“What in the Fast and the Furious is going on out here?” Zahra remarks as they all leave their vehicles, crowding us while we lean against the front of Storm. “This is a little gaudy for my taste, but who am I to criticize?”
I wanna say she’s biased because she’s been around Storm for a while now, but the display of chrome, low-profile tires, and twenty-eight-inch rims can be a bit over the top for some. Judging from the unbothered expression on her face, it’s safe to say she’s not impressed.
Zahra’s already in front of me before they come to a stop, and while I don’t blame her for wanting to protect me, I think it’s better if I deal with this head on. I like the ride-or-die side of her, but this ain’t the time to be spoiling for a fight.
I’m trying to figure out why they look like they got pressure, though. Their collective expressions make it seem like I’ve done something to piss them all off. I have no idea what the hell that could’ve been. The only thing left is to let the convo play itself out, since it’s obvious someone has something to get off their chest.
I wrap my arms around Zahra, inserting my thumbs inside her jean pockets. I feel a surge between us, and I’m not gonna lie, I don’t want that to go away any time soon. She slips her hands over mine as I focus my attention on my Squad. “Dante, what’s good, my boy? I told you I’d come holla when I was done visiting with Nana.”
“Yeah, well, I figured we’d bring the party to you, in case you decided to, shall we say, take a few detours.” Dante’s sounding a lot more aggressive than usual, which has me a bit taken aback. “Seeing the little baddie in front of you acting like she’s gonna protect you, I guess that might explain why you’ve been MIA for the past few weeks.”
I squeeze her a little tighter, a knee-jerk reaction to the agitation I feel coursing through me. A low growl escapes my throat, and I notice Zahra’s caressing my hands to keep me calm. Yeah, good luck with that. “Forgive my manners. I’d planned on making more formal intros in a different way. Zahra, this is the Squad I told you about. The boys in the back are my brothers, Malik and Caleb; the girls in front of them are Dominique and Alyssa. And of course, my Day One, Dante.”
I’m not feeling the way Malik and Caleb are eyeing me with every ounce of heat on them, but I’m keeping my temper in check. They know not to try me unless they just want to get put down. Alyssa catches my eye, and the malice in her stare is both confusing and concerning. She’s the last person I expected to feel some type of way about anything.
Dante, as usual, takes the lead on how things are about to flow. He looks past us, waving toward Nana to acknowledge her. “Hi, Nana, how are you doing this afternoon?”
“Things are fine, baby. I am hoping that you and the Squad were coming by to have a civil conversation.” I hear her still rocking in her chair, subtly setting the tone for how she expects everyone to act in front of her. Watching everyone straighten up when she speaks gives me a little hope that this can end without any animosity.
“Yes, ma’am, I guess the Squad and I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss him this time. There’s no telling when he might be able to come through again,” Dante explains as he returns his glare in my direction.
“Okay, well, I will head back into the house. I have some other business to attend to,” Nana says as she slowly rises from her rocker and shuffles inside. “Make sure you let me know when you leave, grandson.”
The moment the iron door closes behind her, any hope I have goes up in smoke.
“When have I not been a man of my word, Te?” I still don’t move, but I’m vibrating so intensely I feel a stronger squeeze against my hands to let me know Zahra’s still with me. “I said what I said when I texted you. There were some things I needed to talk to Nana about, and it would take some time.”
“Chalk it up to some within the circle who felt they wanted some sort of closure,” Dante says to me. He turns around and looks at Alyssa—who still hasn’t wiped the scowl off her face—in a not-so-subtle attempt to explain who has the most pressure to release. “Since you had to skip out of the city at a moment’s notice, right?”
“So you wanna do this here, huh? Real classy, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” I remove my hands from Zahra’s waist, then step around to the passenger side of Storm and take her hand to follow me. I lean against the door, motioning the rest of the group to come closer. “So let’s get this over with. I ain’t got all day.”
“Yasir, you don’t have to do this right now, okay?” Zahra interrupts. “We’ve been through a lot over the last few hours, and you don’t want to say anything that you’ll regret.”
“It’s cool, baby, they have pressure they need to release, so we can get that handled and let the chips fall where they may.” I keep my grip on her hand, pulling her closer to me. “I’d hoped to do this somewhere else, but here we are.”
“Yeah, here we are, and from the looks of things, she doesn’t look like much. I don’t care what Te says.” Alyssa frowns as she steps in front of Zahra. “Damn, Ya-Ya, I thought you had better taste than this.”
“Ally, stop being salty for no reason,” I retort. I follow Zahra’s gaze, realizing she hasn’t taken her eyes off Alyssa the whole time. She’s flexing her fingers to keep from balling them up. Yeah, she’s spoiling for a fight. “I told you before I left that we were better off as friends. Why are you popping off like this?”
“Is that what you’re trying to convince yourself of what happened that night, bro?” Alyssa scoffs at me, which trips Zahra’s triggers to respond in kind. “Don’t flex in front of your ‘girl,’ playa. We know you better than she does, trust.”
I take a sharp breath, tapping my fist against Storm’s hood. “Whatever Ally told you about that night, I’m telling you right here and now, that’s not what went down, all right?”
“Why don’t you do us a favor and tell us what happened from your point of view, then, Diablo?” Dante spits out. “Because you know the drill, and you know how things rock within Squad, too.”
“Wait a minute, what are they talking about, Yasir?” Zahra pipes up. Dammit. “What happened between you and Alyssa? She’s looking like—”
“Oh, don’t act like you’re concerned now, shawty,” Alyssa cuts her off. “But let me tell you about the boy you’re dealing with so you can make up your own mind. Yasir—the boy we all lovingly know as Diablo—was willing to risk betraying Squad by getting with me before he had to leave, knowing it would screw things up.”
“That’s not what happened, and you know it, Ally.” My pulse is racing, and I can feel my temper intensifying to a level I won’t be able to control. “You pushed the issue while we were working on your ride. I never gave you any idea that I was interested in anything. That’s bad for business.”
“So you didn’t try to stop me when we were kissing that night?” Alyssa throws in that tidbit, watching Zahra’s reaction with a smirk. “You didn’t tell me to put my clothes back on, either.”
“Yes, I did. You were upset because I didn’t tell you before I told Squad about what happened and that I had to leave ASAP.” I keep my voice as even as I can, even though I’m raging inside. This is getting way out of hand, and I’m catching too much smoke. “You’d been drinking when you came over, and I even made you sleep in my room while I crashed on the couch because I was scared you weren’t thinking clearly.”
“You took advantage of my feelings for you and promised me once you got where you were going that you would come back for me!” Alyssa screams. “I was willing to be with you over Squad because you told me you loved me. And like a fool, I believed you.”
“Wait…what the hell?” Zahra twists around and stares at me. She searches my eyes like she’s looking for the truth. “Is any of what she’s saying true? Do you have feelings for her?”
“No—”
Dante inserts himself into our exchange, leaning against the front of Storm’s hood. “You’re like a brother to me, Yasir, and even I had a hard time believing Ally for a minute, but it made sense when I thought back on it. You were gone only hours after you told me you had to jet. Then Nique called me, saying that Ally was at her house, crying her eyes out.”
“You’re bugging out, Te. I don’t know what conclusion you think you’ve come to, but that’s not what happened, dammit,” I flat-out state. “She tried to kiss me, that part is true, but I smelled the alcohol on her breath, bro. I made her sleep it off, and then—”
“And then you were gone by morning, right? And you left her in Nana’s house alone and confused,” Dante points out, turning his attention to Zahra, who still looks confuzzled. “Real talk, I’m sorry you had to hear about your boy like this, but he’s not who you think he is. He’s just like me and the rest of the boys in the crew. We’re players, which is why we all agreed that Nique and Ally were like sisters and off-limits.”
“I didn’t have a choice in the matter, don’t you get that?” I insist as I rub the back of my neck. I silently count down from ten to get my life together. “I tried to stay until morning to make sure she’d sobered up, but Nana rushed me out the door because there were some— You know what? Never mind. Nothing I say will change your minds.”
“You’re right, and the fact that you’re trying to drop Nana in the middle of your bullshit is low, even for you, especially when she isn’t out here to speak for herself.” Dante jumps in my face, but he forgets who I am. I don’t even blink or flinch. My nickname is Diablo for a reason. “I don’t know if you’re even Squad anymore if you’re gonna act like you didn’t do anything.”
“Then I guess I’m not Squad, but I’m not gonna sit here and cop to something I didn’t do,” I counter. I feel like things are slipping away from me, and I don’t know how it’s happening. “If you can’t trust me as your Day One, big bro, then there’s nothing more for us to say.”
“Yeah, I can’t trust you, and I expected more from you, to at least be a man so we can squash this and move on.” Dante steps away from me, making the motion for everyone to get back to their cars. “When you’re ready to come clean, shout and I’ll listen. I owe you that much to hear you out as my Day One. Until then, don’t holla.”
They all get in their cars, leaving the front of the house one by one until the street is clear. Not one of them even bothers to say goodbye.
“Yasir, I-I need to know what happened. Are you willing to talk to me about it?” I hear Zahra’s trembling voice, but I already know she’s upset. I just don’t know if there’s anything I can do to ease her mind.
My eyes are closed so tightly I can almost see colors behind my eyelids. My jaw is clenched to the point that my muscles twitch. “I’ll tell you everything you wanna know. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth, I promise.”
…
It takes me about an hour of driving before I can calm down long enough to say anything regarding that night. We’re not entirely quiet during that time. I mean, we still talked about everything else that happened with Nana. Zahra’s being patient with me, which I appreciate more than she knows, and I’m doing my best to figure out the best way to explain myself.
“Alyssa and I started out as friends. She became friends with me when I first got to Douglass, the last school I attended before I came to Oakwood,” I begin, switching between glancing at her and keeping my eyes on the road. “I’d kept her at arm’s length for nearly the entire semester, but she never gave up on trying to be my friend.”
“Go on, baby,” she encourages me.
“Once I got over my anxiety of dealing with anyone outside of Squad, things took off fast between us. She became a best friend of sorts, helping me learn Doug and how things flowed, helping me with homework. We bonded over her Mustang and Storm. I learned how to work on her car, and she learned Storm.” I breathe a sigh of relief, but my hands never leave the steering wheel. I’m still on edge because I don’t know what she’s thinking. “Eventually, I introduced her to Squad, and it actually felt good to have her there. Nique was already Squad, so having another girl for her to vibe with, it felt like a win-win, you know.”
Zahra turns her body toward me as we cruise down the highway, her focus solely on me. She still isn’t saying a lot, which ramps up my anxiety and then some.
“Before the school year started, Nana had been getting these strange calls, and she told me it was nothing at first, so I didn’t pay any attention.” I groan in frustration, irritated that my hindsight is kicking in long enough to let me know how stupid I had been. “Then I overheard a tense convo one night when she thought I was asleep. She was angry—like, white-hot angry—and told whoever was on the phone that it wasn’t fair to put me through it again.”
“Put you through what again?” she chimes in with the lead question.
“Before I finally settled at Doug, I had a history of temperamental outbursts, getting into fights, all that.” I turn on the windshield wipers as we’re riding through an unexpected rainstorm and tap the brakes to disengage the cruise control. “I’d moved through so many schools, I’d lost track over the years, but Nana managed to help me through it. I eventually found boxing through Unk, and I was starting to even out and not let my temper get the best of me. I was so angry about my parents and everything that came with it.”
“What about the night that Ally was talking about, the night I assume you two had sex?” She sounds like she choked on those words, like it hurt to even say them out loud. “What really happened?”
“Ally and I never had sex, and that’s the truth.” The force of my words bounce off the windows in the cabin. “But thinking back on it now, I guess I see why she might have thought so.”
“What do you mean?”
“That whole night was a nightmare,” I recall as we weave through traffic. “Nana called me, panicked, and said that I needed to get some clothes together and be ready to leave at any moment. She was out of town, and I was home alone. When I asked her what was wrong, she wouldn’t tell me anything, just that I needed to be ready to head down to Unk’s when she called again. None of it made any sense.”
She’s completely enthralled with the story I’m spinning, and I promise, if I wasn’t the main character, I’d be on the edge of my seat, too. “Keep going, baby. I’m still listening.”
“I told her I had stuff to do the next morning, and she said that I had to cancel it all and tell whoever I needed that I had to leave the city. She hung up before I could ask anything further.” I blink a few times, taking my right hand off the wheel. The rainstorm starts to let up, so I accelerate to keep up with the traffic around us. “I ended up calling Te, telling him that I had to leave town and that I couldn’t explain right then. We had a tense exchange, but I stuck to my story and told him I’d explain when I got settled where I was headed.”
Zahra nods, silently letting me know she’s locked in.
“While I was getting some clothes together, thinking it would be nothing more than a weekend trip, someone was banging on the door. Not knowing who would be at the house after midnight, I grabbed the stun gun and headed for the door.” I stare straight ahead, gritting my teeth. I don’t want to remember the rest of this night. “I heard Ally’s voice, yelling for me to let her in. Her eyes were red, and she looked like she’d been crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she yelled at me, asking me why I was leaving Squad—and leaving her.”
“Did you kiss her?”
“She tried to kiss me, yes, but I smelled the alcohol on her breath. I assumed she’d gotten the call from Te and got upset. She kept yelling at me, telling me that I should have told her myself, that she shouldn’t have heard it from him.” I blow out a sharp breath, taking a few calming breaths where I can. “She started crying again, and I went to hug her to try and settle her down. I kept telling her that I couldn’t explain what was going on but that I would tell her myself when I got where I was going. She had her arms wrapped around my neck, and when I tried to break from our embrace, she reached up and tried to kiss me.”
“Okay, pause, baby, take a breath,” Zahra says to me, but I wonder if she needs the break. “How did it go from her trying to kiss you to her saying that you didn’t tell her to put her clothes back on?”
“When I made her sleep in my room, and I grabbed some blankets and a pillow to sleep in the living room, Nana called again. Ally was half naked by the time I got back to her,” I utter. I’m getting exhausted reliving this whole thing. “I told her that Ally was there, and she said she would be there before Ally woke up, and she would explain everything to her after I left, but I needed to go right then and there because they had found me.”
“Who’s ‘they’? Who found you?”
“Beats the hell out of me. It wasn’t until I got to Unk’s that I got part of the story that tied into the oils and scents I’d been mixing and that it was to keep whoever wanted me dead from finding me.” I shrug, pausing for a few more seconds before I pick up where I left off. “When I tried to call Ally back to make sure she was okay, she said she hated me and didn’t want to see me again. It wasn’t until I called Te back to give him the update that he asked about what went down with me and Ally and said that she was upset about what happened at the house.”
“So for the past few weeks, while you and I were trying to figure things out, you left all that going on without trying to make it right?” she asks me.
“She wouldn’t take my calls, Z.”
“What about Te?”
“He told me to give it time to blow over and that he would work on Ally to get her to at least hear me out.”
“So that means you never tried after she stopped taking your calls.”
I snap my head in her direction, my eyes widening as I notice her irritation. “What could I have done? I can’t force someone to talk to me, baby.”
“Would you have given up on me so easily?”
“No, I would have tried to get to you no matter what.”
“Because you have feelings for me, and not her, right?” She crosses her arms over her chest, turning her gaze toward the road. “How do I know that you won’t do the same thing to me if these ‘people’ who are trying to do you harm find you again and you have to move to who knows where?”
“I don’t know what I can say that will convince you,” I reply. “Yes, I have feelings for you.”
“I don’t know if there is anything you can say right now.” She shakes her head, wiping a tear from her eye as she considers her next words. “I think it’s best if we just stay friends for now and we can see what happens down the road. I can’t go through what she went through, even if you didn’t encourage anything.”
“Zahra, please.” My heart is on the verge of breaking. After everything I’ve gone through today, this is the one L I can’t take. I reach out to take her hand, but she pushes it away. “I tried to reach her. She blocked me in every way possible. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Yasir, just take me home. I need time to think. Give me the space to do that, okay?” She still won’t look at me as she speaks. “I promise, we will talk about it once I’ve had some sleep, but right now, it’s hard to understand your side of things.”
“But what about the yacht party tomorrow?”
“I’ll ride with Kenni and Kyle. I’ll understand if you’re not okay with that.”
I don’t try to argue, as I’m giving in to exhaustion. I don’t have any more energy to burn to put up another debate. I just focus on the road, not even bothering to look in her direction until we get to her house.
She attempts to say something when she gets out of the car, but by now, I don’t want to look at her. I can’t. It will hurt too much. Surprisingly, she doesn’t try to force me to. She simply closes the door and trudges into the house, and I watch with tears streaming down my face as I pull out of the driveway and go back to Unk’s house.