Mine Under Every Sky

Prologue

It was ironic that Moolah was at the homecoming dance, since the following day, he’d be leaving the only place he ever called home.

Not only that, but in the four years he’d been at the school, he’d never gone to a single dance.

What for? There were only a few people on this planet he actually liked and wanted to be around.

Most of them were there that night and the only reason he had been roped into coming.

As Moolah moved through the hot ass gym, past sweaty teens gyrating on each other, and through a group of niggas trying to break dance, the mug on his face ensured people didn’t really fuck with him. He preferred it that way.

An involuntary grin spread across his chiseled face when his brown eyes landed on one of his best friends.

Iskyiah Nathans. His heart did a little two step in his chest as he watched her pretty ass.

Truth be told, Moolah had always looked at her as more than a friend.

Iskyiah and her brother moved to Desmore Bay when Moolah was in the sixth grade.

They came here to live with their grandmother after their mother passed away.

That first year had been rough for Iskyiah.

Depression did its best to pull her down.

Moolah saw it in her. Once upon a time, he had the same kind of grief pulling him down, only his grief was from abandonment.

His daddy was never in the picture, and his mother was a money-hungry woman who chased after men.

It was why she named him Moolah—after her first love, money.

She left Moolah in the care of her older brother when Moolah was only five years old.

So, though he didn’t take to new people very well, he was drawn to Iskyiah and her sadness.

He helped pull her up out of that grief, and they’d been thick as thieves since.

It didn’t matter that she was two years younger than him.

Iskyiah had always been his lil homie, but as she grew, so did his feelings.

Unbeknownst to Iskyiah, Moolah had upgraded her from lil homie to lil baby.

He stood in the cut for a minute, watching her.

She wore a short silver dress that he knew her grandma couldn’t have known about.

It showed off all her curves, and Grandma Wanda definitely wouldn’t have gone for that.

Iskyiah probably had another dress hidden somewhere that she had changed out of when she got here and would change back into when she left.

Her curly hair was straightened and fell in waves down her back, and her makeup was flawless, though Moolah preferred her barefaced.

The only reason he didn’t stand there longer like a creep was because he saw sadness dancing across her face. Moolah didn’t like that too much, so he swaggered over to her and pinched her chin between his fingers. Iskyiah looked startled at first, but she relaxed when she saw her best friend.

“Fuck wrong wit’ you, Sky?” he asked, using the nickname everyone called her by.

He studied her face. Her brown eyes looked a little too watery for his liking.

The buttery brown skin on her face was tinged with red.

Either she was irritated or had already been crying.

Iskyiah tried to turn her head to look away, but his fingers gripping her chin prevented it.

Her smart ass chose a point right above his head to look at instead.

“We can stand here all night like this. I ain’t got shit else to do. ”

Moolah really didn’t give a fuck. Iskyiah had to know he didn’t want to be there, anyway, so looking at her to pass the time was more than alright by him.

She sighed. Her minty breath tickled his nose. Moolah fought the urge to lean down and kiss her. He’d became a master at that by this point—not kissing her.

“Charles—”

“Come here.” Moolah dropped his hand from her chin and grabbed her hand.

He no longer cared to hear what else she had to say.

Her boyfriend, Charles, was a fuck ass nigga who needed his ass beat.

Both Moolah and Hassan had offered on more than one occasion, after wiping her tears, to do just that, but Iskyiah always talked them out of it.

She didn’t do confrontation, and she didn’t want them stepping into her so-called relationship.

What Iskyiah didn’t know was that Moolah had beat Charles’s ass one good time on behalf of her.

It was right after Charles took Iskyiah’s virginity the year prior.

Moolah didn’t like the thought of that at all, so when he caught Charles coming out of NellanNem’s Corner Store, he didn’t waste any time.

His fists flew, and when Charles was on the ground, his feet put in work.

That nigga was beaten so badly, he had to spend weeks in the hospital.

Charles was too embarrassed to admit that Moolah had done such damage to him, so the secret stayed between them, though everyone knew they didn’t like each other.

They were in the same grade, and their beef had run deep since freshman year, before Iskyiah even came to their school.

Charles was just a fuck ass nigga, and Moolah didn’t like him because of that. When Iskyiah came to the school as a naive ass freshman, and Charles got a hold on her, Moolah’s hatred skyrocketed.

The sound of the nigga’s name made Moolah’s trigger finger itch, and he had never killed a man in his life. He wasn’t proud to admit it, but Charles really got under his skin like that, especially when he dogged Iskyiah out, like right now.

Moolah guided Iskyiah toward the dance floor and stopped right in the middle. “Dangerously in Love” by Beyonce blared through the sound system, and Moolah grabbed Iskyiah’s waist and pulled her close.

She looked up at him through long lashes. “Not Moolah Brooks dancing at a school dance. Pigs must be flying outside.”

She craned her neck so she could playfully look out the large windows in the gymnasium.

Moolah chuckled. Iskyiah was one of the few people that could witness him smiling or laughing.

Let his uncle tell it, even as a baby, he never really smiled or laughed.

There wasn’t shit that entertaining in his world that would pull that sort of reaction out of him, but Iskyiah was always the acceptance.

“Hush up, girl, ’fore I leave yo’ goofy ass right here,” Moolah said before he leaned down and buried his nose in her neck.

He knew he probably looked goofy leaning on Iskyiah like this and swaying back and forth, but he didn’t care.

Emotion built within him as he realized this might be the last time for a while hugging her like this.

He leaned into the moment. He was glad she did the same.

Moolah didn’t pull away until he felt wetness spilling onto his shoulder where Iskyiah’s face rested. “What you cryin’ for?”

He asked the question, but he felt he knew the reason already. It was the same reason he felt a lump in his throat and his already raspy, deep voice dipped down an octave.

Iskyiah tried to laugh through her tears, something she always did. She put on a tough exterior, but Moolah saw right through that bullshit.

She wiped her tears and stopped swaying as she looked up at him. “Because, boy, I’ma miss you.”

Moolah continued to hold her waist as he looked down at her. He committed her features to his memory, praying the next several months went by quickly.

“My birthday is only six months away, Sky. You ain’t gonna have to miss me for long. Plus, you know I’ma FaceTime you every day.”

She giggled as she blinked away tears, but her smile quickly fell. “Why couldn’t you just be good?”

Her voice came out in a tortured whisper. She was the only person on the planet that could have him feeling any kind of regret.

Once again, he grabbed her hand and guided her toward the exit of the gymnasium. Once in the hallways of the high school, they spotted his best friend, Teyanna. He was grateful for the distraction because he knew Iskyiah was about to ask him a million questions about where they were going.

“Y’all leaving?” Teyanna asked.

Moolah grinned. He squeezed Iskyiah’s hand before he dropped it so he could give Teyanna a hug.

Teyanna had been his best friend since diapers.

They grew up together and got into trouble together.

There had never been a moment of a romantic spark between them.

It wasn’t that Teyanna wasn’t courageous.

She was, and Moolah had fucked up a couple of niggas behind her, but he truly looked at her like a sister.

She had smooth peanut butter skin and short, curly brown hair.

Her light brown eyes sparkled, and she stayed dressing like she had some fashion sense and smelling good.

That night, she wore a navy dress that was much shorter than he preferred on her, but he would let her live.

Moolah couldn’t knock how fly she was, but he would never look at her like that.

People never believed that they’d never crossed those lines, but Moolah gave not even half a fuck about what people thought.

The only person’s opinion he cared about was Iskyiah’s, and she knew what was up. The three of them hung out enough for Iskyiah to know that Moolah and Teyanna really were like siblings and nothing more.

“Yeah,” Moolah said as he pulled away from his best friend.

Teyanna pouted. “We were supposed to party tonight.”

Moolah felt a little bad. It would be his last time seeing Teyanna for a while, too, but they’d had their moment earlier that day.

They went out to their favorite burger place before they hit the block and sold the rest of Moolah’s stash of weed.

Well, most of it. He saved some to take with him because he didn’t know if he could get his hands on some good za once he left.

They’d made a nice little penny on what they sold, though.

“I’ma get up wit’ you, Tey. You know that. I love you, girl,” Moolah said.

Teyanna and Iskyiah were the only two women he had ever said ‘I love you’ to, and he really didn’t say it often, but they knew he meant it with his entire being whenever he said it.

“Love you, too, big head.” Teyanna glanced at Iskyiah. “You good?”

Sky merely nodded with a sad smile. Both Teyanna and Moolah knew she would be effected the most by his departure.

“Come on.” Moolah grabbed Iskyiah’s hand once again.

“Y’all be safe. Mo, call me as soon as you land tomorrow. I’ll see you on Monday, Sky.”

Moolah stopped and looked Teyanna in the eye. “If any of these niggas start giving you a hard time, you let me know, hear? Fuck what Uncle Marlon talkin’ ’bout. I’ll catch a flight back here to remind niggas who you run wit’. Goes for both y’all.” He glanced at Iskyiah.

By now, everyone in the school knew how Moolah spazzed out behind Iskyiah and Teyanna. It was highly unlikely that he would have to catch a flight back here, unless it was behind Charles.

Both girls giggled, but Teyanna was the one to respond. “Got you.”

They parted ways, and as soon as they got to Moolah’s uncle, Marlon’s, car, Iskyiah started with her questions.

“Why did you drag me out of there? What if Charles shows up? Where are we going?”

“Damn, can I pull out of the parking lot first at least before you start grilling me?”

“Moolah,” she whined, and he chuckled as he pulled out of his parking space. The way she said his name always disarmed him.

“First of all, fuck that nigga. If he was a real man, he would have picked you up and made sure you got to the school aight. And I ain’t answerin’ no more questions.”

Iskyiah pouted, but Moolah didn’t care. She knew better than to question him further, mostly because he would ignore her ass completely.

Her pouting at or frustration with him never bothered him.

At the end of the day, it was nothing but love between them.

Wasn’t shit he could do to rock that—scratch that—wasn’t shit he would do to rock that.

Iskyiah knew how Moolah could get and how many of his buttons she could push, and vice versa.

There was a certain comfortability between them, and his only thought at the moment was getting back to Desmore Bay once he turned eighteen.

Iskyiah would be waiting for him, and that was enough for him to push through these next few months and get back to his comfort zone, which mostly consisted of her.