9. Trigga
Trigga
Sleep came and went throughout the night.
Every time I managed to drift off, I ended up right back in that auto shop.
Standing in front of Mr. Browne. Watching him point that gun at me.
I was replaying the shit even in my sleep.
I heard the shot and felt the impact all over again.
By the time morning rolled around, I had given up on trying to get any real rest. I was stretched out across my bed staring at the ceiling when my shoulder started throbbing again.
The pain wasn’t as bad as it had been yesterday, but it was still there.
A constant reminder that I had somehow managed to get myself shot by my girlfriend’s father.
This was definitely not one of my better life decisions.
I let out a breath and rubbed my face with my good hand.
My apartment was quiet. My thoughts immediately drifted back to Maliah, back to her standing in my kitchen.
I couldn’t get the way she looked when she found out the truth out of my head.
I held her while she was losing her shit, and then when we woke in the morning, she was rushing out of my door.
I knew she made it home because she texted me after she got there.
But that didn’t stop me from wondering how things went after that.
Knowing how pissed her dad was, they probably didn’t go great.
A light knock sounded against the front door.
My brows pulled together. For a second I thought that I was tripping and that maybe my next-door neighbor was making noise, but then it came again.
There were three soft knocks. Slowly, I pushed myself upright.
The movement immediately pulled at my shoulder.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath as I made my way through the apartment.
The second I opened the door, Maliah was standing there.
A smile immediately tried to pull at my mouth.
She had on a matching Lululemon workout set, her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and two grocery bags were hanging from one arm.
She was standing in front of me like she had every right to be standing there. Like this was normal.
“Good morning,” she said in a chipper tone as she brushed past me before I could answer. I watched her disappear into the apartment, then I shook my head. I grunted as I closed the front door.
By the time I turned around, she was already slipping out of her Yeezy slides.
She kicked off one and then the other. A second later, she was heading toward my kitchen carrying groceries like she paid rent there.
I leaned against the wall watching her. The entire thing would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so ridiculous.
The craziest part of it all was that I would take another bullet for her.
I swear I would. I loved the fuck out of this girl.
“You better go before your damn father shoots me again.”
The words came out jokingly as I followed behind her toward the kitchen.
Maliah didn’t even look up. I watched her pull things out of the grocery bags one by one.
She had eggs, bacon, bread, fruit, and pancake batter.
She sat some of the items on the counter, and then she was stuffing my refrigerator with enough food to last a week. My brows pulled together.
“What is all of this?”
The corners of her mouth turned upward as she continued unpacking everything.
“I figured we could start with breakfast.”
The answer caught me off guard. This gesture was very sweet, but maybe my baby went home and was knocked upside the head and forgotten that her father had shot me or that he said that I had better stay the fuck away from her.
She finally looked up at me then. And there was something different in her expression. It was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Like she wasn’t carrying around the same fear she had when she left yesterday, and I noticed it immediately.
“Start with breakfast?”
Her smile widened slightly.
“I talked to my dad.”
And now we were getting somewhere. This was the thing she’d really come to tell me.
Her coming over here early in the morning with grocery bags wasn’t just it.
I needed to know what happened after she got home yesterday, and now was the time for that conversation.
I leaned against the counter and folded my arms.
“And?”
She looked a tad bit nervous, like she was trying to find the right words.
“My father told me everything,” she paused, “he told me about the auto shops, the robberies, and the bricks.”
My jaw tightened slightly, but she held my gaze.
“I told him I believed you when you told him that you don’t know it was his bricks.”
The Maliah that was in this same kitchen yesterday wasn’t the same girl that stood before me today.
I watched as she grabbed a mixing bowl from one of my cabinets like she’d been living here for years.
The crazy part was she found everything without asking.
I leaned against the counter and shook my head.
“You are making yourself entirely too comfortable.”
Maliah smiled without looking up.
“Good.”
The answer came so fast it made me laugh. She poured the ingredients into the bowl before reaching for a whisk.
“I told my dad people make mistakes.”
I stayed quiet while listening.
“I told him I believed everything you told him.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “Because I do.”
Something about hearing her say it again hit different. Maybe it was because she knew the whole story now. Or maybe it was because she had every reason not to believe me and chose to anyway.
She started mixing the batter slowly and thoughtfully. It was like she was still replaying yesterday in her head.
“He wasn’t happy.”
That made me laugh.
“No?” I said in a sarcastic tone.
She rolled her eyes.
“No,” she said with a straight face.
The smile pulling at my mouth got a little bigger.
“That’s shocking.”
Maliah pointed the whisk at me.
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
I wiped the smile off my face and really started listening to her. She shook her head before setting the whisk back into the bowl.
“But he listened.”
That part surprised me more than anything else. Mali gave me a genuine smile. The kind I hadn’t seen lately, especially not yesterday.
“I asked him if he could give you a fresh start.”
“And?” I said as I folded my arms over my chest.
She looked at me like I was slow.
“And he said yes.”
I couldn’t believe it, but I had to laugh. It wasn’t shit about the situation funny, and the hole in my arm was proof of that. The sound filled the kitchen before I shook my head.
“Your father must’ve hit his head.”
That earned me a look.
“Tahari…”
“I’m serious.”
Now it was my turn to point.
“The same man that shot me?”
She tried not to smile but failed.
“That same man,” she said with a slight smile.
I shook my head again because I still was not buying it.
But the warmth sitting on my chest told me I wanted to.
I wanted to start over with her badly. Now that she knew what I had done, there would no longer be this invisible barrier I had put up between us.
Maliah turned back toward the bowl and continued mixing.
A few seconds passed before she spoke again.
“Oh.”
I raised a brow.
“What?”
“My mama pregnant.”
“What?” I said as I did one of those awkward blinks.
This time she laughed.
“My mama pregnant,” she repeated with a giggle.
I stared at her and then shook my head.
“No, she not.”
“She is.”
“Pregnant? Y’all sure?”
“Yes.”
I rubbed a hand across my face.
“How old is your daddy?”
Maliah gasped. My question only made her laugh harder.
“Don’t do that.”
“I’m just saying his ass gotta be old.”
“Tahari,” she said before laughing with a little snort at the end.
“He ain’t tired?”
She threw a paper towel roll at me, and I caught it easily. Well… As easily as somebody with a fresh gunshot wound could. The kitchen filled with laughter for the first time all morning.
She had bacon sizzling. Some pancakes were already cooked, and now she was working on the eggs. She had my place smelling good as hell. Maliah looked around the apartment before her eyes landed on me again.
“You know…” she dragged.
The look on her face immediately made me suspicious.
“What?”
“If I’m gonna be over here this much, you might as well get me a key made.”
I stared at her. She continued cracking eggs like she hadn’t just invited herself into my entire life.
“Maliah.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course you are,” I said with a laugh.
This girl was taking her father’s blessing and running with it. Like damn, can a nigga’s wound heal first?
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Her words came out casually, but she had no idea how much her statement meant to me.
My eyes stayed on her for a second longer than necessary.
Then I looked away. I would run out and go make her copy right fucking now if she wanted me to.
More than anything, the only thing us niggas be wanting is to know that the lady by our side won’t ever go anywhere.
GHOST
By the next afternoon, I had managed to push Ryan to the back of my mind.
At least enough to convince myself I wasn’t going to think about him anymore.
The refrigerator was almost empty, and after standing there for a good five minutes hoping food would magically appear, I finally gave in and drove to the convenience store a few blocks from the apartment.
My mother usually handles grocery shopping, but she’d been picking up extra shifts at the hospital lately and spending more time at work than she did at home.
Between her schedule and everything that had been going on, neither one of us had made it to the store.
I parked, shut the engine off, and climbed out.
The afternoon heat hit me immediately. I locked my door and started toward the entrance.
I hadn’t made it more than a few steps before somebody spoke.
“Just the man I wanted to see.”