Page 12 of Collateral Love
“Yeah.”
“Why?” He glanced at me. “You don’t usually let people talk to you crazy.”
I gripped the steering wheel of my Mercedes E-class tighter.
“She ain’t crazy,” I said. “She’s precise.”
He smirked. “That worse?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “It is.”
The deli smelled like meat, grease, and history.
Kenya was already there.
Of course, she was.
She sat in the back booth, notebook out, iced coffee untouched. Calm and collected. Like she wasn’t sitting across from a Nigga who could end her whole life if I felt like it.
I slid into the booth across from her. Xavier took the seat next to me, nodding at her like this was just another afternoon.
“You're punctual,” I said.
She didn’t look up. “I said noon.”
That was strike one.
I leaned back, stretching my arm along the booth.
“You got some nerve,” I told her. “Talking to me as if I work for you.”
She flipped a page. “You wouldn’t have come if you believed that.”
Strike two.
Xavier chuckled. “You talk to people like this all the time?”
Kenya glanced at him. “Only when people need clarity.”
Xavier grinned. “I like her.”
I didn’t say shit.
The waitress came by. I ordered a pastrami on rye. Xavier got the same. Kenya didn’t order anything.
That told me she wasn’t here to play around.
“You said you had ideas,” I said. “Talk.”
She reached into her bag and slid a folder across the table.
I didn’t touch it.
“You got about a ten percent leak,” she said.
I laughed. “Everybody thinks they know my pockets.”
She didn’t smile.
