Jio closed his eyes before lowering his weapon.
A second voice followed. “You look terrible,” Salim shook his head.
Jio turned around slowly.
They stood there wearing amused expressions, irritating him even more.
“What y’all want?”
“For you to not look so damn depressed. When was the last time you smiled?” Kadeer asked a serious question.
“Nigga heartbroken as fuck,” Salim stated the obvious.
“Y’all didn’t have nothing else to do tonight?” After second thought, he added, “And I'm not heartbroken pussy ass nigga.”
“Damn, why I gotta be all that,” Salim faked like he was hurt by his brother’s jabs.
He knew they weren’t wrong though. Salim and Kadeer claimed the lanes beside him and spent the next hour shooting together. His family knew better than to push him any further by forcing a conversation about his baby. It was something that he appreciated about his family. They knew that his silence meant he was truly in pain and sometimes a man just needed his folks nearby without needing to explain himself.
Kadeer removed his headphones and glanced over at Jio. For the better part of an hour, the three of them had stood shoulder to shoulder in adjacent lanes firing rounds downrange without saying much. The silence didn’t feel awkward, it rarely did between them. They had grown up together and survived shit that they would never speak on to feel the need to fill every quiet moment with chatter.
Still, Kadeer wasn’t blind and neither was Salim.
They were worried about Jio and could tell that he hadn’t been his usual self lately.
“You love her.”
The statement came out casually, pulling Jio’s attention away from the target in front of him.
“There it is,” he muttered.
Kadeer smirked. “What?”
“The bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit, your feelings matter nigga,” he kept it real.
Jio ejected the magazine from his weapon and began reloading it without looking up. The repetitive motion gave him something to focus on besides the conversation.
Across from him, Salim shrugged. “Everybody knows you love her.”
“I never said I didn’t.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Both men looked surprised.
“What?”
For a second, Jio stared at both of them before shaking his head.
“Yall acting like that’s new information though.”
“It kinda is,” Kadeer told him.
Salim nodded, “Normally, you say some gangsta shit, threaten somebody, and then change the subject.”
A reluctant smile tugged at Jio’s mouth but it disappeared almost as quickly as it came. Because the truth was that everything somehow led back to Nina these days.
