Page 93 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2
Trippy’s out his seat first, moving faster than I’ve seen him move in years. He pushes my new twin into the wall before grabbing me and throwing me into the air like a toddler.
“Freckles cuz! You’re alive!”
“Please put me down,” I shriek, but Trippy doesn’t care. He throws me one more time before pulling me to his chest.
My hand goes to it, and even through the wife beater and black tee, I feel the puckered scar from where he almost died. We talked about it once, before one of my worse benders, and if I didn’t know any better, I'd think he knew I was part of the reason he was shot. When I started coming back around, he never treated me differently, and besides that one time, he never brought it up again.
“Damn, if I ain’t know any better, I’d think you love her more than me.”
“Nigga, I do,” Trippy bellows, finally letting me go.
My twin is scowling at him, flipping him off before grinning at me. “I’m Redrum, sweetheart, but you can call me Red. I’ve heard a lot about you–”
“Ay, cuz. I’m billing you, so you and Tripp need to figure out which song you doing today. Have Shotta help, and actually listen to his ass, foreal. I need to holla at Freckles cuz.”
Sheisty stands and rubs his chin tattoos before walking past us out of the room.
“Don’t let him bully you, sis!”
“Shut the fuck up, Tron. Go ‘head, Wyn. We’ll be here.”
I take turns looking at them. Tripp seems optimistic, same as Shad. But when I turn to Red, or Tron, he subtly shakes his head.
Ironically, that gets a snort out of me, and his face lights up. He gives me a thumbs up, before he begins to twist his fingers intricately, which makes me laugh more.
Shad pushes him hard into the couch. “You wasting her time, lil’ nigga.”
Tripp leads me back to the door. “I apologize in advance for how annoying my lil’ brother is. He got into some trouble and now my pops made him my problem.”
“He’s fine. I didn’t know both of your siblings were gingers.”
“I told you, Freckles, I know for sure it’s something about freckles and red hair that make y’all crazy as fuck.” Tripp grins before giving me one last hug. Then he pushes me out the room and closes the door in my face.
Gathering the words to beg and plead, I put one foot in front of the other before I’m in his office on this floor. His real one is on the top floor, but this is the one he uses for nefarious reasons. I don’t sit on the couch, opting to stand.
Sheisty leans on the edge of the desk. Not for the first or second time today, I feel someone cataloging everything about me. Maybe because I’ve seen myself every day, I don’t see much of a difference. But clearly, there is.
“I don’t think I’ve seen your real hair since you were a kid.”
My eyes shift to his hair. Intricate braids curl and swirl on his scalp, but they only stop at his shoulders, several inches shorter than I’d imagine he would have cut it.
He scoffs at my silent observation. “Pandora tried to set me on fire again.”
My lips spread at the mention of Sheisty’s long-time estranged wife. She’s a maniac, and at one point, my favorite party partner, until I got mixed up with one of her other homegirls.
“Why don’t you guys just get divorced?”
Sheisty just shrugs and changes the subject. “How long you been clean?”
I lick my lips. “A year.”
“You clean from everything?”
I nod. “Just caffeine.” And Rico.
“You know, we got a zero tolerance policy on everything but weed and Hennessy now. I shipped Pandora’s ass to rehab last summer. Turns out, she’s just naturally crazy as fuck.”
“Don’t do my home girl,” I smirk, silently thankful I won’t have to avoid her. Coke binges aside, we never had any serious fall outs besides when she found out I was hanging with her junkie friend. Being around all this testosterone gets to be too much, and Pandora was the only other woman that would be around the inner circle.
