Concrete Rose (The Hate U Give, #0)(2)

“You right, you right. My bad, Shawn,” P-Nut says with his hands up. “I can be a bit temperish.”

Temper-what? I swear, P-Nut be making up words to sound smart.

The way King nostrils flare, I got a feeling this ’bout more than ball for him. He shake me off and march across the park. Shawn, Dre, and everybody look at me.

“He got a lot going on, that’s all,” I mumble.

“Yeah,” Dre add in, and lower his voice to Shawn. “You remember that situation with him, Mav, and ol’ girl that I told you about? They find out today.”

“No excuses, Dre. He always popping off,” Shawn says. “He either get that temper in check or get checked.”

In other words, a beatdown. That’s how the big homies keep us li’l homies in line. See, there’s levels to King Lords. You got youngins, badass middle schoolers who swear they got next. They do whatever the rest of us tell them to do. Then you got li’l homies like me, King, and our boys Rico and Junie. We handle initiations, recruitment, and sell weed. Next is the big homies, like Dre and Shawn. They sell the harder stuff, make sure the rest of us have what we need, make alliances, and discipline anybody who step outta line. When we have beef with the Garden Disciples, the gang from the east side, they usually take care of it. Then there’s the OGs, original gangstas. Grown dudes who been in this a long time. They advise Shawn. Problem is, there ain’t a lot of OGs left in the streets. Most of them locked up like my pops, or dead.

A beatdown by the big homies is no joke. I can’t let King go out like that.

“I’ll talk to him,” I tell Shawn.

“Somebody better,” he says, and turns to the others. “Now who wanna get whooped on this court next?”

King nearly out the park. I run to catch up with him. “Dawg, you can’t be going off on folks. You tryna cause us some problems?”

“I ain’t gon’ let nobody diss me, Mav,” King growls. “I don’t give a damn if he a big homie.”

I glance back at the courts. We far enough that Shawn and them won’t hear me. “We gotta keep our cool, remember?”

For the past six months, me and King been slinging behind the big homies’ backs. Like I said, li’l homies can only sell weed, but there ain’t nearly as much money in that as there is in the other stuff. On top of that, we gotta give most of our dough to Shawn and them ’cause they supply the product. One day King decided to do his own thing on the side and get his own supplier. He brought me on real quick. Our pockets stay fat.

We gon’ be in deep shit if Shawn and them ever find out. This almost as bad as taking their turf. But ay, my momma work two jobs. She shouldn’t have to get me kicks and clothes when she struggling to keep a roof over our heads. Real talk.

“Let P-Nut or anybody else say whatever the hell they want,” I tell King. “We doing our thing, and that’s all we need to focus on. A’ight?”

I hold my hand out to King. At first he stare at it, and I don’t know if that’s ’cause of Shawn and P-Nut or that other situation we got going on.

He finally slap my palm. “Yeah, a’ight.”

I pull him into me and hit his back with my fist. “Don’t worry ’bout that other thing. It’s gon’ work out like it’s supposed to.”

“I ain’t tripping either way. It is what it is.”

That’s the same thing he say ’bout his parents getting murdered when he was eleven and ’bout everything he went through with his foster families. I guess if he wanna leave it at that so can I.

He head out the park, and I head over to Lisa. She looking finer than a mug. Got on a shirt that show her belly button and some shorts that got my mind wandering.

I stand between her legs. “We garbage, huh?”

Lisa wrap her arms around my neck. “Y’all could use work.”

“Like I said, we garbage.”

She laughs. “Maybe, but you’re my garbage.”

She kiss me, and that make me forget everything else.

It’s always been this way with Lisa. I spotted her at a basketball game freshman year. Her team was whooping the Garden High girls’ asses. Honestly, she do play better than me. I was there to watch Junie play afterward when Lisa caught my eye. She could ball, and she was fine as hell. Plus she had a ass. Can’t lie, I noticed that thang from jump.

She did a layup, and I hollered, “Hell yeah, shorty!” She looked my way with them pretty brown eyes and smiled. That was it; I had to talk to her. Once she gave me a shot, it’s been on ever since.

I messed up big-time. Knowing what I know make me stop kissing her.

“What’s wrong?” she ask.

I play with her braids. “Nothing. Mad that I lost in front of you.”

“Daddy beat you!” Andreanna says.

Nothing like a three-year-old calling you out. Andreanna look like Dre, which mean she look like me. Everybody say me and Dre practically twins. Our mommas are sisters and our dads are cousins, so it make sense that we got the same wide eyes, thick eyebrows, and dark brown complexions.

“You should’ve cheered for me.” I tickle Andreanna. She squirm and giggle in Keisha’s lap. “You shouldn’t have cheered for your daddy.”

“Heck yeah she should’ve cheered for her daddy,” Dre says as he come over. He scoop Andreanna up and fly her around like an airplane. Can’t nobody make her laugh the way he do.