Page 241 of When a Soul Cries

I knew sex.

I damn sure knew temporary.

This wasn't starting to feel temporary.

And every once in a while, when Zari forgot to guard herself and looked at me a second too long, I got the feeling she knew it too.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't in a hurry to knock somebody's walls down.

I could wait for her to open the door herself.

“Bitch, you got me out here working like Two Men and a Truck.”

I adjusted the cardboard box against my hip and kicked the storage unit door farther open with the toe of my sneaker.

“Except I’m looking around and I don’t see the second man.”

Sol’s laugh floated from somewhere behind the stack of boxes.

“Would you shut up and grab the box?”

“I am grabbing the box. That’s the problem.”

I waddled toward the back of my car with my arms wrapped around a box labeled **KITCHEN**, glaring at Sol over the top of it.

“I don’t move people. I show up after the move with food and tell everybody how nice the place looks.”

Sol came out of the storage unit carrying a smaller box against her chest, a smile pulling at her lips. “You’ve complained since we got here.”

“And I’m gonna complain until we leave.”

She laughed again.

That sound alone made it worth it.

A few weeks ago, I hadn’t known if I was going to hear Sol laugh like that again.

Not for real.

Not the little fake laugh she gave when she was trying to convince everybody she was okay. I meant that real laugh—the one that made her shoulders shake and her eyes squint at the corners.

I watched her carry the box toward the car, then glanced around the storage unit.

There wasn’t much left inside, but I refused to let my mind turn that into another sad-ass moment.

We weren’t here to mourn what she lost.

We were here because my best friend had somewhere new to take what she still had.

That was enough for me.

When I first came back to Crestmont and learned everything that had happened, I had been mad as hell at Sol for not telling me.

I was hurt.

I thought being her best friend meant she should’ve called me before things got that bad.

But after the anger wore off, I understood.