Page 8 of Tangled Hearts
Hov stepped in, cool as hell, gun tucked casually in his palm but aimed low like it was just an accessory. His face held no emotion, but his energy filled the store in seconds. “Let that shit go.”
The cashier put his hands up in the air. “I don’t want no trouble.”
“Then run this muthafucka like a business, nigga. You got these young niggas up in here like they move something,” Rock ran his tongue across his lips, hand still on the handle of his gun.
The group froze. Nobody reached. Nobody moved. They looked at Rock. Then at Hov. Then at each other trying to decide if today was the day they wanted to die over a Dutch, a couple dollars, and a chain.
Rock was still locked in, waiting to see what they wanted to do because he was on whatever time they were on.
“Rock,” Hov called again. “Let’s go.”
Rock blinked, backing off. He grabbed his Dutch then a small pack of generic colored pencils. “For the inconvenience,” he tapped the pack on the counter talking to the cashier, then he slid past the crew like they were invisible. The corner store had everything anyone would need. It was a small little one stop shop everybody in the hood went to.
Hov didn’t move until Rock stepped out the store. Then he lifted the gun slightly, smirked, and nodded once. “Try it next time, though.”
He backed out the store, smoothly pulling the door shut behind him.
Outside, Rock was pacing near the car. “Them lil niggas ain’t gon’ make it to their next birthday with that dumb shit.”
“You bark too much… don’t act like that wasn’t us at one point. They trying to eat like we is,” Hov muttered, unlocking the car. “You like one of them little Pitbull’s with asthma.”
Rock climbed in the passenger seat. “Fuck you.”
Hov leaned back in his seat, finally cracking a smile. “You good?”
“I’m straight,” Rock mumbled.
“Nah, you was two seconds away from catching a murder charge. You not straight.”
Rock pulled his hoodie off and wiped his face. “I just be on edge.”
“You always on edge.”
The car filled with silence. The kind where brothers didn’t need to talk to still feel each other.
“All that for some pencils?” Hov joked watching Rock put his stolen colored pencils in his bag.
After a few minutes, Rock chuckled under his breath. “Niggas act like you can’t be from here and have talent.”
“You know I’m fucking’ with you drawing and shit. Everybody round here needs an outlet.”
Hov wished he had something like that too. Something that didn’t revolve around his next flip or who owed him what. His whole life had been about money. Chasing it, flipping it, losing it, and chasing it again. Because when you grow up with nothing, that’s the only thing that make sense. That’s the only thing people respond to.
If his mama would’ve had a little more money, maybe she wouldn’t’ve snapped on him all the time and kept her hands to herself. Maybe she wouldn’t’ve gone missing in her own life, leaving him to figure shit out at ten years old. Maybe he would’ve had a shot at peace before the world taught him survival.
But he didn’t.
So instead of sketchbooks and art shows, he got scales and re-ups. Instead of therapy, he got silence.
That’s why he watched out for Rock so hard.
Because talent don’t grow in chaos unless somebody protected it. And Hov knew what it felt like to have nobody do that for him. So, if he had to take a bullet behind some pencils, he would—just so his boy didn’t have to become another nigga with nothing but a temper and a hustle.
“Here you go getting all deep on a nigga… wannabe Jay-Z ass nigga,” Rock chuckled.
They laughed again and it eased the tightness in Rock’s chest.
Rock grinned then went quiet again. Like something else was creeping up behind the laughter.
