Page 24 of Krist and Moanie
I continued toward him. His eyes landed directly on me. Not a second later he was pushing off his truck past her to me. He then grabbed my bag and opened the passenger door for me to get in.
“The fuck you want, Alley?” he asked, his attitude fully displayed before he closed my door. For some reason I wasn’t even fazed nor surprised because Alley was who she was.
“I was wondering if you could give me a ride. You know, so I coul?—”
“Naw, you good. Get where you going how you got here.” He moved to the other side of the truck to get in.
Her face was cracked and I wasn’t shocked. Chicks like Alley thought sex would get them any and everything. Then they had the nerve to be shocked when it didn’t work on every nigga.
“You wanna tell me what happened?” My chin was in his hand and he pressed his lips against mine without a second thought. His lips were missed, shit, so was he. Just that fast I’d forgotten about Alley and whatever the hell she thought she was doing back there.
I explained what happened and he laughed. “Make sure she can’t get back up to your place. I’on even like the idea of her knowing where you lay your head knowing how she thinks. Don’t sweat the small shit though, you good, Honey Bun.” That assurance was followed by his hand on my thigh.
“You wanna talk about what she said about me?” he asked, eyes on the road as he drove to some unknown location. Only unknown because I hadn’t asked where we were going.
“No, not if you don’t wanna tell me about it. I’m fine wit?—”
“My mama wasn’t always a fiend. She used to have her shit together, happy, going to work and all that good shit, then my pops died after Jru was born. She checked out on us and never checked back in, but instead stayed high, stealing from motherfuckers and always looking for her next high. I couldn’ttake seeing niggas beat on her and treat us like shit, so I grew up fast and handled my own. While she was out here feenin’ and chasing that high, I was making sure Jru was fine and we had a place to stay. I did a lot of shit I’m not proud of, but I gave him a childhood.”
My hand found his massive one and tightened around it. “At the expense of your own.”
“Doesn’t matter, we here. I made it happen, and for him, I’d do it all again. I don’t regret shit, except all the money and time I wasted tryna get her ass clean.”
I nodded, feeling the weight of his loss because I felt him. I cared too deeply for Krist not to be moved by anything he carried or felt. I was in tune with him in a way I had never been with anyone else… In a scary way.
“You wrote that for me?” I had a massive smile on my face after hearing the song Krist played from his phone through the speaker of his car.
He grinned. “Don’t be tryna make shit all mushy, Honey Bun.”
“How can I not? You wrote a song about me and recorded it. Is it going on the mixtape?”
“Probably. I just left the studio and I got about three more ways I could’ve written it. Might change some shit.”
His words made me smile even bigger. The fact that he thought about me made my soul smile.
“Oh shit, you like me…like really like me.” I changed my seating position and just looked at him.
He nodded, eyes on the road. “I do.”
I couldn’t help but keep my eyes on him, realizing he had something else on his mind. Something he hadn’t uttered was bothering him and it had nothing to do with his mother or my rat ass cousin.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, why do you ask?” Him saying nothing was like an automatic statement. Something was wrong.
“Krist, what’s wrong?”
“Shit, I don’t know? I’m worried about Jru. He found out that his girl was tryna pin a baby on him that wasn’t his.” He pulled into a strip mall parking lot. There were two storefronts in the small lot. One was a breakfast joint and the other was a tattoo and piercing spot. We were definitely no longer in Diamond Falls.
“How did he find out?”
Krist explained the moment with his brother to me and I felt so bad for Jru. He was a good kid and stayed to himself. I hated that he was going through something like this at the hands of somebody he loved. I’d been at him and Krist’s home a few times while the brothers joked back and forth about Jru’s puppy love. “Damn, that puppy love is a beast. After we leave wherever we are, can we stop and get him ice cream?”
“What the fuck is ice cream gonna do for him?” Krist chuckled out of nowhere.
“Ice cream mends all broken hearts. It’s a proven science.”
Krist just looked at me. “Show me that fucking science.”
