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“220.”
“Nice. Got any pets in the home?”
“I have a Rottie named Halftime. That’s my little buddy.”
“What color?”
“Black with a brown face.”
Webb nodded. He seemed satisfied. “That’s all I have, but we’ll probably need to follow up with you at a later time.”
Bakari stood and looked Webb in the eye while shaking his hand, as his father had taught him to do. Once he, Joe, and Will got to the elevator, Bakari turned to Will. “How did I do?”
Will smiled and shrugged. “You did fine. If everything you said was true, then there shouldn’t be any problems.”
Bakari closed his eyes. It really wasn’t important, the part he’d held back. To him, anyway. And it hadn’t amounted to anything. He’d found it odd at the time, but brushed it off as Nyleah being drunk and looking for a good time. But what if it had meant something?
“There might be a problem.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
IfNyleahwerestillalive, she would have been homecoming queen. It was an indisputable fact. Because as messy and treacherous as she had been sometimes, she was an absolute dime. And even when girls hate other girls, that hate is conditional. If the girl they hate is beautiful, they still find her aspirational, and that’s what Nyleah was to a lot of people. A goal. A fantasy. A girl everyone wanted. Either tobeher, or toconquerher.
But the dream was dead, and now the eager students of Stockton High School waited to hear who would become queen with an asterisk. Does anyone actually want to be crowned second best? Does any girl want to be known as the girl who only won because the real queen died?
Turns out, Bria Lane did, and she received the honor that night. She was gorgeous in a strapless tomato red mermaid gown and a waist-length cascade of beach waves. The crowd cheered for her like she was Beyoncé. She preened and posed and lived and breathed the moment, because she wasn’t sure she’d ever have one like this again. There might be a wedding one day, or maybe a baby shower, but that wasn’t guaranteed. This moment was real, and she had never been so happy.
Bakari winning king was icing on the cake. They posed together and did their walk through the crowd. He’d come with Danielle, and Bria’s date was a random from her Chem class named Edwin who had asked her at the last minute. She accepted because she refused to go without an escort. But right now, Danielle and Edwin were just two of their adoring fans in a crowd full of them.
Her mother had helped her color her bandage red so it resembled a glove. According to her, Bria looked Avant-garde. Whatever that was. And Daddy said she looked breathtaking. But Bria knew what they were really thinking; they were just happy she was acting human again.
When Bakari won homecoming king, he barely blinked an eye at it. He was mostly happy for Bria, because he knew she cared about shit like that. But as far as he was concerned, he only had eyes for Danielle.
The girl cleaned up good. She had on makeup tonight, and although it was a modest amount— as far as Bakari could tell—she looked like an Instagram model. Her black hair was down, straightened, and skimming her shoulders, and her yellow dress hugged her body like it was painted on. He was proud to be walking around with her on his arm, and even some of his teammates took notice.
“Damn, bruh, where you find her at?” Damon Jackson asked.
Bakari laughed. “Man, that’s Danielle. She goes to our school. She’s a senior? Hangs out with Bria?”
Damon shook his head.
“You really don’t know her?”
Damon scrunched his face up and then gave Bakari daps. “She nice, bruh. Good look.”
Bakari was a perfect gentleman, getting her drinks and pulling out chairs and making sure she was okay. He wished his mother could see him. He was acting in the manner in which he’d been raised. None of that new-age, Gen X foolishness, as she called it, was happening tonight. It was as if his mother had scripted the entire evening.
She had taken at least a hundred pictures of the couple, beaming the whole time. Even Joe had managed to crack a thin and begrudging smile. Bakari wasn’t sure what it was, but something was thawing the man out. Bakari hoped it continued.
“Do you dance?” Danielle shouted in his ear. They were seated near the dance floor, where Bakari had been holding court. Danielle had been eying their classmates, who were already out there having fun.
“I mean…I do, but I don’t,” he answered.
“What does that mean?”
“I can dance. I just don’t really go out my way to do it.” That was an understatement. It seemed like the bigger he got, the more cumbersome it was to move. He could lean back and he could hit a quick whoa or nae nae, but he always felt like a fool out there with the smaller guys. They were agile; he lumbered.
“Why, did you wanna dance?” he asked. Whatever she said is what he would do.
