“It’s a little funny,” Mom said, clearly amused. “You out here turning into a mini enforcer in the eighth grade?”
“I wasn’t gonna hit her!” Maylee defended quickly. “I just took it off.”
Mom nodded slowly, like she wasn’t really believing that.
“Mhm. And that alone made her run?”
Maylee sat up a little taller.
“Yep.”
A small smile pulled at Mom’s lips, and she glanced at me. I already knew that look. She was trying not to laugh. So many times, Dad would chastise me on something, and she would be in the corner with this same exact facial expression. She could be strict at times, but everyone in the house knew that Dad was the real deal.
“Okay,” she said while holding her hands up slightly. “I’m not even mad at that part.”
“Ma,” I warned, trying not to smile.
“I said I’m not mad,” she repeated, then she looked back at Maylee. Her tone shifted just a little more serious but still soft. “But we’re not making a habit out of threatening people with belts, okay?”
“Okay,” Maylee nodded quickly.
There was a brief pause, then Mom leaned in just a little and lowered her voice like she was about to pass along classified information.
“This stays between us three, though.”
Maylee’s eyes lit up.
“For real?”
“For real,” Mom confirmed with a nod. “Because your father?” she shook her head. “He would not appreciate Belt Buckle Billie making her debut at school.”
I laughed again while falling back against my pillows.
“MA!” Maylee groaned, but she was smiling now.
“Your secret is safe with me,” Mom said with a wink.
Maylee relaxed instantly with Mom’s words. She was clearly relieved. And just like that, the tension disappeared. Mom stood up straight and then smoothed her hands down her shirt.
“Now, both of y’all better come downstairs in a minute. I’m about to start dinner.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Okay,” Maylee nodded.
Mom gave us one last look before turning, walking out, and closing the door behind her. The second it clicked shut, Maylee kept talking, going on about her day as if nothing had happened. My mind drifted again. Back to that text. Back to him. I didn’t realize until now how much of an influence Tahari already had on both of us.
BLEEK
The engine hummed low beneath us, the air conditioner barely pushed through the vents as we sat parked. The city was just casually moving like normal outside the tinted windows. Like nothing had happened. Like we just hadn’t gotten robbed. I kept my eyes forward, deep in thought, as my fingers tapped once against the steering wheel before going still. My mind was all over the fucking place.
“They ain’t just take money. They took parts, and they took work.”
Sha sat in the passenger seat, leaned back in the chair like he was comfortable, but I knew better. He was listening and processing everything. The day of the robbery, he had come down to the shop and told me that he had left work there. He wasnever going to hear the end of it for that piss poor decision, and I’m sure he knew that. I glanced over at him. I knew him long enough to not only appreciate that he thought before he spoke but to value his words when he did speak them. For the past two days, we had both been trying to figure out who had done this shit, but every stone we turned over gave us no answers.
When I took the back seat to let Sha handle things, I never would have thought that some shit like this would have happened. He ran the operation just like I had been doing for years. The only difference between the way he did things and the way I had always done things was that no work touched anywhere else but our main auto shop. And that is where he fucked up. Getting to where I was in the game didn’t just happen overnight, and it wasn’t easy either. I had ties in the Dominican Republic with access to an army if I needed one. But being robbed like this was something that I wanted to keep a tight lid on. Our partner in D.R wouldn’t take the misstep lightly.
“You understand what this means, right?”
