Page 348 of Kentrell

And there it was.

The cheat code.

She knew exactly what that did to me.

I sighed, shaking my head again, lips twitching at the corner.

“And I call Cobbs,” she said quick, already laying claim like we were splitting up lottery winnings.

“Man… hell nah.” I laughed, nudging her with my shoulder.

“Oh shit! I forgot about Cobbs!” Wani’s voice jumped in from across the room, making half the house pause mid-conversation.

“Cobbs?” Zora and Zonda looked at each other, both frowning in sync, then shifted their attention to their men like this was some inside joke they weren’t let in on.

“I don’t know none of the young slang no more,” Darius said, lifting his shoulders like he was helpless.

Wani snorted. “You ain’t alone, hoss,” Ahmad chimed in from the spades table, shaking his head with a grin. “I just bob my head and try to connect the dots every time my daughter get to talkin’ fast and usin’ that AA… whatever-the-hell they callin’ it now.”

Ayesha lifted her head from Rashad’s shoulder at the sound of her name getting thrown around.

“Whatchu say, Daddy?” she asked, grinning like she already knew he was talking slick.

“It’sA-A-V-E,” Zoe called out, correcting him without even looking up from my plate she was still robbing.

“Nah… it’s D-U-M-B!” Wani jumped in before she could finish, sending the whole front room into loud, unfiltered laughter.

“That shit ain’t nothin’ but Ebonics!”

“Oh, isthatwhat that is?” Zonda said, looking like she’d just solved a crossword puzzle.

“Yeah… it’s the politically correct term for it,” Zoe muttered, rolling her eyes, still grinning, still tucked under my arm like she hadn’t been the one to start all this.

“What’s political about it?” Zonda asked, her face twisted like she was already over the conversation before it fully started.

Kensei snorted from across the room, shaking his head like he was struggling to hold in a laugh.

“Nothing, ma…” Ayesha jumped in, doing her best to explain without getting dragged into Wani’s antics. “It just puts an emphasis on our people’s lingo.”

“What lingo?” Zonda blinked, frowning like Ayesha had just started speaking another language.

“Ebonics!” Wani shouted again from the couch, like it was the buzzer on Family Feud and he was proud of his answer.

“Yes… they can be used interchangeably,” Ayesha stressed, shooting him a look before turning back to her mama. “But the ‘AA’ part makes it clear—African Americans were the originators. Like we always are. But the moment we create something, it gets rebranded. Dressed up as ‘urban’ or ‘mainstream’ so everybody can step in, partake, and pretend it was some group project. Same cycle, different name. Just like they did with our music, our art, our neighborhoods, the way we look, the way we dance, the way we style our hair. What’s uniquely ours gets stretched and shared until it barely resembles us, even though it started with us.”

“Clock it!” Zoe popped up with her little two cents, lifting her thumb and index finger in the air and tapping them together for emphasis.

“…but you know… I digress,” Ayesha finished with a nod like she’d just wrapped up a TED Talk.

The whole room went still for half a second…

Before Zonda sucked her teeth, snorted, and said in that low, raspy voice like she had a permanent tickle in her throat…

“Dassit?”

That was it.

That was all it took.

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