Page 74 of Certified to Handle You 3

She opened her car door, then paused and looked back at me.

“Bye, Reni,” I said.

I meant it, and I think she knew I did.

She got in the car, and I waited until Mecca climbed into the passenger seat before I stepped back. Reni started the engine, and after a few seconds, she pulled out of the space and drove toward the exit. I watched her taillights move through the lot until they blended into the rest of the cars leavin’ the club. Then I turned and walked to my own whip.

Blaq was by his car with my other potna, talkin’ about after-hours and food, but I already knew I was done. He looked at me when I came up, and whatever he saw on my face made him skip the joke he probably had loaded.

“You slidin’ with us?” he asked.

“Nah,” I said, pullin’ my keys from my pocket. “I’m goin’ home.”

He nodded like he understood enough. “Bet. Hit me when you make it.”

“I got you.”

I got in my car, shut the door, and sat here for a second before I started it.

The club was still emptyin’ out around me, and the same life I used to chase was spillin’ across the parkin’ lot in heels, chains, loud voices and drunk laughs. I watched it through the windshield and felt no pull to go back inside, no itch to follow nobody to an after-hours spot or no need to turn the night into somethin’ it ain’t have to be.

Tonight was the last night for a while…

I started the car, lit the blunt I had been carryin’ around all night, and pulled out of the lot with the window cracked.

Smoke filled the car while Trill-Land stretched ahead of me, lit up and alive like it always was. I drove through it with one hand on the wheel and my mind quieter than it had been when the night first started. I ain’t know what tomorrow was gon’ look like, and I ain’t have no clean answer for the mess sittin’ in me, but I knew one thing for sure…

The section, the bottles, the women and the noise wasn’t hittin’ the same no more.

I had outgrown somethin’ tonight, or maybe I had finally stopped lyin’ about already outgrowin’ it. Either way, I kept drivin’ toward home with the blunt burnin’ between my fingers and the street lights movin’ past my window, knowin’ I ain’t need to keep searchin’ for myself in places that only knew the old version of me.

Trill-Land, Jungle Estate

Weeks later…

While I stood at the front door, Pluto stood by me, talkin’ to Pressure on the phone, and I could tell by the look on her face that my cousin was sellin’ the hell out of whatever lie he had put together.

She was dressed for the dinner Pressure claimed he had planned, with her hair down, her makeup soft, and her jewelry sittin’ neat against her skin. She looked nice in that grown, and was put-together the way she always was, but the look on her face said she was already side-eyein’ everything about this last-minute jeweler errand.

“Pressure,” Pluto said into the phone, cuttin’ her eyes toward me before lookin’ back at the floor. “You said dinner. You didn’t say nothing about me having to go pick up my own gift before dinner.”

I looked away quick and pressed my lips together ‘cause I already knew what Pressure was tellin’ her. He had called me earlier talkin’ about he needed me to help him keep Pluto busy ‘cause he had somethin’ set up for her birthday.

Her birthday was two days after mine, and he was claimin’ he had to leave town before then, so he wanted to do somethin’ for her now with the family. He said the jeweler had a piece for her, but he couldn’t make it in time, and the man wasn’t gon’ be available tomorrow. It sounded like rich people problems, but with Pressure, half his life was rich people problems with hood nigga shit attached to it.

Pluto’s eyes narrowed while she listened. “Why would the jeweler not be available tomorrow? That don’t even sound right.”

I dropped my head a lil’ ‘cause she was too smart for this shit, but Pressure must’ve said somethin’ smooth on the other end ‘cause her face shifted, and she gave one of them small sighs niggas gave when they knew they was probably bein’ played but ain’t have the proof yet.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll go get it, but you and Renza better not be doin’ too much. I told you I don’t want no big party right now. A simple dinner is enough.”

I glanced over at her, and she looked at me right when she said my name, like she was warnin’ me too. I lifted my hands a lil’, actin’ innocent, and she rolled her eyes before tellin’ Pressure she was hangin’ up. The second the call ended, she slid her phone into her small purse and turned toward me with that look still on her face.

“You and Pressure better not be plottin’ nothin’,” she said.

I made my face as regular as I could, ‘cause that exactly what we was doin’. “Plottin’ what?”

“See,” she said, pointin’ at me. “That right there. You already sound guilty.”