Gettin' Hooked (14 page)

His fingertips touched my cheek, slowly brushin' back my wild curls. The slight caress was so tender it kinda shocked me that it was by the same hand that had just put the busta on the floor.

“Imani.” His voice was soft, just above a whisper as he turned my face back to his. “What am I to you, then?”

I shrugged. We'd been hangin' out for weeks and yet I'd never told him how I felt. Never told him what I wanted from him. I'd had plenty of opportunities. But I hadn't.

I hadn't been halfway to faded before, either. Now the words just spilled out. “I want you to be, Maurice, but you never asked. Never said a word about being my boo.”

“Shortie, I'm your boo.” He smiled. I wanted to see his dimples, but I could only tell he was grinning by the brightness of his teeth in the dim evening light.

“You are?”

“Yeah, 'n' I know I never asked you, but I'm askin' you now. Will you be my girl?”

I held my breath right quick, too afraid that if I breathed wrong maybe I'd wake up in my bed in The Bay. Plus, my head was a little fuzzed and I didn't want to ever forget this.

He was askin' me. This thang happened inside me. Just a few little words and I belonged. Warmth traveled along my skin and I hella wanted to giggle.

Instead I grabbed his shirt, tightenin' my hands around the material and dragged him closer. “I'm your girl.” And then I kissed him, liftin' on my toes again. Kissed him firm, pressing my lips to his.

But I kept it short, broken up by the bubblin' up of my laughter. Using my hands still curled around his clothes, I thrust him away from me. “Now, go get my cousin out of there so we can pixx out.”

He was chucklin' as he turned away. “Anythang for my girl.”

Pacin'
the sidewalk a little, I waited for Maurice to come back, bringing Kayla and James with him. People mingled around me, some comin', some goin', but most were laughing and having a good time.

And no one really noticed me as I moved back and forth, tryin' to find my balance as the drinks and recent events swayed through me.

I straight up admit it: I'd been a little more than buzzed off two small drinks. I still have no idea what they were, except hella yummy-tastin'. But I've only had drinks a few times before, so I guess I wasn't really a heavy.

Still, as the cool night air washed across my skin, things were shapin' up in my brain, clearin' out. Or maybe the fuzz-a-fuzz started walkin' when Maurice turned my crush into a couple. Us.

I turned on my heel, spinnin' back toward the club, the music pulsin' into the darkness. Deep breaths, deep breaths are what I needed so things would stop spinnin'. So things would be steady and I could think clearly.

In through my nose, I exhaled past parted lips. I couldn't quit trippin' on the irony of how thangs had played out. Yet there was so much to still patch up.

Mostly facin' up to the dangers of GettinHooked.com. Time to figure out a way to convince Kayla what a bad idea it was without gettin' into another argument. Without makin' myself stand out like a spoiled brat, since I already had exactly what I wanted.

Maurice.
And there he was walkin' toward me, just to the left of Kayla and James. But
she
did have James.

My cousin broke away from the guys and ran my way, huggin' me close when she got here. “Oh, my gawd, Imani, wasn't that off the hook?”

I laughed. “Fa shizzle. Everythang except for the fight.” I glanced at Maurice, but they were still a few yards away.

Kayla wrapped her hand around mine. “Come on.” She skipped in her heels, tugging me along with her, tipsy, laughin' and swingin' our arms between us like we had when we were little.

The few yards got a little deeper, but I could tell the boys were still trailin' after us. And talkin'.

Here we were, on the streets of 'Zona, and finally alone. Finally able to talk for a sec. As our spirited feet began to slow, and our pace chilled out, I glanced at Kayla, her eyes dancin' in the darkness, her pale hair glittering under the street lighting.

“Why'd he knock that dude?”

Huh? My thoughts wondered, and I hadn't realized we were talkin' about what had happened in the club. “Oh, he called me a bitch.”

“For realz?” My cousin paused, turnin' toward me. “So Maurice did the pow-wow.” She demonstrated with a punch in the air.

I giggled, only halfway sobered up. “Yup. He couldn't just let the scrub talk 'bout
his girl
.”

“His girl?” She squealed, clappin' her hands together all cheerleader-like. “I knew. Snap, you shoulda told me.”

I shrugged. “I guess.” Yeah, I shoulda told her, because then we wouldn't be this far from home. We wouldn't be facin' all our friends bein' hella pissed when we closed down the site they were all crazy-diggin'.

I inhaled sharply, then let the air whistle through my teeth, gettin' set for the next part. “K, Maurice hit that guy 'cause of Gettin' Hooked.”

“Whattayamean?”

“He saw me online. Saw my profile, and knew I was lookin' to be hooked with a guy. He thought it should be him.”

“Maurice had other ideas.” She glanced over her shoulder back at the fellas, who seemed to have slowed. Maybe to give us a few moments of privacy. “You two are so, so cute together.”

Yeah, like there was any way I coulda not grin. I felt the smile spread like sunshine through me. I lifted a shoulder and slanted my head, that goofy love-struck look I'd seen on others was now fo' sho' plastered on my face. “I guess.”

She laughed.

“Kayla.”

“Yeah, girl.”

“We gotta shut it down.”

There was silence for a sec. We strolled on, our hands still entwined like kindergarteners, like the friends we'd been all of our lives. Like the bond of blood we shared could ever be weakened.

“How come?” she finally said, but her tone held very little conviction.

“It's dangerous.”

“It's not. James is cool, ya know that.”

I nodded. “You got lucky. He coulda been a rapist or killer.”

Again the silence seeped through the night around us, just the
click-click
of our heels poppin' off on the pavement and a few distant chuckles from the guys strollin' yards behind us.

“It's dangerous, Kayla. We're in Arizona. No tellin' what happens to the next girl who finds a non-local boy and goes after him like you did. One of our friends.”

Her shoulders heaved and I heard the whisper of her sighin' breath.

I tightened my fingers around her hand, offerin' the same sort of reassurance Maurice had served me up with the last couple of days. “You understand, right? We gotta shut it down.”

“Aiight, I guess we need to.” My cousin looked back again, the winked at me. “Besides, did you peep what I've got?”

Laughter eased the hella coiled tension. “Yup, yup. He's cute.”

Quiet again, but I knew my cousin well and she was thinkin', tryin' to decide how much to tell me before I even asked her 'bout what had gone down between the two of 'em.

“We went all the way.” Her voice was low and sweet, and so purely innocent it was whack mixed with what she was tellin' me.

“I know.”

“You do?”

I bit my lip and nodded. “You okay?”

Kayla laughed. “Yeah, it was hexa niiice.”

Hexa niiice…and I knew that's all she was gonna say 'bout it tonight. So though I wanted to know more, I let it go. Let the questions slide away. For now.

We'd strolled to the end of the block where we'd have to head over the bridge back onto campus, so we paused to wait for our boys. The building was wrapped in black plate-glass windows that were actin' like mirrors in the dark.

Feelin' our bodies sway gently in shoes that were too high for two teen girls who couldn't hold their liquor, we hugged to hold each other steady. We laughed, then sighed, our hands still gripped.

Turnin' together, we tipped our heads together so my wild brown curls tangled with her smooth blonde strands, our faces smilin' and starin' back at us.

Lifting my free hand, I traced the shape of my almond eyes in the cool glass, then did the same to my cousin's. She smiled, the contrast of her blue eyes was so different than mine, but the shape was the same.

Then I traced the fullness of my lips, the black-girl in me.

“We look alike,” I whispered. We always had. The shape of our faces, the angles along our jaws, the small bridge of the noses. Since our coloring was so different, sometimes I forgot all 'bout what made us the same.

“Fo' sho', we look the same, we're cousins.” She raised her free hand and traced the reflection of our eyes just as I had done. “We have my mom's eyes.”

Oh, lawdy, there it was, her mom, sister to mine. “And mine, too, I guess.”

“Yeah, you look like her.”

My heart skipped a beat, then seized. The breath that'd been in my lungs now burned and the sting of tears threatened at the back of my eyes. “Do you see her?” The words were forced through my dry and closin' throat. “Do you see my momma?”

It was the drinks. It was the emotion of pent-up years of wondering. It was learning Kayla wasn't a virgin. Of being Maurice's girl.

It was everythang.

We were seventeen and I'd never asked my cousin if she saw her auntie, like I saw mine all the damn time. I think maybe 'cause the answer could devastate me, because there was more of me than not that hella didn't wanna know.

But she told me anyway. “Yes.”

Just the one little word. Just three little letters.
And everything changed.

In the reflecting glass I saw my eyes fill with tears, so I lowered my eyes and squeezed them closed. I'd grown up makin' up excuses for her absence—like maybe she was dead—tryin' to come up with reasons why she wouldn't wanna mom me.

The color of my skin always spinnin' back to me. The kinkiness of my hair. The wideness of my nose. Brown eyes, unlike her blue.

My lip trembled, so I tucked it between my teeth. I heard the male voices coming closer, I wanted them there so we couldn't talk 'bout this no more. I wanted them to stay away so I could know everything. And I wanted the buzz of being halfway-to-faded to go away so I could think. There were questions, so many fuckin' questions I needed answers to.

But Kayla spoke before I could put voice to the shattered dreams of girlhood.

“Not very often, Imani. Just twice a year.”

“Where is she?” I sounded like a frickin' toad.

“San Diego.”

I opened my eyes, the tears leakin' down my cheeks now. My voice broke. “How come she didn't want me?”

My cousin stood there motionless. Her blue gaze filled with sorrow and sympathy and compassion, but unable to supply what I needed right 'bout then.

The truth.

“I don't think it was you, Imani.” She touched my shoulder. “It wasn't you. She just didn't want to be a mom anymore.”

“After a year? I was just a year when she left me!” I was losing control. “She shoulda thought about that shit before she spread her legs.” It's what Gram had said. She just said it nicer.

I swallowed, tryin' to chill, tryin' to slow the rapid fire of my heart rate. “Does she ask about me?”

Kayla was cryin' now, too. Silver droplets slithered down her peaches-and-cream skin. “No.” It was just above a whisper. “But your Gram sends her pictures sometimes and—”

“Gram! Gram knows 'bout this?” And then things hella started clickin' into place. All the bitterness Gram had, even after all these damn years. All along she'd been reachin' out to my mother, tryin' to make her part of my life. The pictures on my gram's lap flashed right quick through my memory.

The pictures she'd hidden from me. Just like the honesty I needed. All my life everyone had lied while smilin' pretty in my face and tellin' me they loved me.

I yanked my hand away from Kayla's, betrayal cuttin' deep, stealin' the last screwed-up shreds of my control. I stepped back. Away from her. My knees wobbled, but I steadied myself. All by myself. Alone, like I'd always been. Oh, I know my daddy loved me, but he was gone more than home. And I know Gram had done what she could, but all the goodness was dashed away by what she never gave.

The information I needed.

“I'm the only one who doesn't know?”

She nodded.

“It's my momma,” I screamed, the words chokin' me, the tears flowin' hexa fast now. “And no one told me shit!”

Confused and hurt, hurtin' so bad I thought I might die of it, I turned and fled. Ran into the night, caressed by the privacy of darkness.

I could hear my sobs, hear the clickin' of my shoes, hear my heart breakin'.

And I could hear the heavy falls of Maurice's feet as he chased after me. Maurice came. The only one I could count on.