Messiah laughed at that. Another quality of young girls was their frankness. They hadn’t perfected the art of flirtation yet. “There’s an us?”

“There could be,” she answered, with a smile.

Messiah had no interest in Nish, but he knew that if he took up with Morgan’s friend, Morgan would lose all interest in him. Messiah knew it wasn’t the best way to handle things, but he needed an out. He was afraid of the way he felt when in Morgan’s presence. He knew, even with Ethic’s condemnation, it would only be a matter of time before he went after what he wanted. The feeling she gave him was addictive and he was craving her. He had to make Morgan hate him, because if she wanted him, the attraction would be mutual, and he would risk it all to make her his girl. He had to kill the possibility and Nish was the perfect scapegoat.

“I don’t know about all that. I ain’t really looking for none of that. I’m more of a casual type of nigga,” he answered. “All fun, no strings,” he said.

He could see the disappointment in her face. She was looking for strings. She wanted a come-up, but she would rather take what he was offering than nothing at all.

Messiah hopped in his truck. “You coming?” he asked.

Nish jumped on the opportunity, without hesitation, climbing into his passenger seat.

Messiah rolled down his window to address his crew. “Yo, I’m up. Y’all good?” he asked.

“Yeah, we straight,” one of his homeboys replied.

Messiah rolled away, with Nish riding shotgun, and guilt pressing hard on his conscience.

8

“Nannie, this pie doesn’t make up for the $500 worth of free labor this man is doing for me,” Alani said, as she impatiently waited for her great aunt to wrap up the homemade sweet potato pie.

“It’s not about making up for anything. It just shows appreciation,” Nannie replied, as she placed the pie in Alani’s hands.

Alani tried hard not to roll her eyes and pressed her lips together, stopping herself from getting too smart with the old woman who had raised her.

I don’t have time for this. I need to be at work in an hour and a half, she thought.

“Relax. You can’t work $20,000 worth of hours in a week,” Nannie said. She had always been intuitive. Reading Alani’s thoughts was nothing new. “I don’t know why you’re trying to work right now, anyway. Your heart is broken, baby. Your daughter, your brother…they aren’t even in the ground yet.”