Page 48 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

“Yes, I know I cut you. Just like I know you fucked not only my best friend, but your friend’s adoptive mother and burned me.”

Resting his big ass head on the crook of his arm, he smirks. “That’s all you remember huh?”

“That’s all that was important,” I spit. “I’d always heard about you with older women, but Tiny? Didn’t she raise y’all?”

“I got a mama, Snow. Bitch ain’t raised me, and fasho ain’t raise Set. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fucked, too.”

“Now you’re just being mean. How could you do that? Take me out of it… how could you do that to him?”

“I did what I had to fucking do!” Rico clenches his hands, but he keeps holding my gaze, even as his eye stretches and his teeth comb his bottom lip.

Then, abruptly, he smiles and shakes his head. “Ain’t no point in having this talk. You not gon’ remember it tomorrow. Only that I fucked her, and fucked us up.”

I don’t like how resigned he sounds. Almost sad.

It has me lifting until I’m seated on my butt, facing him. He reaches over, and my breath stalls when he lifts one of my straps. Just a little, enough to see my tan.

“You toasted, fasho. Can’t even call you Snow foreal.” He places the strap back where it was and folds his arms again.

He’s right in a way… about my mind.

Ever since my accident, my short-term memory has been hit or miss.

It’s wild. Once upon a time, I would give anything to not remember shit, and now I have no control over it. If it’s not lyrics, chances are whatever I said or was said to me never even saved up top. Sometimes random tidbits will pop back up from triggers. Or after a while, if I search hard enough, I’ll remember. But I’ve gotten so good at coasting through, it’s not even something I think about anymore. Definitely stopped following up with my doctors.

No one’s noticed yet. No one but this man in front of me.

And that makes me wanna do better. To try and retain whatever it is he’s dancing around.

“The sunset is going to distract me. Can we go below deck or whatever?”

Rico stands with the grace of a gazelle. I mutter under my breath as I crawl behind him until we get to the stairs, and he helps me inside.

The living area is nice and plush, and we make ourselves comfortable on opposite couches.

He grabs two waters from the cooler on the counter next to him, and hands me one.

“Okay,” I say after downing half of it. “I’m listening.”

He kills his own water, crushing it with both hands before leveling me with his intense gaze.

“Before I tell you why I fucked Tiny, I want you to know that it’s no excuse. Well, for one, the bitch was grown, so she really, a, uh, predator anyway. All them hoes are.”

I lift my head so fast I get a crick in my head as my eyes bug out at Rico.

“Say what?”

“I mean, them hoes shouldn’t have been fucking with me, like I shouldn’t have been fucking with them. I’d kill any bitch who stepped to Mars like that. But I, uh, fucked Tiny on my own. I don’t wanna say I had to fuck her, but the way it was set up… my back was kind of against the wall.”

“The first time I fucked–”

“Well, damn,” I blurt. He makes a face that I mock, but I gesture for him to keep going, listening intently.

“The first time I fucked her,” he repeats, “was after Nut came back to the Birch. Fredo never wanted to really move weight, but whatever I did, he did. We had a conversation… about going away to the Marines. And I needed to make sure we could. I thought she’d make me buy us out, but I should have… known better. When she said she’d let us go if I fucked, I made sure Ty-Ty got the same deal, too.”

I blinked, repeating everything he said inside of my head. But two and two weren’t equalling four.

“Peanut came back to the Birch before you guys shot up that party. I know I didn’t have the clap for over a year. How many times–”