Page 19 of Touch of Smoke
“Good, you’re back,” Kim said and handed her brother the bag Ro had just been trying to help her with. “Sariya, will I see you for dinner tomorrow?”
Ro had suggested they head across the Bay bridge to one of the seafood restaurants and enjoy some pre-season crabs tomorrow after church. He didn’t look at her to see if she remembered their date or not. His gaze was locked with Uncle Larry’s.
“No,” she said. “I already have plans for tomorrow, but I’ll stop by one day this week.”
“How do you have plans when you’re unemployed?” Kim asked. “You should be saving every bit of the money in your savings to take care of your bills until you find another job.”
This was an old conversation, one Sariya definitely did not feel like having here of all places. “My bills are fine, Mama,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“No,” Ro spoke up then. “You don’t have to worry about her.”
“What did you just say?” Uncle Larry asked, taking a step closer to where Ro stood.
Logistically, Ro was still standing to Sariya’s right. Donyell was standing to her left. Her mother was across from her and when Uncle Larry had approached, he’d stopped across from Donyell, but close enough to her mother so he could take the bag from her. Now, when he moved it had been in Ro’s direction and Donyell whispered, “Ahhh shit.”
Sariya might have whispered the same, but she was more concerned with getting in front of this situation before it quickly went downhill.
“I said she’s taken care of,” Ro answered, just as she stepped in front of him.
“What he means is that I’m fine, just like I told you I am,” she said, her heart hammering in her chest. “So, I’ll come by to see you one day this week, Mama.”
Kim stared at Sariya, disappointment, disapproval, or some combination of both in her lighter brown eyes. “Whatever you say,” Kim replied. “Call before you come.”
After that curt directive, Kim grabbed Larry’s arm and tugged him away. Donyell let out an exaggerated breath. Ro grabbed Sariya by the arm, spinning her around until she faced him. “Don’t you ever do that shit again,” he said tightly, his gaze furious as he stared down at her.
“Do what?” she asked and eased her arm out of his grasp. “Talk to my mother.”
His lips thinned. “No. Step in front of me and Larry, or any dude for that matter. I don’t need protection, Sariya.”
“I wasn’t protecting you,” she said realizing his ego had been bruised. “I just didn’t want something to pop off here unnecessarily.”
“Oh, it wouldn’t have been unnecessarily. Your uncle’s a bitch-ass and always has been. So, all you just did was prolong the inevitable,” he said.
“Y’all should be over that juvenile stuff by now,” Donyell said.
“I am over it,” Ro replied. “It’s Larry who’s still carrying the grudge and your mother who’s still defending him. But I’m not worried about any of that. I’m more concerned with you. So, I’m gonna say this one more time and I want you to get this through your stubborn ass skull—don’t get between us again.” He looked away from her then. “I’m going to make sure these other vendors get to their cars safely. Get your stuff so we can lock up and go.”
With that he walked away as defiantly as her mother and uncle had moments ago. When they were alone again, Donyell said. “See, don’t you wish that brownie was an edible right about now?”
When she only glared at Donyell, her friend who Sariya suspected had possibly consumed an edible or three of her own today, chuckled again.
ro
. . .
“Oh shit!What did I do to deserve Benny Blue waiting on my line?” Malcolm “MJ” Jacobs said with a chuckle lacing his booming voice.
“It takes a minute to link up with the ever popular Two, Three,” Ro shot back using MJ’s dice nickname, the same way MJ still did with him from time to time.
Ro held the phone to his ear as he sat in his office and swiveled the chair so that he could see out the window at the same time.
“Just out here tryin’ to keep up with your bigtime corporate ass,” MJ said. “What’s good with you? Heard you made your way back to the east coast.”
“Yeah, I did. Trying to settle in now,” Ro replied.
Ro met MJ that long ago summer when Ro had been sent to Mississippi to stay with his grandfather. His mother had been afraid that the group of boys Ro was hanging with at the time would get him into more trouble than he’d already found himself in. Little did Christine know, sixteen-year-old Ro was even more versed in street life than being a passenger in a stolen car. Whichwas what he’d been charged with just before his mother decided he needed a summer vacation.
MJ was twenty-four at the time, fresh out of Morehouse and also in Jackson visiting his family. Noticing Ro’s talent with the dice and taking an instant liking to him, MJ let Ro come hang with him mostly every night that summer. During which time they played so much dice, MJ gave Ro the nickname Benny Blue. The only run-in they had was when Ro was crushing on Tonya Glenn who at nineteen was undoubtedly more mature than him. But Ro also thought Tonya was too young for MJ’s old ass, so when he saw MJ attempting to kiss Tonya at a party, he was pissed. They fought in the alley that night and Tonya left with MJ.
