Page 82 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

Reem has a noticeable limp. Why he thought it was a good idea to follow his new girlfriend, I don’t know. Everyone’s a little worse for wear, and Shad’s been dry heaving since we got into the line to cross the border at four in the morning.

I need to hear my Snow’s voice.

The phone rings incessantly–five times until it clicks over.

“Hi, tío Ricky!” Mars chirps, making me grin. I gave Snow a trap phone, but for whatever reason, Mars always has it.

“What you doing?”

“Well, I was playing tag with Wynter Snow, but she’s talking to Dove now.”

Huh? “Give her the phone,” I reply, conscious of these burly niggas half-sleep as Nut drives a caravan we stole. “Dove?”

“No, Ricky, I told you, Wyn’s talking to her friend Love. Wyn, telephone!”

My hand squeezes the phone. How the fuck did YT of all people find them?

“Where you at?”

“I’m in front of Mars’s room, on the beach–”

I glance at Nut, before turning toward my window. “I need to get some berries inside the carafe, but not now.”

When I look behind me, Nut’s narrowing his eyes.

“Are you talking in some sort of code?”

I click in her face before she pisses me off more.

“Just tell me this, because on some real shit, I worry about you,” Nut says as we turn onto the road where my resort is. “You ain’t breaking no laws right? Got no bitch holed up in the basement asking her to put lotion on her skin? You ain’t hiding the muthafucka ‘cause it’s a nigga? You know we don’t give a fuck about that shit.”

I smirk at my ace. “Besides all the laws we just broke, nah. I ain’t got no basement. And nah, brodie. You still the number one nigga in my life.” I blow him a kiss, ducking when he throws his hand at my face.

The van hits a vicious pothole as Nut swerves to try to hit me again. “Can you chill?” Shad whines from the backseat.

“You bet’ not throw up in this van,” Nut scowls, before cutting his eyes at me. “And you ain’t fuckin’ funny, Dub. I was being serious.”

“Me, too,” I cheese. “Don’t trip, Nut. When the time is right, I’ll let you in on everything.”

“Mysterious ass nigga,” he mumbles, before going back to threatening Shad.

After temperature checking YT, I take big strides back toward my villa. Clearing the lobby and keying in the code to the courtyard, I nearly run into Nan before I catch myself.

My grandmother has always been a smaller woman, but ever since she came back from visiting family, she looks even smaller. She thinks I don’t know about her health scare, or that she’s been sneaking off to San Pedro to have video calls with doctors. But I can’t bring myself to ask, so we just stare at each other, like we’re doing now.

That’s when she’s not avoiding me. So I’m curious as to why she seems to have been waiting for me in the hallway.

Her white locs are plaited away from her face, letting me see every wrinkle ripple as she forms a scowl.

“You are too hard on her,” she scolds in English. It’s not as choppy as before, since she’s been speaking English more and more to Mars and Snow.

Nan twirls and begins to shuffle toward our villa. I follow behind her like she expects, and let her continue.

“Everything is not your way or the highway. Snow is not your child, nor is she one of your girls. You need to learn to make decisions with her, not for her.”

“I didn’t do that.”

Nan just sucks her teeth, before spitting into the hydrangeas. “If you were open minded, you would have known that your idea was stupid.”