Page 4 of Honey's Special Roux

“I know you don’t mean to be mean, so I’ll let that slide. However, I’m not no young girl. I’ll be sixteen on December 24th,” she explained.

“You’re too young for me.”

“You’re barely seventeen. Don’t piss me off.”

I chuckled. “You can’t get mad if a nigga doesn’t want to accept yo’ fuckin’ friend offerings, shawty.”

“Okay. You’re right. I will not beg you to be my friend, but I won’t take the offer back either. I know grief can be isolating, and I’m letting you know I am available to be your friend when the pain is too hard to bear on your own.”

“You are cute and all, but I don’t think you need to be trying to offer your pussy up to me like that,” I stated.

She blinked in surprise. “How the hell you get that from what I just said? Boy, don’t flatter yourself. You’re not my type.”

“You can keep telling yourself that lie, but those eyes don’t lie. You ain’t got to front with me either,Honey.”

“Boy, bye!” She tried to walk away, but I was too entertained now.

“Nah, where are you going? Your young ass looks like the type of girl who be sneaking into your mama’s book collection. You be reading those Zane books, huh?”

She giggled. “Boy, the books I read are a lot nastier than those Zane books. She’s a goat, for sure. But I got some authors who make her scenes look real vanilla.”

“Freak ass. You probably ain’t ever even took some dick before.”

She scrunched her nose. “Ew. Of course not. I’m waiting for the right guy. I refuse to waste my first time with a boy who doesn’t know what he’s doing. When I get old enough, I’m going to find a man who can take my virginity and make it special.”

“Yeah, you read a lot of books. Keep that innocence, for real.”

“Sweet Tea!”

We both craned our necks to the sound of the voice.

“That’s my daddy. I gotta go. Listen, I stand by everything I said today.”

“Me too.”

She gave a short wave before she turned and jogged across the grass to her house. I shook my head at the sight of her retreating frame. Our age gap wasn’t bad; however, I wasn’t trying to live a fairy tale lifestyle with her. I didn’t even plan to be around when I turned eighteen. I counted down the days when I could move out on my own and do what the fuck I wanted to do.

* * *

“You settled in?” Uncle Merlot asked on the phone.

“I guess.”

“You able to move how you need to? I got a job for you.”

My palms itched at the possibility of getting into the streets. I hadn’t had a talk with Aunt Dee and Uncle Chance about their house rules. I didn’t give a fuck either way, but I needed to know if I could leave out the front door or climb through the window. I wasn’t afraid of them, but I didn’t want to deal with them questioning me and what I got into.

“I’ll figure something out. When you need me?”

“Tomorrow night. If you can meet me at the spot today, we can do a briefing.”

“I’ll head that way in about an hour.” I looked at my oil-stained clothes.

“Good shit.”

The call ended. I had just washed the car when Uncle Merlot called. I’d been outside for hours. Time flew by when I was in the zone. I would have been a mechanic in another lifetime if my circumstances hadn’t gotten fucked up by my parents.

Drug dealing daddy and crackhead mama made a hell of a backstory. Not only had my father been the one to give my mother the lethal dosage of drugs to kill her, but he also ran away like a pussy. I wanted the mothafucka dead, and so did Uncle Merlot. We both had our ears to the streets, ready for the day that nigga slipped up.

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