Page 2 of You Deserve Good Things

Jacory moved fast.

“The fuck you just say to her?” he growled, already stepping off the porch.

Silas followed right behind him. His face? Cold. Focused. His hand hovered near his waistband.

Chase cracked his neck. “Please let ’em say something dumb. Please.”

“Yo, chill—” I stood up, tryna calm ’em down.

“Nah,” Jacory snapped. “They got me fucked up talkin’ to you like that.”

One of the dudes stepped forward. “Man, y’all pressed over a bitch?”

Everything stopped.

Jacory’s fists clenched. Silas blinked once. Just once.

“You call my sister a what?” Silas asked, voice deadly quiet.

“I said?—”

Crack.

Jacory hit him so hard it echoed down the block. The dude dropped like his knees gave out. Silas caught the next one in the stomach—folded him clean. Chase swung on the last dude, laughing like he was the Joker.

“You thought you could disrespect Yaya? Oh no, nigga.”

The rude dude tried to crawl away. Jacory grabbed his shirt, yanked him up close.

“You don’t talk to her. You don’t look at her. You don’t even breathe in her direction, you understand me?”

Dude nodded, bloody and shook.

Silas stood over him. “We done here?”

They limped off, broken and bruised.

Jacory stood there, still breathing hard, eyes locked on me.

I walked up slowly, touched his arm. “Cory . . . I’m okay.”

He looked down at me, voice rough. “Nah, baby. Yousafe. There’s a difference.”

Silas clapped Jacory’s back. “Good lookin’ out.”

Jacory nodded, but his eyes stayed on me.

“I ain’t never lettin’ nobody disrespect you, Yaya. Not while I’m alive to stop it.”

And in that moment?

I knew it.

This wasn’t just a summer night.

This wasn’t just a fight.

This was the night everything shifted.

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