Page 7 of Tangled Hearts
“Make it all A’s, and I’ll cash out on you. On God,” Hov challenged her.
“Deal,” Knyc said, shaking his hand.
“Yo’, you’re corny as shit, you know that?” He chuckled.
She pursed her lips together. “But I’ll beat a bitch the fuck up for fucking with me. Regardless of what you say, I’m hood born and bred.”
“That I know,” he teased.
The two of them joked and laughed as they walked to the local high school – making it with enough time for her to eat breakfast.
“Have a good day, kid,” Hov told her when they arrived at the school yard. He wasn’t allowed on school property because he threw a boy out the window and was expelled.
“You do know you’re only two years older than me, right?”
“Two and a half.” He grinned, showing off his damn near perfect teeth. That smile was weakening.
Throwing her hand up, she waved him off. “Bye, boy, and tell my boyfriend to be here on time to pick me up.”
“I’ll tell that nigga.” Hov waved once more before turning to walk back home.
On his stroll back, he smoked a blunt and thought about how he secretly wanted to go back to school. He wasn’t dumb or anything like that, his anger just always got the best of him. It had a lot to do with his relationship with his mother. Like everyone else, his mama wasn’t shit and didn’t love him enough. Not a day went by that he didn’t wish his situation had been different. He didn’t have the power to rewrite history, so he was going to make the best out of the cards he’d been dealt and pray that his words touched Knycole and Noir. He loved them and would do anything to make sure they followed the right path. Often times, he tried to get his best friend to go back to school and get his education, but like him, Rock was trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.
Feeling the sun beaming down on him, Hov pulled out his phone to check the weather. The Jade City weather was so fickle. Even in almost November, the temperature could be in the eighties one day then drop to the forties the next which was what the app on his phone told him. He didn’t know whether to put on something warm or cool.
“Boy, where you been?” Rock asked when Hov walked up. He was on the block making money. Rock passed some drugs over to Koolmoe, a loyal customer of theirs with his eyes still on his best friend.
“Just walked Knyc to school since Noir wasn’t feeling good.” Hov walked past him and into the house. He needed to close his eyes for a while.
Rock followed him inside. “She say she getting out of school early?”
“Nah, but she did say you better be on time to pick her up,” Hov replied before closing the bathroom door to shower before going to bed.
The outside of the corner store was quiet, but not the good kind of quiet. There were a few old heads in the back, a worker stocking cheap wine bottles near the fridge, and a group of niggas Rock didn’t fuck with pretending they didn’t see him walk in.
He kept his hood on and his hand low near his waistband just in case.
“Let me get two Dutches,” he muttered, locking eyes with the clerk.
One of the dudes from the back aisle slid closer to the register. “You good, bro?”
Rock didn’t flinch. “You see me breathing, don’t you?”
The tension shifted. That fake-cordial tone gone. One of the other dudes stepped up behind the first. Rock didn’t really have any beef in the streets but could smell when a nigga thought he was a lick.
“Nigga, we can’t even ask if you straight without you getting tough?”
“I ain’t got shit to say to y’all,” Rock snapped, shoulders square. “Y’all can’t run my pockets.”
He slid his money across the counter but didn’t turn his back. Not once.
“Whole lotta woofin’ from a nigga that’s outnumbered.” The boy’s eyes scanned Rock’s attire.
Rock took one step forward. “Say that shit again.”
The guy raised his chin. “You heard me.”
Right as Rock’s hand dipped under his hoodie, the door swung open. The bell chimed.
