Page 20 of If I Gave You My Heart
I turned around to find Nyoka standing on the stairs, leaning over the banister, looking at me.
"Hell nah," I answered while I sat up and tapped the spot beside me.
"You want something to sleep in? I can give you a shirt and some basketball shorts if that'll make you sleep easier," I offered.
"Nah, I'm good. I'm from the trenches too," she replied with a smile as she walked down the rest of the stairs and then sat on the spot I just patted.
"You pretty…" I let slip out.
"Am I?"
"You are," I quickly reassured her.
It seemed like Nyoka genuinely didn't believe that she was pressure. Somebody had fucked with her self-esteem, and I hated that for her because I meant what I said. She was indeed a pretty girl.
"You were just down here in silence?" she asked as she sat her little frame further back into the couch and then placed her feet on my lap.
Nyoka was invading my personal space, and I was letting her because I found myself liking her. Even her damn feet were pretty as fuck.
"Yeah, I don't mind the silence for real."
"It drives me crazy," she admitted.
There was a moment of silence, but it wasn't an awkward one.
"Where are you from because you sound different?" she asked, breaking the stillness in the room.
"Mississippi."
"Oh, you country for real. So why did you move from there to here?"
"I moved from Ohio."
"Okay, well, why the move?"
Nyoka seemed eager to learn things about me, just how eager I was to learn her. I wished she and I were already locked in because then I would have told her why I had fled from Lima, but we weren't, so I kept my mouth shut. Plus, I still didn't know what the police knew about what had gone down at the reservoir.
"I just wanted a fresh start."
I gave the generic response people would typically give when asked that question. I could have reciprocated and asked her why she had moved, but I was sure that she would open up to me naturally in due time.
Nyoka and I spoke about any and everything until the sun came up. By her fiftieth yawn, she was sleeping with her head on my shoulder and her legs across mine. It looked uncomfortable as hell, but the sleep itself seemed peaceful, so I let her be.
∞∞∞
When Talia and Dom finally brought their asses downstairs, Nyoka and I were watching television. I was schooling her on Anime, and she was taking the shit in. She was engaging and seemed interested in what interested me, which made me happy. I felt like I could be myself around her.
By the time they left, I had gotten Nyoka's number, and I couldn't wait to see her again. I was planning this dope date idea in my head, but first, I had to lock down my next lick for real. Dom said that he knew of somebody who knew how to crack a safe, and I made a mental note to tap in with him about that just in case the next couple of houses we hit had a safe.
Chapter 6
Adonis
"Hurry the fuck up and toss all that shit in the bag."
I watched the sweat drip from under the rim of Smooth's ski mask. Right now, there wasn't shit smooth about the nigga. His fat ass was sweating like a nigga getting read his sentence, and I hated he had to be the one on this drill with me. Dom wasn't in town to hit this lick with me, so I opted for his ain't-shit-ass friend. When he had tapped me in with who he said could crack a safe, I couldn't even believe it. That was until I saw him crack one in front of me. Granted, it was a test run that we had set up inside of our storage unit, but he did do that shit fast as hell. I think that him actually being on a real robbery with me was getting the best of him. I knew Dom. He was family. However, I didn't know his fucking mans, and honestly, hitting a lick with somebody that I didn't know didn't sit well with me, anyway.
The last time I did that shit, I ended up in jail all because a nigga snitched on me. The white dude that had ratted me out almost two years ago folded under pressure, and I mean lawn chair folded. I couldn't even toast a piece of bread with the heat that the cops were putting on ol' boy, and he couldn't stay solid. There was no way that I was going to have history repeat itself.
