Chapter 27 Solana
MOMENTS EARLIER…
The rumble of engines caught my attention along with everyone else around us. I had never been to anything like this before, but whoever was approaching had to be someone worth bringing an entire block party to a standstill.
I looked over at Duke. He was no longer smiling. His shoulders were pulled back and he had risen from where he'd been leaning. I moved to go to him, but his eyes found mine and he raised his hand, stopping me where I stood.
No words needed. Whatever was happening had something to do with the Thorns, and he needed me to stay put.
The entire block went quiet as Duke, Juelz, and Rico walked toward the barrier. I couldn't pull my eyes away from them even if I had wanted to, and it was clear everyone around me felt the same way.
A thick tension settled over the block as a chrome bike with gold trim rolled into view. I couldn't make out the details clearly from where I was standing, but the moment the man stepped off it, the music cut out on its own. He was striking, but he didn't have anything on my man.
"Damn, see, I knew I should have gotten myself one of those," Jessa said beside me.
I looked back at her. "One of what?"
"A big dog. You see how they're out here shutting down block parties? This is the club from that night we were at The Crown!"
I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to Duke.
The man said a few words to Duke, then stepped to the side and called out for the party to carry on and the music to come back up.
The moment he said it, the tension around me dropped like someone had lifted a weight off the whole block.
Duke and the man walked further down the street side by side, deep in conversation.
Everything seemed to be okay. I turned back to Jessa and Aubree.
"Have y'all been to one of these before?" I asked.
Aubree took a sip of the drink she had grabbed from one of the nearby food trucks. "Nope. I only knew about it because of you and Juelz."
Jessa and I both looked at her with the same slow smile.
"What? Why are y'all looking at me like that?"
We burst out laughing. Aubree loved to act like she and Juelz weren't what they clearly were.
"You ready to admit Juelz is your man yet?" I asked.
Aubree rolled her eyes and kept sipping while Jessa and I kept laughing.
"Worry about your own man," Aubree fired back, then stuck her tongue out at us.
Before I could respond, Vanessa walked up alongside one of the other women from the Thorns.
"How does it feel slumming it down here with our men? I knew something was off about you from the start. You don't belong here."
I looked around slowly, then brought my eyes back to her. "Who are you talking to?" I asked.
This woman had been giving me a look since I climbed off the back of Duke's bike, and I had felt her eyes tracking me the entire time we had been here. If she could have burned a hole through me, she would have.
She chuckled and looked off, then back at me. "You. Everybody around here saw you on that talk show. We know what you are, and if you ask me, this isn't your world."
I laughed.
"Funny thing is, nobody asked you," Jessa said flatly, arms crossed.
Aubree tossed her cup to the side and stepped up on my other side without being asked.
"Nobody was talking to you," Vanessa said in Jessa's direction.
"Well I'm talking to you. Find something safer to do with yourself."
Vanessa's scowl swung back to me and she pointed toward Jessa and Aubree. "There you go needing people to save you again. You can't even stand up for yourself."
I held my hand up to stop Jessa before she could say another word. "I got it, sis."
I turned my full attention to Vanessa.
"I'm not about to argue with a woman who's angry because she can't have what's mine. That's my man. Unless you plan on doing something about it, I'd suggest you and your friend find somewhere else to be."
Duke cleared his throat behind us. I hadn't even heard him walk up with Juelz and Rico.
"Aye—"
"No, I got it," I said, cutting him off without turning around. My eyes stayed on Vanessa.
"So what do you want to do? Because after I handle you, he's still going to leave you exactly where he left you before. On your knees."
Her nose flared. She raised her finger toward my face.
It never made it.
I cocked back and hit her square between the eyes.
Then wrapped her hair around my wrist and brought her down to my level.
Her arms swung wild and wide, missing me completely as I hit her in the face again and again.
I grabbed her by the hair and put her on the ground, then got on top of her and kept going until my knuckles were on fire.
Duke's arm came around my waist and he pulled me off her. I looked down at her and smirked.
He set me on my feet.
I stepped back in and kicked her clean in the face, sending her flat onto her back.
"Try me again," I said.
A crowd had formed around us. A few people started moving in, but the look on Duke's face kept them at a distance.
Someone rushed over with a towel and Duke tossed it down at her.
Vanessa looked up at him with wet eyes. He crouched down and said something low enough that only a handful of us could hear.
"Strike three. I'll be seeing you."
Her face crumpled. She cried openly, then scrambled up from the ground with the help of her friend, who had stood there the entire time without doing a thing.
Duke straightened and held his hand out to me.
Now that the adrenaline was fading, my hand was stinging something serious.
This was nothing like the scraps I remembered getting into as a little girl, moving from group home to foster family and back again.
I needed to keep all of that to a minimum going forward.
But Vanessa had been asking for that for a long time, and I would always stand up for myself. Every time.
She reminded me of every girl who had come for me growing up, the ones who thought that because I was small and pretty they could push me around.
A few of them learned the hard way that they were wrong.
My mother had taught me to protect myself before she passed, like she somehow already knew what was coming. I had carried that with me ever since.
Duke walked me over to a bench across the street and sat down, then pulled me down beside him. He lifted my hand and began looking over my knuckles quietly like he was running a full examination.
"Friend, why did you never tell me you had hands like that?" Jessa asked.
A woman walked over with the same eyes as Duke and a warm smile already on her face. She was carrying a small first-aid kit and dressed simply in jeans and a cute top. I knew without being told.
"Mrs. Robbie sent this over," she said, nodding toward an older woman watching from the porch of a nearby house with both hands on her hips.
"Thanks, Heiress. Rambo over here has cuts all over her knuckles," Duke said finally, opening the kit and getting to work.
I rolled my eyes.
"Whatever. I wasn't going to keep letting her believe she could walk over me. I cannot stand women like that."
Duke paused what he was doing and used two fingers beneath my chin to bring my eyes to his.
"Watch your tone with me. I never said you were wrong. But there are kids out here."
I closed my mouth and let him finish.
"I'll introduce myself since he clearly wasn't going to. I'm Heiress. His mom. And you must be the woman whose helmet I was wearing a few weeks ago."
I gave her a genuine smile and extended the hand Duke wasn't working on.
"I'm Solana. It's really nice to finally meet you."
Duke glanced up. "Finally? I didn't know you wanted to meet my people."
"It would have been nice. I just figured you'd bring me around when you were ready."
"Sweets, we would have gotten there. My bad for not picking up on that sooner."
I nodded. He leaned over and kissed my cheek, then looked up at Heiress, who was watching us both with a soft smile.
"My fault, Heiress. I should have introduced you already. I was in my head."
She waved it off and took the first-aid kit back from him. "It's fine. But I like her for you. And for the record, I have never believed in letting anyone disrespect you without a response. I don't play like that either."
I smiled at her.
Duke kissed his teeth and she popped his shoulder.
"Boy, don't even start. You were out here fighting before you could spell your own name. I remember one time you took me to Sammy's to get a bag of Skittles and some girl walked up talking about Colby. She didn't even get the full sentence out before you put her face into the chip rack."
We all cracked up. Duke shook his head but he was smiling too.
"I'll admit it. I was a swing-first, ask-questions-later type when I was coming up," I said.
Heiress reached over and slapped my hand. "My kind of girl."
Jessa and Aubree made their way back over, and Juelz was with them throwing shadow punches in the air.
"Aye, now that I know you got hands, can I call you if I ever need some females handled?" he asked.
Aubree's brow went up slowly. "What females are you referring to exactly?"
"I thought we weren't serious, love."
Aubree turned and walked off without another word. Juelz went after her immediately, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and said something in her ear that had her giggling within seconds.
Jessa stepped around them and did a little celebration dance. "I knew you had it in you."
"Girl, please. Have y'all met Duke's mom? This is Heiress," I said, gesturing toward her.
Heiress had her hand in Duke's hair trying to smooth it down. He kept knocking it away telling her it was fine.
"Hi, Ms. Hinton," Jessa said with a wave.
"Call me Heiress, baby. Ms. Hinton is my mother."
Jessa smiled and nodded.
A tall man with deep brown skin and locs pulled up into a bun walked over. He was wearing a white shirt with the fire department logo and Station Three printed beneath it, and it fit like it had been made for him. He dapped Duke up, then looked over at me with a nod and an easy smile.
"You know you're in the Parks when you can get a good meal and a good show all in one night."
Duke smirked and shook his head.
"Man, this is her first block party and she's already the main event," Duke said, pointing at me.
I crossed my arms and turned my back to him. He immediately wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me back into his lap, then leaned forward to my ear.
"You mad at me, baby?"
I kept quiet.
"So that's how we're doing it? You're out here putting hands on people and now you won't talk to me?" He bit my ear lightly and then kissed the same spot.
"You were being mean to me," I said, somewhere between a whine and a laugh.
He pressed kisses down my neck and against my cheek until I was squirming and giggling and completely unable to hold onto being upset.
"What was that?" he asked.
"Duke," I groaned, then gave up and laughed.
I looked up just in time to see the tall man, Apollo, take a few steps toward Jessa. He held his hand out and she placed hers in it like it was the most natural thing in the world, then seemed to immediately forget how words worked.
"Apollo," he said. "And you?"
"Jessa," she finally managed, then pulled her hand back slowly.
He held her gaze and smiled. I had never in my life seen Jessa at a loss for her own boldness. This man had knocked her completely off her square.
Juelz came back over with Aubree close behind him, and the moment felt easy and full and exactly like what I had been needing.
Then a kid came sprinting through the crowd, heading straight for Duke, barely able to catch his breath.
"Duke! My mom isn't breathing. She isn't breathing. Please, help me!"