Chapter 4
Tahari “Trigga” Reynolds
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It cut through the low hum of the stash spot. I wiped my hands on my jeans, grabbed my phone, and then glanced down. I had been counting money for hours, and honestly, the tips of my fingers were starting to feel raw.
Mali: Be here by eight for dinner to meet my family.
I smiled as my heart skipped a beat. Shit.
There’s no way that I was reading this right.
Was this a formal invitation? Was she requesting my presence behind those gates?
At her house. So many nights I had dropped her off and watched her clear those gates as if she were a professional pole vaulter.
I laughed inwardly at how she would dart across that long-ass lawn.
My chest tightened a little. For months, I’d been sneaking around with her.
We shared numerous late nights and quick drop-offs, but tonight…
tonight was different. Tonight, I’d be walking through the door like I belonged there.
And for the night, I did because I was invited.
Just thinking about meeting Maliah’s family had me thinking about the first time I had met her.
They say when you first meet someone, you will never know the impact that they will have on your life.
I can honestly say that since Mali has been in my life, things have just been easier.
I ain’t even going to lie, that day stuck with me and always will.
School was loud as hell, but that was nothing new.
Lockers were slamming, niggas were yelling, and girls were laughing too hard at nothing.
I knew girls like that all too well. I was never a fan of the ones who simply just wanted to be seen.
I was leaning against the wall, half paying attention to my phone, half watching everything like I always did.
That’s when she came out of nowhere. Her head was down, and she was moving fast. Too fast. So fast that she had slammed right into me.
“Watch where you…”
I stopped mid-sentence the second I saw her face.
It was so pretty. She had natural, full, pouty lips, full cheeks, and long, natural lashes.
She had a nice sun-kissed brown skin complexion.
Her bone structure looked like it could have been the perfect blueprint for all the surgeons out here.
I wanted to admire the beauty on her profile, but she had this look on her that overshadowed her gorgeous ass face.
She had this look of panic in her eyes that I couldn’t ignore.
Her entire face was etched in it, and it was not regular late-for-class panic either.
Nah, something was going on. Her eyes were glossy, like she was fighting back tears, and her full lips were pressed tight like she was trying to keep it together.
“My bad,” she muttered quickly.
She didn’t even bother looking at me before trying to slide past. I was about to grab her arm, but something had caught my eye.
The spot was small at first… but noticeable.
She had a dark red stain that appeared to be spreading on the back of her light gray sweats.
I frowned because clearly, she was rushing for this very reason.
It clicked instantly. She ain’t bump into me by accident, she was trying to get somewhere fast before anybody else noticed what I had.
“Yo… wait,” I called out.
She froze for half a second. Her shoulders tensed like she didn’t even want to turn around.
“I’m good,” she said quickly, “I just…gotta go.”
She tried to keep walking, but this time, my intrusive thoughts won, and I grabbed her hand to stop her from taking another step forward.
“Nah, you not,” I said, stepping in front of her before she could disappear down the hall.
She had a little way to the bathroom, and I knew that she had to walk past a group of the popular bougie bitches.
She was about nine inches shorter than me, so I had to look down to look in her face.
I stared into her doe-like brown eyes. When I did, I gave a little head nod down toward her pants.
I was trying to tell her what was going on with her without having to utter a word.
Her pupils opened, and a bit of embarrassment flooded her face so quickly it was almost painful to watch.
Her fingers curled into the sleeves of her long-sleeved shirt, like she was trying to shrink into herself.
“Move,” she whispered, her voice cracking just a little. “Please.”
Without thinking twice, I pulled my Nike hoodie over my head.
“Wrap this around your waist,” I said, holding it out to her.
She blinked at me with this confused glare at first. She stared down at the hoodie in my hand for a while before she parted her lips to respond.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t,” I cut her off. “Take it anyway.”
For a second, she just stood there like she wasn’t used to people helping her without making a big deal about it.
I just knew that if I had a sister, I would want someone to be nice enough to make sure that she was never out here feeling embarrassed or ashamed about anything.
When I nodded down at my hand slowly, she took the hoodie from me.
Her fingers brushed mine for a split second, and I don’t know why, but that little touch hit differently.
It was soft and delicate, just how she looked.
“Thank you,” she said quietly as she started to tie the arms of the sweater around her waist.
She scurried off, and this time I let her. I stood back on the wall with my hands in my pockets as I watched her go. I didn’t even know her name. Or what grade she was in. I didn’t know anything about her, but it was something about the way she looked at me that stuck.
And when she returned to school the next day with the same hoodie I had given her, folded up with the smell of fabric softener seeping from the cotton material, I knew. I knew that I had to get her.
I shook my head until the memory cleared up.
That was Maliah’s freshman year. Although we had known each other for three years, we had just started seriously dating a few months ago.
She reached out on the anniversary of when my dad had died, and that created a deep connection between us.
It also solidified the flirty texts we had been engaging in since I had met her.
I shoved my phone back in my pocket and looked at Ghost, my best friend from when we were kids.
He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a wide, goofy grin on his face.
When I was a young boy, my dad would take me to Little Haiti to shoot hoops.
Although my dad had done well for himself as an engineer and had us living in a way better area than that, he always wanted me to know where he was from so that I would always remain grounded.
He grew up in the hood and stomped around in the trenches so that I didn’t have to.
In one of the parks in Little Haiti, I met Giovani.
My dad was nice to his mother, and I thought that would rub my mom the wrong way, but he said he knew what it was like being raised by a single mother.
So, Ghost and I practically grew up together.
Whatever he did for me, he would do for him, too.
He even showed both of us how to ride bikes together.
“What, nigga?” I asked Ghost when he was staring for too damn long.
“You’re all cheesy and shit. See what happens when a nigga falls in love,” he said, smirking.
“Shut up, man. Maliah texted me. I got a dinner invite tonight,” I said, trying to act cool, but I couldn’t hide the grin creeping across my face.
Ghost whistled low.
“Dinner? Are you about to meet the family? You sure you’re ready for that? You know how old heads be.”
I shook my head while rubbing the back of my neck.
“I’ll be fine. I’m looking forward to it.
Plus, I’m sure her family is bougie as hell.
It’s not something I haven’t prepared for.
I knew it was only a matter of time before I met her people.
I lowkey was prepping for this shit. I’ve even been practicing my professional, respectful voice and shit,” I joked.
Ghost had always been overprotective of me.
I used to think it was because he was a year older than me, but as time had passed, I realized that he just fucked with a nigga.
I had been through a lot of shit in life, and through it all, he was always at my side.
His protective ways didn’t come from nowhere either.
He had been at my side long before childhood trauma started to set in.
But we were inseparable once my father died…
I was seventeen years old, standing outside helplessly looking at my dad lying out on the ground with a white cover on his body.
I had gone to the movies straight after school and was met with this scene when I returned.
Yellow tape was everywhere. Our neighbors were whispering.
I even heard a few ask others why something like this happened.
And others even said out loud why he didn’t give up his car.
From what I gathered, two guys were trying to steal my dad’s car, but he fought them off, only for him to be shot in the head.
He died immediately. The neighbors poured outside, causing the murderers to flee on foot.
They didn’t even get to leave with what they had come for.
The car keys were literally still in my father’s pocket when the police arrived.
The cops started asking me questions as if at that moment I could help.
The questions went into one ear and out the other because, in the end, the only thing that my father left me with was the same car that he wouldn’t even give up to the carjackers.
I had no parents, no home, and no sense of direction. It was literally just… me.
I remember Ghost pulling up and jumping out of his mother’s car before it even stopped.