Page 38 of Before I Say I Don't
I settled into the chair, which creaked slightly as it spun me around to face the mirror. The reflection staring back at me was a tapestry of time—my features softened with age, especiallyaround the eyes, yet somehow, beneath the surface, I was still handsome as fuck.
In the background, a kid in the corner argued with somebody on speakerphone about sneakers, and ESPN mumbled above the buzz of clippers. Somebody else was cackling over a story about his baby mama, swearing she put sugar in his gas tank. A domino game clacked in the back room; each slam punctuated with trash talk. Every so often, the shop went quiet just long enough for a razor to scrape, then burst back alive when somebody shouted about who was overrated in the league. For a moment, I felt completely at home.
The bell jingled again. My nigga Dre strolled in, carrying the same energy he had running point for his D2 squad—head high, grin wide. Those days, he ran a logistics business, but he still ran every conversation within earshot.
“Ah, shit! Roman the Great!” he hollered, grinning as he came to grip me up in a brotherly hug.
“What’s good, man? Long time.”
Dre dropped into the chair next to mine. “Yes, indeed. How long you been back?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” He smacked his teeth dramatically. “Nigga, you been back in the city that long and ain’t hit me up? Damn, I thought we were boys. I’m lowkey hurt!”
I cracked up. “Man, stop it! You know you still my guy. Ain’t nothing changed. But I was getting around to it.”
“So you back for good?”
“Vacation. Trying not to argue with middle managers for a month.”
He barked a laugh. “You still interrogating folks for a living?”
“Something like that.”
“You caught up with everybody else yet?” he asked.
“Some.”
Dre smirked. “Have you ran into ol’ girl you had a crush on in law school?”
I played dumb. “Who?”
“Bro, stop. You only had eyes for one girl back then. The Kam chick.” He snapped his fingers. “Yeah. Kamira Sinclair. She’s top-notch now—cold in the courtroom. I saw her on the news not long ago… she won a big ass case. If she wasn’t engaged, to yo’ homeboy Angelo… I’d tell you to shoot yo’ shot.”
“You know about her marrying him?”
“Shid… who don’t?”
Yusef dragged the blade down my temple, clean and careful, and chimed in.
“Yup, nephew. That wedding is the talk of the town.”
“Man,” Dre said, rolling his eyes. “The city been hearing Angelo’s getting married since he proposed. That nigga is the type to propose just to see if he still got it. Considering that he had been gone for years, I thought the niggamight’vechanged. Let’s just say, some niggas don’t change. And we both know, Angelo’s been outside… still be outside.”
I was going to circle back to the“outside”part, but that line about him being gone for years pulled me first.
“Wait. You said he’s been gone foryears? Like… he ain’t been here the whole time?”
“Hell nah. If I’m correct, he left right after you did and just moved back about a year and a half ago.”
That was news to me. Probably because me and Viangelo barely talked in the nine years I’d been away. I could count on one hand how many times we did. Like I mentioned before—me and Viangelo were boys, but notchildhoodhomies, which is exactly why it surprised me when he asked me to stand in his wedding. I figured maybe he just needed anextra,and since I could’ve used the vacation, I said…why the hell not.
“Damn… I didn’t know that.” I paused, narrowed my eyes. “But what had you sayin’ he’s still outside?”
Dre leaned forward, dropping his voice to a barber-shop whisper that was still loud enough for everybody to hear.
“Now you ain’t hear this from me, but a lil’ birdie said he’s supposed to have a newborn by some chick named Taryn. A baby his fiancée has no idea about.”
