Page 17 of The Player

Honestly, she was surprised she’d kept it quiet this long. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her dad. People loved him. But once they found out he was her father, Nicole stopped being Nicole and became Melvin Wright’s daughter. Here, she got to just be Nicole, and she wanted to keep it that way.

“Tell you what?” Nicole took a sip from her water bottle and set it back on the table.

“Don’t do that,” Toni said.

“Don’t do what?” Nicole asked, all innocence.

Lauren leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her Poetic Justice braids falling over her shoulders. “Jackie saw you last night.”

Jackie was one of the other RAs in Lauren’s dorm. Nicole already knew where this was going, but she asked anyway. “What did she say?”

Toni didn’t blink. “She saw you making out with Drew Kiernan. At a white frat party. The same night you were supposed to be at the AKA party with us.”

Nicole scrunched up her face, a bad habit whenever she was about to tell somebody something they didn’t want to hear. But if Toni was waiting for her to regret kissing Drew, she was going to be disappointed.

“About that . . .”

“So it’s true?” Lauren’s eyes went wide.

Toni wasn’t smiling. “He’s white.”

Nicole blinked, then pressed a hand to her chest in mock horror. “Wait, what? He is? Nobody told me. What the hell, T? Are you serious?”

Lauren laughed, but Toni only rolled her eyes. “Oh, you got jokes.”

“Okay. It just . . . happened.”

She hadn’t walked into that party planning to kiss Drew. But somewhere between the conversation, the music, and the way they’d kept looking at each other’s mouths, it had felt right.

“How?” Toni shook her head. “And why? I mean, I know you talk white and all, but⁠—”

“Okay, fuck you, first of all,” Nicole said, sounding a lot more prim and proper than she meant to, which probably didn’t help her case.

“Toni,” Lauren said.

“I mean, you do. But it’s all good. We still love you.”

It wasn’t the first time Nicole had heard that from another Black person, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. What did talking white even mean, anyway? As far as she could tell, it meant she’d grown up in the wrong zip code and read too many books. It was an ignorant thing to say, and Toni knew better. But she let it ride. She’d been down that road too many times with people who decided she wasn’t down enough because of how she talked, where she grew up, or how much money her family had, and she had never once won that argument. She wasn’t about to start a new one in the middle of the Atrium.

Lauren looked from Toni to Nicole and, like always, jumped in before it could turn into a whole thing.

“Now, everybody knows I love me some Dayshawn with his sexy self. Mm, mm, mm.” Lauren shook her head like just thinking about him was too much. “But Drew? The brotha is fine too.”

“But that’s just it.” Toni cut her eyes toward Lauren before turning back to Nicole. “He’s not a brotha.”

“So? What’s the big deal? It was just a kiss. Damn.” That was what she’d been telling herself, anyway. Sitting under Toni’s judgmental stare, she could already tell one kiss was about to turn into a whole thing. And if word got around, Toni wouldn’t be the only one with something to say.

“I can’t believe you, Nicole,” Toni said. “You and the motherfuckin’ white quarterback?”

“But that face though,” Lauren said, quieter this time, like she might eventually wear Toni down.

Toni gave her a look. “We get it, Lauren. You think he’s fine.”

Lauren lifted her eyebrows. “And you don’t?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Toni’s eyes stayed on Nicole.

“Relax, T. It’s not that serious.”