“It won’t come out. That’s why we’re doing this now, so it doesn’t come out.”
“It’s possible, Rhys, that it will.” Marlon pauses before going on. “I’m just asking if you’ve thought about how you’ll feel if everyone sees Drex fucking your girl.”
I shoot him a dark look and take a deep breath, glad the curving road gives me something to focus on besides my fury. The thought of anyone seeing Kai like that takes a chainsaw to the lining of my stomach. I must be bleeding inside. There’s no way I can have pain like this without blood.
“If it was the girl I love,” he continues. “I would tell the whole world to go fuck themselves. Who cares what they think?”
“Yeah?” I divide a glance between him and the road. “Easy to say when it’s not you on the tape. I don’t care if people talk about me, but people talking about Kai? Seeing her like that? That I can’t take.”
I shake my head, my heart straining with every beat at the thought of her humiliated that way.
“I’ll do anything to keep that from happening.”
“So this isn’t to save your face? It’s for her?”
“It’s all for her.” I frown at the road ahead. “I don’t give two shits about anything else.”
I think that night I found out she’d been with Drex, I thought it might change things. Honestly, with all the acrimony between Drex and me, the thought of him, filthy, dirty him, having her was like a needle threading through my brain, but I underestimated myself. I underestimated my love for her. Even I didn’t know how deep it went. Though I’m disgusted by the video, nothing’s changed in my heart. Not for her. Did I plant the seeds of her insecurity? Or water the ones her Dad planted when he walked away? Maybe I left her thinking I couldn’t handle the truth because on some level, I wasn’t sure I could. But this love, even after my lies and hers, is immutable. Unmoving. Lodged in my heart. Stuck in my soul.
“Damn, this girl’s got you whupped.” Marlon laughs, banging the dashboard with his fist.
“Like you’re just now realizing that.” I pull myself out of my head, out of my thoughts, to respond to him. “I could wring her neck right now for keeping all of this from me, but we’ll work it out. She’s the one, so we have to.”
“How do you know?” His voice is softer somehow, and there’s more than idle curiosity in his eyes when I take a second to search them.
“Remember your Uncle Jamal, and how he always used to tell us about girls?”
“The OG!” Admiration tinges Marlon’s grin. “The man knows his *.”
“That he does.” I nod, sketching a quick grin of my own. Only Marlon would have me grinning when I’m on my way to pound Drex’s punk ass into next week, and could barely breathe past my anger twenty minutes ago. “Remember he told us there was—”
“Basic and magic.”
“Exactly. He said most girls think they’re magic, but they’re all basic until you meet that one.” I shake my head, recalling the day I met Kai in Grady’s studio. “I knew Kai was different the first time I saw her. I didn’t have to sleep with her, had never even kissed her, and I knew she was magic.”
I recognize how very whipped I sound, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
“It’s hard to explain,” I add.
“I think I get it.” Marlon shrugs, brushing a rough hand over the dreadlocks hanging past his shoulders. “I mean, that’s how I kinda felt the first time I met your sister.”
I nearly run off the road.
“Are you shitting me?” I swivel a glance his way. “Bristol? My sister Bristol?”
A heavy frown settles over his dark eyes.
“What? You think your sister’s basic?”
“I don’t exactly give it much thought with her being, you know, my sister.” I hesitate because Marlon isn’t serious about much other than his music. And I guess Bristol. “Are you for real? That’s how you felt the first time you saw Bris?”
“Your sister’s gorgeous.”
“Of course she is.” I shrug. “We’re twins.”
“And you’re both really modest, too,” Marlon deadpans. “She came to visit you and Grady on Spring Break her sophomore year from Columbia.”
I remember that rare trip. She had to ask Marlon’s name about five times.
“Man, she barely acknowledged your existence.”
“She’s playing hard to get.”
“For a decade?” I do a brow lift. “More like never gonna get it.”
“That joke will never get old, will it?”
“Sure, it will, if she ever goes out with you. So . . . probably not.”
“She’s driving me crazy.” He holds his head like he would squeeze her out if he could. “She brought this Qwest thing to me. She wants to manage me so bad.”
“Let her. You know she’ll do a great job.”
“Yeah, a job. I don’t want to be her job.”
“What do you want to be?” For once, I’m not going to tease him about my sister because I can tell he’s serious.
“I want her to be my girl.” He frowns at me. “You know that.”
“I mean, you still fuck everything that moves, so I didn’t think it was like that.”