“Hell, nah. Because this dick didn’t put ya annoying ass to sleep.”
I rose enough to smack his chest with my open palm. His lips twitched, curving into a smirk. It looked like a tired one.
“I went to see my uncle today,” he said finally, his voice thick, rough.
I waited, let him get his words together. His eyes stayed on the ceiling, but I could tell he wasn’t really looking at it. He was seeing something else entirely.
“Mekhi,” I murmured, bringing my hand to his jaw, brushing my thumb along the line of it. “You can talk to me.”
He turned his head then, and his eyes met mine. There was so much in that cocoa gaze.
“That nigga Trell…” he started, then stopped and swallowed hard. “He ain’t just some random problem, Farrah. He’s family.”
My stomach dropped. “Family like blood family?”
“Yeah.” His voice was hoarse, gravelly. “My uncle’s son. KeAndre.”
I blinked. “The same uncle you visited today?”
He nodded.
“And he told you straight up that Trell is?—”
“He didn’t say the name first,” Mekhi corrected softly. “But when I described him, tall, dark skinned, that birthmark, he knew. That birthmark… I think Gillian knows, too.”
He dragged a hand down his face, eyes closing for a second like the truth was too much.
“His middle name is,wasKentrell,” he said.
It took me a second. A sinking, sick second before the word formed in my mouth.
“Trell.”
He nodded.
I felt my whole chest tighten with sympathy. “Khi…”
“Shit is crazy. I been running around tryna figure out who this man is, why he coming for me, for you.” His voice shook a little. “And the whole time, it was blood.”
“I’m sorry?—”
“Nigga mad at me ‘cause his daddy and my mama, they were on some foul shit, Farrah. Fucking snakes. Thinking about how my daddy must’ve felt, his brother and his wife…”
His voice broke, then. I pushed myself up and eased my leg over his hip, straddling him so he had to look at me.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m so sorry that people you trusted didn’t deserve it.”
He let his hands rest on my thighs but didn’t grip them like usual. He didn’t try to pull me closer. He was thinking too hard.
“That ain’t all, Farrah,” he said. “There’s more shit they never told me. Something about my father. Something that happened the night he died.”
The way his jaw clenched, tight enough that a muscle ticked, made my heart squeeze. Time passed in silence. Finally, I spoke.
“Mekhi… tell me.”
“She always said it was a break-in. Some drugged out nigga looking for a come up, ’cause my pops was doing good for himself. He and my uncle were building something, getting out of the hustle. One fucked up nigga… and he was gone. We were in the house. Heard the screaming. Heard the shot. I wanted to get us out, me and my sister. But I was too scared to walk out the door. A fucking coward while my daddy lay bleeding out because I knew who ever shot him was out there. I couldn’t see another way?—”
“That’s why you count exits,” I said under my breath.
