Page 83 of Disrespectfully, Relic
“Pierre is calling me again,” Lexi murmured from the back before she answered and put him on speaker phone. “Hello?”
“Where the fuck y’all at, baby momma? I hope y’all ain’t making pitstops. I said come straight to Michi’s crib, so fuck is y’all doing?”
“Nigga, we’re almost there! I told you, we had to stop and calm Sojourney’s ass down. She did just see the guy she was with for years get knocked off. On top of that, Kennedy is driving like twenty miles an hour.”
Pierre whistled before dry snitching as he replied, “Bonnie is in shock. Why the fuck nobody else took the wheel?”
“Boy, that ain’t that damn girl’s name!”
“P, was that what I think it was?” Savvy interrupted their conversation with her vague question she knew he’d understand. The line went dead silent for seconds before he responded.
“Damn. You finally ain’t green nomo’ huh, Whoop? You know the routine. What y’all be saying? Hold tight for my nigga, and give him a day. NuNu, I’ll take you to my folk’s crib to grab the kids in the morning.”
Nubia snatched the phone. “Why are they there? Los is supposed to—”
Her words halted before she glanced at Savvy, noticing her friend’s bright skin flushing as she shut her eyes and inhaled a shaky breath. Nubia sucked in a gust of air as it settled that Los had dived headfirst back into the streets.
“I never thought I’d see the day when Whoop surpasses Nu, but here we are,” Pierre joked to ease their worried minds. “Divorcing my brother must’ve made you a lil’ slow. Baby momma text me when y’all get in the parking garage, so I can meet y’all. Oh, and Bonnie? You aight with me after all.”
His animated laughter at the situation before the call ended caused bile to rise up Kennedy’s throat for the umpteenth time since they’d hopped in her truck. She forced it down and tried erasing the gruesome images from her head.
Whispers started up again between the girls, but she couldn’t listen because her senses were malfunctioning. Her stomach toppled like she’d eaten a Halloween bag full of candy, and her chest ached like someone’s hand was inside of it, squeezing the vital organ that hadn’t stopped palpitating. Each time she blinked, Koda’s shocked features replaced Slim’s, and she wondered if her brother had gone out in the same manner. She hadn’t expected helping Relic to stir up such jolting emotions.
“Kennedy, you’re passing our building!”
Michi shouting that warning knocked Kennedy out of her head just in time, and she mashed a foot on the brakes. She eased it off to roll forward, pulling into the garage lane before lowering Michi’s window so that she could key in her gate code. Her wary eyes coasted to the passenger seat when Sojourney lifted her head, peering around like she was trying to figure out where she was. Kennedy’s last thread of patience snapped when Sojourney whimpered before a fresh round of sobs started.
“Shut the fuck up crying! I do not want to hear that shit!” she spazzed, smacking a hand on the steering wheel. Sojourney immediately choked on a sob to stop, making Kennedy feel like shit. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell, but I need—”
Her sentence broke off because she had no fucking clue of what she needed.
She found the first parking spot available and pulled in, leaving her car running because she had no intentions of staying. Kennedy glanced into the backseat—unsure of why no one climbed out—and tensed at every set of eyes on her.
“Are you alright?” Savvy was the first one to speak up.
“I’m fine. I just need to get home, shower, and get in my bed. Tonight was a lot.”
“You ain’t lying,” Lexi said, pushing open the door. “There goes Pierre. Come on y’all before he starts talking shit, and I have to slap him.”
Relief flooded Kennedy as everyone clambered out of her car. She dropped her head against the steering wheel, hoping to settle her foggy brain that kept shoving flashes of Koda to the forefront—his funeral, Tekken bawling his teenage eyes out, and her first love front and center with no emotion detectable from his expression to his stern stance. It had made her hate him one hundred times more because her brother deserved his one day for everyone to express their love in his death.
A churning in her stomach urged her to reach for the door to get some fresh air, but it flung open before her hand could grab the handle.
“Bonnie, get yo ass out, too. You ain’t going nowhere tonight.” Kennedy lifted her head at Pierre’s order, and he fisted a hand at his mouth with wide eyes. “Oh, shit. Fuck happened to your face? Not the burns, but that big ass shiner.”
“Slim punched her in the face,” Sojourney whispered.
“Oooh, so that’s what the fuck happened.”
“What happened with what? Y’all are talking in riddles and shit, and I don’t like it,” Lexi complained, crossing her arms with her face screwed up. Pierre ignored her.
“Bonnie, take this.” He held out a keycard that gave the elevator access to the penthouse floor. “Relic is waiting for you at the top.”
“Wait, why is Relic here, but Shabu isn’t? Why can’t he come home?” Confusion swarmed Savvy’s hazels as she interrogated Pierre.
“Because, clearly, Relic is bucking the system for Bonnie and her fucked up eye. You hurt anywhere?”
“I can be.”
