Prologue #2
“Oh, yeah, I did. Dad told me to make enough for ten people.” She twiddled with her fingers as she stood there.
Joshua’s head went back and forth between his little sister and his best friend. He wasn’t worried about Bolt ever trying his sister. It just annoyed him that his sister had this stupid ass crush on his best friend. “Alright, bet. You gonna make those french fries too?”
P’Nee knew when her brother gave her tasks that he was ready to have space from her.
He knew that she knew those home fries that he wanted took a while to prep.
“You want me to make enough for everyone?” When he nodded his head, she rolled her eyes.
“I don’t have enough potatoes for that many people. ”
“It’s cool.” He patted Bolt’s chest with the back of his hand. “Let’s head to Piggly Wiggly to get some potatoes.”
Bolt knew his best friend well too. “Bet.” He looked at his phone. “We got like an hour before everyone gets here.”
With no further acknowledgement of P’Nee, they left the house.
She was annoyed already with how the evening was projected to go.
Hopefully, the girls that came over would be able to remove themselves from the guys’ peens long enough to realize there was another girl in the house who was not a whore.
She headed into the kitchen to wash the potatoes that they did have.
Her father left after he finished the wings and placed them in the warmer.
One of his bed buddies called, and he was on his way.
P’Nee didn’t mind because she had her time with him when they cooked the wings together.
She was thirteen, not five. She didn’t have to be under her father all the time to feel love, or at least that was what she convinced herself of.
She had just washed the last potato when her brother plopped a five-pound bag on the kitchen counter. “Josh, I’m not cooking all of those. The girls that come over here don’t even eat like that. Well, they eat, but not anything that should be eaten.”
Joshua’s head jerked. This was the first time that he heard his sister make a comment that was sexual in nature. The fact that she made the comment was bad enough. The fact that the comment was made in relation to him seemed egregious. “Aye, watch your mouth, P’Nee.”
She snickered. “You should tell that to your groupies. I don’t put foreign body parts in my mouth.”
“Yo, you’re tripping today,” Joshua said with a titter. His sister was really on one today. “You gonna watch the game with us, or you gonna be in your room reading?”
P’Nee shrugged her shoulders before she walked over to open the bag of potatoes. “I’ll probably come in there to not be rude, but I won’t be in there for too long. I’m sure your friends would prefer me not to be there.”
“I don’t give a damn about what they want. If I say you can be there, then you can be there.” He sat at the small table that was in the kitchen. “I heard your grandma cursed dad out again.” He chuckled then asked, “Why you think she hates him so much?”
It always bothered Joshua how much resentment Margie held for his father. It had been like that since he was a small kid. He knew some of it stemmed from the way his mother, Gina, treated P’Nee’s mother, Pam, when she lived here.
Gina was a special breed of country hoodrat.
She had her son as a trophy. Yes, she loved him and was a good mother when she was around.
When Joshua turned twelve, he started to show his ass.
Gina couldn’t be bothered. She was still in her outside phase of life at that time.
Jordan agreed to take his son because at the end of the day, he felt it took a man to teach a man.
“I don’t know, Joshua. I love Daddy, but he was kind of a butthole to my mama and my Grams. I’m surprised that I like him,” she said with a dry tone.
“My mama always told me that what they had going on had nothing to do with my relationship with him. She told me that I need to respect and love him as my daddy.”
Pam was jaded when it came to how she felt about Jordan, but she didn’t want that for her daughter. She was very intentional that she never spoke ill of him in front of P’Nee. Pam knew that her daughter would form her own opinion of her father.
Margie, on the other hand, didn’t give a damn about none of that.
She was old school and believed in calling a spade a spade, no matter who the table was in front of.
P’Nee went her whole cognitive life listening to Grams talk shit about her daddy.
It bothered her because most of the bad talk was about his promiscuity.
“Well, your mom is cool for that I guess,” Joshua said. “I’m going to chill with Bolt until everyone gets here. Let me know if you need anything.”
He noticed the subtle response of P’Nee’s body at the mention of Bolt’s name. Yeah, he didn’t like that. Although he didn’t like it, he dared not speak on it. If he spoke on it, then it would be real. Instead, he would enjoy his evening with his friends.
“Yeah, nigga! I told you we was gonna work on that ass!” Bolt jumped up after his team scored a touchdown.
His outburst caused the girls in the room to laugh, while it distracted P’Nee from the book that she was knee deep into.
She stared at him, admiring his attire. Bolt’s toffee skin tone and curly, long hair made people think that he was mixed with something.
Perhaps further down his lineage, he was, especially on his father’s side.
He wore his hair in braids or, when it was time to get it washed, loose in a bun on top of his head.
Bolt noticed P’Nee’s glances at him all night.
She tried to be inconspicuous. His father, Benjamin, taught him from five to be observant of his surroundings overall.
His mother, Sandra, taught him to be observant of the females around him.
Just like the Nichols were a big deal in Clover, South Carolina, so were the Abloys.
Both were families of farmers. The Abloys raised cows and pigs while the Nichols were solely about chickens.
P’Nee noticed that Bolt loved to wear basketball shorts and T-shirts. She rarely saw him dressed in anything other than that. He was on the football team as well, so he leaned into an athletic sense of style.
There was a club, The Hideout, in the town that had a teens’ night on Thursdays.
You had to be between fifteen and eighteen to get in.
The caveat to the eighteen-year-olds was you had to still be in high school and have a valid high school ID with your government ID.
When he and Joshua went out to the club, that was the only time he took to really dress.
After she felt like she had stared long enough, she went back to her book. She wasn’t sure how long it was before she felt the seat next to her dip down. Her back straightened when she realized it was Bolt.
“What you reading?” he asked her. She was always in a book. He liked that about her. When she visited her dad’s house, she stayed to herself, he noticed. He had no idea what she did at her grandma’s house.
“Oh, um, it’s called One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. It’s from my mother’s summer reading list.”
The school gave a summer reading list that P’Nee read also, but her mother always had a reading list of her own. Her reading list was filled with Black authors. She gave the reading list to her students, but only with parent approval since it was not approved by the district.
Bolt nodded. “What’s that about?” He really wanted to know. He took a mental note of the title to check it out later. A lot of people didn’t know that he was an avid reader. It was how he spent his time alone.
“It’s about these three sisters that visit Oakland, California, from Brooklyn, New York. While they’re there, they learn about the Black Panther Party, activism, community support, and stuff like that. It’s good so far,” she told him.
It sounded good. “That’s what’s up. I’m going to have to check it out.” When P’Nee gave him a skeptical look, he tittered. “Damn, a nigga reads books. Don’t do me like that.”
She giggled. “Okay, okay. Next summer, I’m going to ask you about it, since you read books.”
That was cool with him. Now he really had a reason to read it. Their conversation was interrupted by one of the girls. She stood in front of them with her hand on her skinny hip. “Bolt, why are you over here?”
“I’m clearly having a conversation. Was there something that you needed, Harmony?” he asked her hot ass. She was what some would call sexually friendly.
“You could be having a conversation with me. I’m sure it would be more entertaining than whatever she has to talk about,” Harmony quipped. She was an attention seeking female who wanted all of it, no matter the cost.
P’Nee stared at the girl because of the tone of desperation that dripped from every word she said. People often miscalculated when it came to P’Nee because of her sometimes meek personality. Yes, she was quiet, but she was far from a punk.
She sat forward. “Harmony, what is the last book that you read? Wait, I’m moving ahead of myself. Can you read?”
Harmony’s head bucked back while Bolt snickered. He knew that she wasn’t too bright of a female. “Lil bitch, who the fuck—”
Her sentence was cut short by the roar of Joshua’s voice. “Aye, Harmony! Get the fuck out. No one disrespects my sister.”
Her eyes bucked. “What the hell, Joshua? She’s over here asking if I can damn read, but I’m disrespecting her!”
“Well, can you fucking read? We’ve had a bunch of classes together, and you’ve repeated most of them. You’re seventeen in the tenth grade.” Joshua didn’t play about his sister in any kind of way. “Now, since you want to be disrespectful, get the fuck out.”
Harmony pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. It wasn’t much of a chest, but it was a chest, nonetheless. “Bolt, really? I’m here for you, and you’re in another female’s face.”
Bolt burst into laughter. “Why do you think that you’re here for me? Nah, you’re here for the team.”
P’Nee’s eyes bulged before she shook her head. She felt the embarrassment that fell over Harmony. “I would leave if I were you,” P’Nee said. She looked around at the boys that were in the room. She wasn’t sure if she could take a team of six.
Harmony stood there embarrassed and ashamed.
She in fact came over to do things that her mother would be ashamed of.
What she really wanted was to be with Bolt.
He was impossible though. Nothing she did impressed him.
She came to every one of his football games and cheered him on.
She even wore custom outfits with his number on it.
Bolt hated that shit because it made it seem like she was his girl when she was far from it.
Yeah, Bolt fucked around with girls like most popular high schoolers would, but he never claimed or would claim any of the females he fucked off with.
He was young and having fun in his mind.
The time would come when he wanted a one and only.
Harmony figured if she needed to leave, then her girls did too. “Y’all come on. We can find somewhere else to chill.”
The other girls looked at each other with questioning glances. Rasha was the first who spoke up. “He told you to leave because you were disrespectful, not us. We’ll catch up with you later.”
Joshua laughed. “Damn, that’s fucked up. You can dip now.”
With fire in her blood, she turned on her heels and stomped out of the house. It was fuck them as far as she was concerned. She knew that P’Nee only came around during the summer, which was over in a couple of weeks. They would be back on her ass then.
After she left, they chilled for another hour before Jordan came in with a guest. “Y’all, look who came into town. He acts like he forgot where home is.”
Behind him was his brother, Jacob. From time to time, he strolled into town, stayed a few days, then was out. “What’s up, nephew, niece, and everyone else.”
His attention went to P’Nee. It had been over two years since he had seen her. My how she had grown. Everyone greeted him warmly. He barely noticed because his attention was still on her.
“P’Nee, you look like a little woman. You done grew up on a nigga,” Jacob complimented. “Pretty girl,” he mumbled.
She smiled before she thanked him, but she felt uncomfortable by the compliment. Jordan didn’t care for the undertone of the compliment either. “Come on, Bro. Let’s leave the kids to themselves. There’s food in the kitchen.”
After they went to the kitchen, P’Nee decided that it was time to go to her room for the rest of the night. She was tired. “I’m going to my room. I’ll see you in the morning, Josh.”
“Alright, Sis. I love you,” Joshua said before she went upstairs. He watched as Bolt watched his sister. When their eyes connected, Joshua gave his best friend a knowing look. “Don’t get fucked up, Bolt. That’s my baby sister.”
Bolt waved him off. “Nigga, no one is thinking about that shit. You’re tripping.”
That was the end of the conversation. P’Nee was the furthest thing from Bolt’s mind.
Joshua and his friends stayed at the house for a few more hours before the friends left.
Jordan and his brother were still in the kitchen catching up over drinks.
By the end of the night, it was decided that Jacob would sleep in the guest room.
His ass was certainly too drunk to get behind the handles of a bicycle, much less the wheel of a car.
Tonight would be the last night that P’Nee spent at her father’s house for the summer before she left to go back home to Augusta, Georgia. She would miss her brother more than her father. Unbeknownst to her, it would be the last time she visited Clover.