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  “Oh my God, look at you blushing.” She caught me.

  I chuckled again.

  “What is it with you, Nasir? Matter of fact, I don’t even wanna know. Just do me a favor. Spend some time with Kenny, and maybe whatever it is you feel for me will rub off on his sorry ass.”

  I nodded slowly. “So that’s what’s bothering you. You havin’ man problems.”

  “I wish that was it,” she said, putting her hand up on her forehead, then running her fingers through the front of her hair.

  “What more is it?” I asked her. “That case y’all caught?”

  “Humph, do you know he put that on me?” she revealed.

  I frowned and asked, “What you mean?”

  “Kenny wanted me to take that case by myself,” she explained.

  “For real? That’s fucked up.”

  “No, what’s fucked up is I would do something like that for him and he would still mess around on me.”

  I shook my head, and as I noticed Leah’s eyes watering, I reached across the table and rubbed her shoulder. It was then that she broke down.

  “Why you stay with ’im?” I mustered the nerve to ask.

  “It used to be for the security,” she said, wiping her tears with a napkin. “But now, I did something that kinda tied my hands to ’im.”

  “Hmm, you sound like me.”

  “What are you sayin’?” she probed.

  “I did something while I was workin’ with that nigga back when we used to chase together, and for him not sayin’ nothin’ I felt like I owed him. And he took full advantage of that shit, too…”

  “That’s Kenny for you.”

  “That’s how he ended up with you,” I mumbled.

  “Huh?”

  I looked up at Leah and decided to tell her the truth. “That’s why I’m extra nice to you and be givin’ you those looks,” I said. “I feel bad that I let him get you.”

  “What do you mean, you ‘let him get me’?”

  “I saw you first. Matter of fact, I used to look forward to seeing you at ya bus stop. Every morning I made sure I was posted up at the same time to see you get on the Fifty-two. And then one day I was finally goin’ say something to you, and this nigga come out of nowhere talkin’ about let him have you. I argued this nigga down, like, naw nigga, you wasn’t thinkin’ ’bout her ’til I said I was goin’ try to talk to ’er. But he wouldn’t let up. And him being Kenny, he dangled that shit I did over my head.” I began to impersonate Kenny’s voice and repeated what he had said to me some few years back. “Nigga, you owe me. If it wasn’t for me, you would be locked up right now, not able to get at no pussy. So you can pass it up this one time.”

  “Oh, I was just a piece of pussy to y’all?” Leah questioned with a bit of attitude.

  “Not to me. That was what that nigga said.”

  “So what did you say after that?”

  “I was like, fuck it. You got it.”

  “So you gave me up that easy, huh?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I ain’t want to. Believe me, I didn’t. But I felt like I ain’t have no choice. You know what I mean?”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Leah said with a more serious face. Then she put on her gorgeous smile and said, “Wow. That’s deep. I ain’t been on a bus since I dropped out of Community, and that was like two and a half years ago. So you been holdin’ on to feelings for me for a minute.”

  I exhaled and nodded. “Yup. The middle of ’05.”

  “Are you serious?” Leah asked, her facial expression filled with wonder.

  “I’m dead serious. I was hopin’ you wouldn’t talk to Kenny. But you did, and y’all wound up fuckin’ with each other. I ain’t goin’ lie, I was hurt. To this day, I wonder what it would have been like if you was my girl instead of his.”

  Almost immediately after I confessed to Leah about how I felt about her, it seemed a burden had been lifted off me. At the same time, though, I thought about my girl, Tara, and I wondered if I had made the right decision by sharing with Leah how much I felt her. Was I opening a can of worms?

  Leah shook her head in amazement. “Oh my God,” she said. “That’s crazy. I knew I felt something from you. I just never said anything because I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Why did you wait all these years to tell me?”

  “To be honest with you, after that shit went down between Kenny and my pop and Kenny stopped coming around, I didn’t think I would ever see you again. Then on the rare occasions that I did see you, Kenny was right there by ya side. Shit, I’m surprised he let you work so close to me now without him being around.”

  “He got his reasons, trust me. Kenny don’t do nothin’ that don’t benefit Kenny.”

  “Well, when is Leah goin’ start doin’ stuff that benefit Leah?”

  She thought about it for a moment then replied, “I’m workin’ on it.”

  I leaned forward and decided to take a chance. “How ’bout now?” I suggested, kissing Leah on her lips.

  Right then the waitress came and placed our food in front of us. We put our conversation on hold as we ate. In fact, for the remainder of lunch we were silent, and I didn’t know whether to take it as a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, I still felt a strong connection to Leah, and it seemed the feeling was mutual, but I wasn’t sure if I came on too strong too fast. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to push it, so I paid the bill, walked Leah to her car, and figured I’d see her when I saw her.

  Leah

  I was in my bedroom getting my clothes out of my closet for work the next day, and I couldn’t take my mind off Nasir. I was still shocked from earlier in the day when he told me he’d wanted me before I was with Kenny. Had I known that then, shit, I would have never talked to Kenny. But realistically, with or without Nasir in the equation, I don’t know what made me talk to Kenny in the first place. I mean, unlike Nasir, who looked good and was a sweetheart, Kenny was just all right, a six on a scale of one to ten, to be precise, and he was an asshole. Silly me, I guess I was attracted to his bad-boy persona. But now that I was older, that bad-boy shit didn’t do anything for me but cause me heartache. I was so over it.

  I was steam-ironing my shirt when I heard people come into the house. I turned the volume down on the sixty-inch plasma that hung on my bedroom wall, and I tuned into the mumbling that came from downstairs. It was Kenny and Dahwoo. I also could have sworn I heard the voice of a female but couldn’t really make out who she was. Yet and still, what was any female doin’ in my house? In the two years that I’ve been living with Kenny and in the year that we’ve been living in that house, Kenny has never brought a female to our place of residence. He brought guys there and only a select few, but never one female. He was very protective of where he laid his head, and he always used to say that girls ran their mouths too much for him to trust any of them with knowing where he lived. Not even his female relatives had been to any of our homes.

  I stopped ironing, slid my feet into my Aspinal Nappa leather and suede slippers and went downstairs.

  “What’s up, Leah?” Dahwoo spoke to me as I got to the bottom of the steps.

  “Hey, Woo,” I replied, stopping to hug him on my way to the kitchen.

  “What’s up witchu, cuz?”

  “Same ol’, same ol’,” I responded. Over Dahwoo’s shoulder I looked down at Kenny’s side chick, who they all thought I believed was Dahwoo’s girl, sitting on my couch in my family room. I rolled my eyes at her. Then she had the nerve to speak.

  “Hi, Leah,” she said with a smile on her face.

  I completely ignored her and continued to the kitchen. Kenny was at the table counting money. Three new Sneaker Villa bags were on the floor leaning against the chair he was sitting in.

  “What’s up?” he said, not taking his eyes off his money.

  “You tell me,” I said. “I ain’t know you was bringin’ company home.”

  “Since when do I have to report to you that I’m bringin’
people to my crib?”

  “I don’t know. Since when do you bring bitches to ya crib? This is a first.”

  “Yo watch ya mouth.” Kenny got defensive.

  I chuckled. “Oh, my bad. I shouldn’t have called her a bitch. Tell me somethin’, would you get defensive like that if somebody called me a bitch?”

  “Where you gettin’ at, Leah?” Kenny finally paused on counting his money and looked up at me.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. I looked him dead in his eyes and said, “I’m just tryna get a feel for who comes first to you, her or me?”

  Pap! Kenny backslapped me across my face so fast and hard I didn’t know what hit me. And usually that would have been enough to shut me up. But not that evening. That evening I wanted to let Kenny know that I knew he was messin’ around on me and it wasn’t the fuck cool! I had kept quiet way too long, and it was eatin’ at me. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and although I knew I was putting things in motion for me to leave Kenny sooner rather than later, I wanted to get it off my chest to him that he wasn’t foolin’ anybody and that he had crossed the line by bringing his other girl to our home.

  “I guess that’s my answer, huh?”

  Kenny ignored me, gathered his money, and got up from the table. He went to grab the Sneaker Villa bags, and I beat him to it.

  “Where you think you goin’?” I asked him, anger in my tone.

  “That’s none of ya got damn business,” he said, snatching the bags from me and almost tearing them. He turned to walk out of the kitchen, and I followed him.

  “What you tryna tell me, Kenny? Huh? What you tryna tell me by bringin’ this bitch around me all the time? You tryna move her in on me? Huh? Let’s be real!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Kenny snapped as he approached the garage door.

  By this time, Dahwoo and the bitch were a couple steps behind Kenny. As I approached them, the bitch said, “You hype for nothin’, Leah. It’s nothin’ between Kenny and me.”

  “Bitch, I don’t remember sayin’ shit to you!” I yelled right before I lost control. I reached out and swung on the girl, and the next thing I knew we were fighting in my garage.

  No sooner than we started did Kenny break it up. He grabbed me from behind, his arms wrapped around me like he was performing the Heimlich maneuver.

  My pumping adrenaline started to decelerate as Kenny contained me. I felt like I was coming down off a high. And although it was just a short period of time that I was fist to cuffs with the broad, the fight actually had me feeling good. I was able to blow off some steam, which I hadn’t been in a position to do in such a long time. And damn if I didn’t need it.

  And maybe it was a scene Kenny needed to see as well. Maybe he needed to see that side of me. He had gotten so used to my being passive, letting a lot of his ill behavior slide. Maybe seeing how upset I was over his disrespecting me would make him think twice about his actions. And at that point that was all it was about to me—the respect. Because it damn sure wasn’t about our love life. That was over and done with as far as I was concerned. It was only a matter of time before Kenny would be getting locked up and I would be free from him. But until that day I was determined to get some respect out of his ass—some long-awaited and much-deserved respect.

  Tossing Dahwoo the bags and a pair of car keys, Kenny ordered him and the girl to get in Kenny’s Impala, the less flashy of his cars and the one in which he made drug runs. Meanwhile, Kenny had turned me around to face him. He grabbed my upper arms and started shaking me.

  “Chill the fuck out!” he yelled, his eyes bulging with fury. “If I wanna replace you, I can at any moment! Keep actin’ the fuck up, and I will!” At that he released me, shoving me and causing me to lose my balance and fall on the garage floor.

  He joined Dahwoo and the girl in his car. They backed out of the garage and pulled off. Boiling with anger, I jumped up off the floor and went inside my house, slamming the garage door behind me. So much for demanding respect, I thought. That nigga just took that bitch’s side over mine and had me lookin’ like an asshole. I got something for his ass!

  I went upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, to my bedroom. I grabbed my cell phone off the dresser. Searching through my contacts for Dee-Dee, I pressed the Call button. While I waited for someone to pick up, I examined myself in the mirror. I was red-faced and I had some scratches on my nose and under my eye from the girl. But they were minor compared to the red scabby-looking sore in the corner of my mouth from Kenny.

  “Hello,” the detective answered on the second ring.

  “Detective Daily,” I said, trying to remain as calm as possible. “It’s Leah Baker. Kenny just left our house with three kilos of cocaine. They’re in Sneaker Villa shopping bags.”

  “Okay, good. Do you know where he’s headed?”

  “I’m not sure, but he was with the two people who got locked up with us that night. Dahwoo Courtland and the girl, whatever her name is. They’re in a green Impala.”

  “Can you give me a license plate number on the vehicle?” the detective asked.

  “I don’t know it off hand. And they backed out of the garage, so it wasn’t like I had the chance to see it. But I do know that he has to drop Dahwoo off at home, which is in the West Philly area.”

  “Yes, I have his address on file. I’ll look into it.”

  The detective thanked me and I hung up. Then I called Nasir.

  “Hello?” Nasir sounded confused.

  “Nasir.”

  “Yeah. What’s up, Leah.”

  “I never did get to thank you for lunch today.”

  “You thanked me by comin’.” He was sweet as usual.

  “Yeah, well, how ’bout I thank you again by comin’,” I said boldly, losing myself in thoughts of payin’ Kenny back.

  “Come again?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I brought my voice down to about a whisper. “That’s right, I wanna come…again.”

  Nasir chuckled. “Who is this playin’ with me, man?”

  “I’m not playin’,” I told him, tears beginning to return. “Come get me, please.”

  “Leah, you serious?”

  “Yes, Nasir.”

  “What about Kenny?”

  “What about ’im?”

  “All right.” Nasir gave in. “I’m on my way.”

  Soon as I hung up the phone, I went in my bathroom and freshened up. I reapplied makeup, did my hair, and tried as best I could to cover the bruise Kenny had left on my lip. I changed into a pair of clean panties and a bra, and not just a Victoria’s Secret set, either. I opted for one of my sets by Vagin Pouvoir. I put on a gray hologram Alexander McQueen sweater dress for easy access and a pair of black Alexander McQueen button-trim boots, threw on a black Doma waist-length leather jacket, grabbed my metallic Pauric Sweeney python pocketbook and my keys, and waited by the door.

  I heard Nasir’s truck as it drove down my street. There was no mistaking that loud Viper engine. I looked out the window with anticipation. Indeed, it was him. I opened my door and stepped out. It was dark and cold outside, so no one was out to see me creeping. Besides, my house was far enough away from both my neighbors and pretty obscured by the tall trees Kenny had had the landscapers plant for privacy; even if anyone was out, the chances of their seeing me were slim.

  I took quick-paced baby steps to Nasir’s truck, where he had parked along the curb.

  “What’s up?” Nasir greeted me as I got in the passenger seat.

  “Hey.” I blushed.

  Suddenly I became nervous—like I was a fan around her favorite rapper. It was as if Nasir had put a spell on me. I mean, I was never so coy around him before, although I’d always found him attractive. I guessed it was because now I knew that he liked me, and when I thought about it, deep down inside I liked him, too. And true, indeed, it was a possibility that my feelings were amplified after having gone through that bullshit with Kenny. I had been pushed to the edge and practically into Nasir’s a
rms. I was vulnerable, that I knew. But whatever the cause, I was feeling really giddy in Nasir’s presence. I needed to pull myself together.

  I tried to distract myself. I pulled the mirror down and began to fix my hair. One by one, I put the strands that got displaced by the light wind back in their rightful position. I could feel Nasir peek over at me a few times while I did so. I dug in my pocketbook and retrieved my lip gloss. I continued to look in the mirror as I applied a coat on my already glistening lips.

  “You look good.” Nasir broke the silence. “Even better than I imagined when you was teasin’ me on the phone.”

  “Thank you,” I said, not taking my eyes off myself.

  “I wanna know to what I owe the occasion? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complainin’. I’m not complainin’ at all. You was talkin’ to me dirty on the phone, then you come out here in ya little freak ’im dress lookin’ all good. I’m just feelin’ lucky as hell right now, and I wanna make sure what I’m feelin’ is right.”

  I smirked but I didn’t give Nasir a response, partly because I didn’t have a response to give him and partly because I was still feeling shy.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you so quiet now?”

  Finally I closed the mirror and turned my attention to Nasir. I shook my head as if to say nothing.

  “Something’s wrong,” he insisted. “Now tell me what’s up. What’s on your mind?” he asked.

  I smiled and looked over at him, and it was the first time I really noticed his features. He had these big brown eyes that were mesmerizing and these thick, dark eyebrows that made him look mad even when he wasn’t. And just the way he looked at me turned me on. I didn’t know how to compose myself. He was dripping in sex appeal, and he had so much damn swagger. Between me wanting desperately to get revenge on Kenny and being in the presence of such a good-looking man who had deep feelings for me, I was open.

  “What’s up?” he asked, batting his eyes in a seductive manner to match the soft sexy tone of his voice.