Page 10 of Played
Without another look or word, she slips past me and leaves the conference room. Not that I have anything to say in response.
Because for a couple of hours, I felt understood. Seen. You did what I haven’t had the courage to say or even acknowledge.
That soft confession ripples through my mind as I reach for the paper, pick it up.
A website address.
I flip the slip of card over, but nothing is on the back. Not what the site is, what it pertains to. Just the address.
My fingers start to curl around it, crumpling it. But at the last second, I stop and slide it in the pocket of my track pants. It seems to burn a whole through the knit-mesh lining, but I still don’t toss it in the trash can by the door.
As I grab my journal, the peace I should’ve experienced at finally having it in my hands again deserts me.
Instead, a chaotic, messy storm of emotions gathers right behind my ribs. The all-too-familiar tenant that’s anger mixed with the ever-present grief, powerlessness, and guilt. But there’s a new member of that godforsaken circle.
Lust.
Lust has joined the party, and I don’t know who I resent more for it, Adina Wright or myself.
Myself.
Definitely myself.
Chapter Three
ADINA
“Biiiitch. He said what now? Hol’ up a sec.” The voice of my bestie, Noni Crawford, blasts in my car’s interior. “Damn, girl, are you trying to snatch my soul through these braids? I’m not gonna have one baby hair left on my head, fucking around with you.”
I chuckle, shaking my head.
Monica, or Noni, as most people call her, has zero filter, and it’s just one of the many reasons we’ve been best friends since the second grade. It’s also why all her tenth-grade students adore her. You never have to think about what’s on her mind; that mouth is going to tell you. Along with her unflinching honesty, though, she’s fiercely loyal, unfailingly kind, and as protective as a mama bear over her cubs. As a kid who was a quiet-bookworm introvert, I was an easy target for bullies in middle school. But with Noni as my best friend, that bullying was shut down real quick. Usually by a quick two-piece to the face. Not that I couldn’t defend myself. But with her, I didn’t need to.
A lot of people useBFFas a catchphrase. For me and Noni, it’s a promise.
Through the car speakers, a voice snaps back at Noni, and I wince, thankful neither woman can glimpse my face.
“Is that Minnie?” I ask Noni, referring to her fraternal twin sister, Minerva, also known as Minnie. “Tell her I said hi.”
“Mmkay.” Noni snorts, then says, “Dina says hi, Minnie.”
Silence echoes in my car, and it doesn’t take much to imagine the balled-up face Minnie’s probably throwing Noni’s way.
“Girl, you petty as hell,” Noni mutters, and I snicker.
Minnie has had an issue with me since five minutes after I befriended her twin. Seriously. She’s done things as small as not pass along a message from me to Noni and as big and hurtful as spreading rumors about me and one of Noni’s boyfriends to drive a wedge between us. Noni stopped talking to Minnie for a hot minute over that one.
It used to bother me that my best friend’s sister—her twin sister, at that—seems to hate me for no apparent or good reason. But in the last few years, I’ve just accepted that not everyone is going to love or like you. And that’s more of a reflection on them than me. Still ... I might’ve been a shy bookworm at one time and am a civil servant now. But I grew up with two older brothers, and we are adults now, not middle and high school kids. Minnie gets too slick at the mouth and she can catch these hands—who her sister is be damned. I’ll just hope Noni can forgive me for that ass whooping.
Fortunately, it hasn’t come down to that yet. Hopefully, it won’t. But if there’s one thing I remember from Pastor Todd’s Sunday sermons, it’sBe ye ready.
“Anyway, like I was saying,” Noni says, aggravation rippling through her voice. “Biiiiitch! This fine-ass man said what now?”
I cackle even though the residual irritation and, yes, hurt from my interaction with Solomon Young brushes up against my sternum.
“Girl, who said anything about him being fine?”
“Miss me with that, Dina.” Noni sucks her teeth, and though I can’t see my bestie, Icansee her roll her eyes. “Just because you don’t give a damn about hockey doesn’t mean the rest of the free world doesn’t.”
