Chapter 14
Lux must not have been scared off by Cisco’s warning because when I get to MJ’s house after my walk home from Treets, I find them coming out the front door together. MJ looks scared and I can’t figure out what Lux looks like because he’s wearing shades like he always does, apparently even when he’s inside. I guess he’s cool like that, but MJ has me wondering why she looks so nervous. This time, I don’t think she’s worried that I’ll bust her to Lana or the cops for something, which is why even though we’ve been through a lot, she doesn’t fully trust me. Yeah, I’m definitely not sold on her love triangle story between Eddie and Lux.
“Wassup?” is all MJ says, and she looks afraid just saying those few words to me. Unless cops with warrants are involved, MJ is never afraid.
“Just wanted to see what you were up to,” I say, staring at Lux the whole time, trying to make out his eyes from behind the glasses, but I get nothing.
Lux’s facial expression doesn’t change—well, the part of his face I can see doesn’t change—but MJ looks so stressed I’m worried she might puke.
“I gotta go,” Lux says. “Remember what I said.”
Before he walks down the steps past me, he pulls the hood of his jacket over his head and I notice a familiar tattoo on the back of his left hand. I might not be able see his eyes, but I know he’s staring me down, probably something like that stare Cisco gave me a few minutes ago when I first walked up to him. MJ and I are quiet for nearly a minute while she watches Lux walk toward Center Street.
I’m wondering whether he parks on Center or doesn’t have a car because he always seems to be walking. And now that I’ve heard Lux speak to MJ all threatening-like, I know for sure it isn’t me that has her looking so worried. MJ and I don’t share the same tastes in guys, and Eddie may not be the smartest dude on the block, but it seems crazy to creep around on a guy you clearly like—Eddie—with one that makes you look as sick and nervous as she looks right now.
“What was that about?” I finally ask because I’m beginning to think MJ is never going to speak. “Lovers’ quarrel?”
She finally breaks her gaze from Lux. “What? Oh yeah, something like that.”
“No, I’m guessing it’s nothing like that.”
“So why’d you ask?”
“Because I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be,” MJ says, heading back into her house, clearly not planning for me to follow.
“Wait, MJ. You’re my friend. You saved my butt a bunch of times so now I’m returning the favor. Keep running around with your old gang members and you’ll be back in jail. You’re eighteen—no more juvie time.”
“I know how old I am, don’t need you to remind me. I told you, me and Lux together now. I didn’t say nothing about him being in the Down Homes.”
“You didn’t have to. I know he’s from California and new to town.”
“Who you been talking to?” she says, coming back out onto the porch and closing the door behind her.
“It’s cold out here. Can’t we go inside and talk?” I ask, but MJ’s silence means I’ll be cold for a little while longer. “Look, I know he’s got the letters DH on the back of that hoodie he seems to wear twenty-four-seven, and that it’s brown—the Down Home gang’s color.”
MJ starts to say something but stops.
“I also know that tattoo on the back of his left hand is the exact same one on your upper left arm. Now I know why you never wear a sleeveless shirt, even on the hottest day of summer. But I saw it that time we had to go into the holding cell and the cops took your jacket. You had on a tank underneath and I saw it. It’s your gang’s mark.”
“My former gang,” MJ says, like that’s the critical information here even if she’s acting like a current member. “Just like it’s Lux’s former gang. So I know him from the old days. That don’t mean we plan on robbing banks or selling dope together. Like I said, we just together.”
“Yeah, about that. Eddie didn’t seem to think he’s just a friend with benefits. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Eddie is in love with you.” I hate to snitch on Eddie, but I need to see MJ’s reaction to that, and even the toughest gangster girl is going to reveal her true self when she hears the guy she likes might be using the L word about her. MJ doesn’t disappoint.
“Seriously? Did Eddie say that . . . that he, you know?” MJ asks.
“No, but I can tell. Just like I can tell you’re not creeping on him with Lux.”
For the second time, MJ looks like she wants to say something but doesn’t, and instead sits on the plastic-made-to-look-like-wicker sofa on her porch. Big Mama’s design tastes inside her house and out say Miami more than Denver. The sofa cushions are covered in palm trees and toucans. I take a seat next to MJ and lean back against a big blue parrot. Normally I’d go with the Lana method of interrogation: stay quiet until the perp gets so nervous wondering what you’re thinking that he gives up what he knows. But MJ looks scared again, and like I said, she never looks scared. Whatever is going on between her and Lux, MJ must think it’s far more dangerous to tell me about it than to leave me in the dark and risk me busting her to Lana for hanging out with known felons and gangsters. So I let her know that I know.
“Look, MJ—I know you really are trying to go straight and stay in line with your probation officer. I know you want to get your GED and make Big Mama proud she took a chance on you. And now I know how you really feel about Eddie.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So I know Lux has got you scared about something. You gotta start talking or I might jump to some wrong conclusions.”
“You threatening me?” she asks, but doesn’t bother to face me like she usually does when she makes her own threats. She just keeps staring across the street at Ada Crawford’s house.
“No, I’m trying to help you.”
“Like I said—don’t.”
I pull the lighter out of my coat pocket and hold it up, smooth side out.
“I found this in the yard across the street. Thought it might be yours.”
“That’s a man’s lighter. Why you think it might be mine? I don’t even smoke.”
I turn the lighter around to show the side with the raised design. The same design on Lux’s left hand and MJ’s left arm.
“You’re right, MJ. I never thought it was your lighter.”
We both sit quietly for a minute before I speak again.
“MJ, what does Lux have on you?”
This time, she does turn to face me and looks like she might try protesting again, but I guess I asked the right question. Instead of looking threatening, she seems defeated, like she has no more fight left in her. She opens the front door and this time holds it wide for me. I follow her inside.