Page 55 of Stay Dangerous

I closed my book and got up from the floor to stand in front of her. I saw her smile, though she kept her head down, acting like she was really concentrating.

“How would that work if we go to different schools?”

She sighed, acting like I was bothering her, before she put her work to the side, too. “Simple. You can’t repeat the same grade at the same school. You’d have to transfer, and you’d come to Parkside, and then I can stare at you all day while you gang bang on everyone like Turk does. Just make sure you run the plan by Fredo, so he can fail out of eleventh grade, too.”

“Textin’ ain’t enough. Sleeping over ain’t enough. You need a nigga around twenty-four seven, huh?” I asked, bringing her to her feet. My arms wound around her just as she linked her fingers at the base of my neck.

“I didn’t say all that now,” she denied, but her eyes told me something different.

Snow wasn’t hardbody per se, not like I was used to anyway. She didn’t cuss or roll her neck or get mad and wanna fight and fuck it out.

But her heart was damn near locked up in solitary upstate. She held back more than me, and I almost didn’t catch it, because she was so much more open than me, and with me.

Snow didn’t talk about the future. She would speak about her parents and sister, but she never said how she felt about it. And besides the random times I lived for, when she would kiss me instead of me kissing her, or that time after the party, she never talked about how she felt about anything but music.

Music was the only way I could tell she had real feelings. She constantly changed the song on her MyRoom, and sent me videos all day to show her mood. At first, I thought we were trading our favorite songs. It took me a couple months to realize her choices were strategic.

Older, slower R&B songs when she was feeling upset. Newer rap songs when she was feeling inspired. Begging music from the nineties when I needed to tighten up. Con Funk Shun’s “All Up To You” when she was on my nerves.

I never thought I needed to hear her say she loved me out loud. Not until I saw it in her eyes.

Distantly in my mind, I recognized that Pooh would be ready to snatch his name back if he knew how hard I was simping. But that shit made me even more ready to go all in with Snow. The biggest fuck you to that nigga would be to turn my back on all the game he tried to lace me.

It’s only a bonus that I actually fucked with Snow heavily.

“Be honest, Snow. You love a nigga, huh?”

She stiffened in my arms, which only made me even more eager to hear her say it.

There’d be no going back. It wasn’t anyway, but still.

Just as she opened her mouth, my other phone began to ring. I fished it out of my pocket, smirking at her as she plopped down on her bed.

“You ain’t off the hook, Snow,” I murmured as I answered, knowing it was business.

“I’m outside, nigga. Come on,” Fredo gritted in my ear before hanging up.

“Uh oh. I know that face.”

I pocketed my phone and bent over to kiss my girl bye. She never asked any questions, no matter how much she wanted to. More than knowing how I felt, I knew she genuinely wanted no parts of this life.

But the downside to that is seeing the walls come back down. I practically heard them in my ears, slamming and locking into place.

“I’ma call you when I get in the house,” I said, watching her get back to outlining her paper.

“Take the window,” she replied, a half-smile gracing her face.

I knew that was in case Turkey was coming with me, too.

I climbed through her window and walked around her house to my whip. Fredo had dropped me off earlier, and was going to get me the next morning, so him being there early, plus his tone, let me know some shit popped off.

How I balanced the Babies, Snow, and school was mind boggling, but I tried not to focus on the how. I never sat down too long, but it helped me get over seeing all the blood leaking from Ma when she finally did what she’d been threatening to do.

We were able to move to the unit next door, but sometimes, I stared at the wall that we shared with her old room, trying to see if any of her blood leaked through.

No sooner than I got in the passenger, Fredo peeled off toward the Birch.

“Lem’s dead. Niggas caught him lacking at holding.”