Page 33 of Hellcat Barbies: Imani
“Nigga, let her breathe,” Brick says too damn loud before walking over and slapping me on the back.
“Chill,” I tell him before releasing Imani. “This loud fool is my cousin, Brick.”
“His favorite cousin,” Brick says.
“Nice to meet you.”
“You too. Anybody that can make this nigga smile is cool with me.”
“I keep hearing that he didn’t smile but I can’t believe it. He smiles all the time,” she says before grabbing my hand.
“Now, he does,” Brick reiterates.
“Did you really not smile?” she asks as we walk over to the table.
“I smiled when needed,” I tell her and she shakes her head.
“So, it’s needed around me?”
“All the time.”
“I like that,” she gushes. Then, she inhales and exhales loudly. “It smells so good out here. I’m so ready to eat.” She touches the red platter in front of her. “Okay. They are serious about their seafood,” she comments.
Presha loves seafood so Dodge has this big ass outdoor boiler and he fires it up often. Today, he hooked up snow, Dungeness, and blue crabs, shrimp, corn on the cob, sausage, and potatoes. The table is set up. The place settings are largeround platters. Each platter has a crab cracker, scissors, wooden mallet, and a pair of tongs.
“Yeah. Presha and Dodge can eat crabs every day. When we were growing up and Dodge and Brick came to Philly for the summer, we would eat crabs all the time. I ate so much I stopped for a minute.”
“Whew. Never. I can’t eat them every day but I can’t stop eating them either. Blue crabs are my favorite.”
“You can have them. That’s too much damn work for some little ass meat. I’m good on those.” Presha and Hazel walk in and bring lemons, bowls of butter, and Ranch to the table along with rolls of paper towels and buckets for the shells. “That Ranch shit is disgusting,” I tell Presha.
“Leave my Ranch, alone,” Presha snaps before looking to Imani. “Do you need a bib? I have some?”
“No, thank you. I’m good.”
“Then let’s eat,” Hazel says.
“You want something to drink?” I ask Imani.
“A beer and a water.”
“Heineken cool?” I ask and she nods.
When I stand to go grab our drinks from the fridge, she stands too and follows Hazel and Presha. They grab the bowls of the seafood and sides and dump them all in the middle of the table. Dodge turns off the television and starts to play some music through the sound system.
Once we are all at the table, we dig in. Using our tongs, we load our platters up. Imani pushes her sleeves up on her dress then starts. I watch as she squeezes lemons over her platter then squeezes some juice in her butter bowl. She catches me staring.
“You want some lemon juice?” she asks.
“Is it good in the butter?” I counter.
She grabs a crab leg and cracks it. When she pulls the meat out, she dips it in her bowl then holds it up to my mouth.She’s feeding me.Even with my peeps clowning me about smiling and shit, I don’t bother stopping the smile forming on my face from her feeding me.
“You tell me,” she responds before I bite the crab leg. “So?”
“It’s good. I like it,” I admit.
“Bruh, get a fucking room,” Dodge yells and everyone laughs, including me and Imani. I can always count on him to act the hell up.
