13. Lee #2
“Something like that.”
“I’m Ryan.”
My eyes went straight to Van, who suddenly became real interested in Snoop.
“Hi, Ryan,” I said, putting a little extra on his government name just to fuck with Van.
Ryan grinned. “You can call me Rick too.”
“Aight, man, get the fuck out the street,” Van told him.
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game!” Ryan yelled back before pulling off, still bumping his music loud as hell.
I looked at Van. “White Boy Rick is corny as hell.”
Van laughed. “You just met that man.”
“And that was enough.”
I was still laughing when I realized I liked whatever Ryan had been playing. “Wait. What song was that?”
Van looked over at me. “You don’t know that one?”
“Obviously not if I’m asking.”
“That was Prove It. 21 Savage and Summer Walker.”
“Oh.” I kept listening to the music getting farther away. “Play it.”
“You liked it?”
“I liked what I heard.”
Van pulled his phone from his pocket, found the song, and started it over. I could barely hear the shit coming through his phone speaker, so I reached toward it.
“Turn it up.”
He moved the phone out of my reach. “Now you finna have us out here like White Boy Rick.”
“I ain’t tell you to shake nobody windows. Just let me hear the damn song.”
Laughing, Van turned it up and held the phone between us as we kept walking.
He started rapping along under his breath, knowing damn near every word.
I laughed at first, but somewhere in the middle of it, I stopped.
He wasn’t even looking at me, just walking beside me with Snoop’s leash in one hand and his phone in the other, saying all that shit about being serious about a woman and wanting to prove what she meant to him like it was nothing.
Snoop wandered into somebody’s yard while we were walking and managed to wrap his leash around their mailbox. Van sighed and went after him.
“Come on, man. How you even do this shit?”
I laughed while Van crouched down to work the leash free, but my attention drifted back to the song. The more I listened, the more the words started hitting a little different.
I glanced over at Van.
He was still crouched beside Snoop, untangling the leash from around the mailbox, not paying me any attention.
Maybe it was all that shit in the song about somebody being your peace, but for whatever reason, I thought about how easy things felt with Van.
He checked on me, walked with me damn near every evening, and made sure I was straight without acting like I owed him something for it.
And damn if looking at him while that song played didn’t make all that shit feel a little different.
Van finally got the leash loose and stood up. I was still looking when he turned around.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He looked behind himself like maybe there was something back there. “Then what you looking at?”
“I’m listening to the song.”
Van looked at his phone, then back at me. “What that got to do with looking at me?”
“Nothing. Damn.”
A little smile pulled at his mouth. “Aight.”
“What?”
“I ain’t say nothing.”
“Your face did.”
“My face minding its business.”
“Well, tell it to keep doing that.”
He laughed and started walking again, calling Snoop along with him.
I fell into step beside them, still listening harder than I had been before.
“Who you said this was again?”
Van looked over at me. “21 Savage and Summer Walker.”
“What’s the song called?”
“Prove It.”
I nodded and pulled out my phone.
“What you doing?”
“Adding it.”
“Oh, now you like it?”
“I said I liked it when Ryan was playing it.”
“Nah, you liked the beat then.” Van glanced down at me. “You got all quiet once you started listening.”
“You worried about me too much.”
“I’m walking right beside you. Kinda hard not to notice.”
I added the song to my library and put my phone away before he could see the smile trying to creep onto my face.
“Whatever.”
Van let it go, and I was glad he did.
A few houses later, the song ended and something else started playing from his phone. By then we were back to talking shit like we had been before Ryan came riding through, and I didn’t give Prove It another thought.
At least not right then.
Somewhere around the next block, Van glanced over at me. “Y’all doing anything for Thanksgiving?”
“My mama cooking.” I started counting the food off on my fingers. “Mac and cheese, greens, dressing, ham, candied yams, sweet potato pie-”
“See, you lost me at sweet potato pie. Pumpkin pie.”
I stopped and looked at him. “Ew.”
“Ew?” Van stopped too, laughing at my face. “You ever even had pumpkin pie?”
“No, and I don’t need to.”
“So how the hell you know it’s nasty?”
“Because it’s pumpkin.” I started walking again, and he fell into step beside me. “Pumpkins belong on a porch with a candle in ’em. Not on a dessert plate.”
Van laughed. “You judging a whole pie off Halloween.”
“I’m judging it off the fact that it’s a pumpkin.”
“Pumpkin is food, Lee.”
“Not at my house.”
“You missing out.”
“I promise you I’m not. Sweet potato pie is better.”
“How you know that when you just admitted you never had pumpkin?”
“Because I got common sense.”
“That ain’t common sense.”
“It is in the Black community.”
Van laughed so loud that Snoop looked back at him like he wanted in on the joke. “You just made pie racial.”
“I ain’t make shit racial. I’m telling you what I know.”
“They damn near cousins anyway.”
That stopped me again. “Don’t disrespect sweet potatoes like that. They don’t claim pumpkin.”
Van was still laughing when I walked ahead of him. “You know what? Aight. I’m finna prove it to you.”
“You can’t prove something that ain’t true.”
“Yes, I can.”
“How?”
“I’m gonna make you one.”
I looked over at him. “You bake?”
“I can make a pumpkin pie.”
“That ain’t what I asked you. I asked if you bake.”
“I can make a pumpkin pie,” he repeated, which told me everything I needed to know.
“Exactly.”
“Man, whatever.” He nudged Snoop away from somebody’s trash can and caught back up with me. “We’ll make it together.”
“Who is we?”
“Me and you.”
“I don’t know how to make no pumpkin pie.”
“That’s the point.”
By then we were turning back onto our street. “So where we getting this pumpkin from?”
Van looked over at me like I had walked straight into whatever he had been setting up. “Pumpkin patch.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You already had this planned.”
“I just thought of it.”
“Liar.”
“I’m serious. Come with me Saturday. We’ll pick one out and make the pie.”
I laughed. “People really do that? Like go get a whole pumpkin and make the pie from scratch?”
“Yes, Leona. Some of us like our food from the dirt up.”
“You sound like somebody granddaddy.”
Van laughed. “Keep talking shit. You gone be asking me for another piece when we make it.”
“Highly doubt it.”
We had made it back to my cottage, and Van stopped near the bottom of the steps while Snoop wandered into the grass beside the walkway.
I leaned against the porch post, thinking about Saturday.
JB had just told me he probably wouldn’t be home until Sunday night, maybe Monday morning, and I didn’t have anything else planned.
Besides, it was a pumpkin patch.
“Okay.”
Van’s eyebrows lifted. “Okay?”
“Yes, nigga. Damn. Before I change my mind.”
“Aight.” He smiled and gave Snoop’s leash a tug when the dog started nosing around my flower bed. “I’ll text you Saturday morning.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s why I said I’ll text you.”
“Don’t be waking me up at seven in the morning talking about no damn pumpkin.”
“See, you already putting rules on shit.”
“Because I know how y’all outdoorsy people operate.”
“Who the fuck is y’all?”
“You and White Boy Rick.”
Van stared at me before busting out laughing. “Man, goodnight, Lee.”
“Goodnight.”
He headed toward his place with Snoop, then turned around long enough to call, “And don’t eat no sweet potato pie before Saturday. Cleanse your palate.”
“Boy, fuck you!”
His laugh carried down the sidewalk as I went inside.
I locked the door, dropped my keys on the counter, and headed toward my bedroom. Me and Van walked together all the time. We talked shit. We laughed. Saturday was just us doing something different instead of circling the same few blocks with Snoop.
Still, when I passed the hallway mirror, I caught sight of myself and stopped. I was smiling again. Not the big, exaggerated smile I’d given Van when he came to the door, just a regular one I hadn’t even realized was there.
I looked down at my hoodie and leggings, then back at myself. A pumpkin patch probably meant being outside for a while. Dirt too. I’d need some cute boots, but not anything I cared about messing up. Maybe jeans or leggings with-
I frowned at my reflection. Why the hell was I planning an outfit three days early?
I walked away from the mirror before I could answer my own damn question.