would’ve been getting my ass up and walking to the bathroom without needing help from someone. I loosened my grip on the bars slightly and tried to do what she was asking. My legs immediately started trembling underneath me, and my fingers tightened again before I could stop myself.

“There,” she said. “That’s okay.”

“What the fuck about this looks okay?”