Concrete Rose (The Hate U Give, #0)(68)

That sound always get a smile outta me. “You know what, man?” I say to him. “I get why you spit it out. That baby food nasty. Let me see what Daddy can give you instead.”

I get his favorite—rice cereal. It look like mush and it’s not really a dinner food, but ay, cut me some slack. I had a day. Seven buck in his high chair as I bring it over.

“Aww, snap,” I say, doing a li’l dance. “We got rice cereal, ay! Rice cereal, ay! Daddy coming through with the save!”

He open his mouth wide for every spoonful. That full belly later put him right to sleep. Thank God for rice cereal.

Now I wait for Ma to get home. She don’t get off from her second job till around ten thirty. I pace the kitchen. I sit down. I get back up. I peek in on Seven. I turn on the TV. I turn it off. I don’t know what I can tell Ma to make this better. I can’t graduate, the one thing she always wanted from me. Ain’t no “better.”

She can’t ever find out that I’m going after Red. I’m more afraid of her than the cops.

I sit at the kitchen table and rub my temples. Red really going around wearing Dre’s watch. That piss me off so much. Whether he killed Dre or not, it’s disrespectful as hell. He gotta know it’s Dre’s. He gotta! He wasn’t nervous for nothing.

I should’ve said something to his ass. Better yet, I should’ve snatched it off his wrist, then popped a bullet in him.

Let me stop, I’m getting ahead of myself. I need proof that he did it. Otherwise, I’d be killing Brenda’s boyfriend and Khalil’s daddy for nothing. Bet Red didn’t think ’bout Keisha and Andreanna though.

Wait a minute. Keisha was on the phone with Dre that night. She might’ve heard something that could help me out. It’s a long-ass shot unless she flat-out say it was Red, but I owe it to Dre.

I can talk to her this weekend. Keisha helped me set up Lisa’s surprise tour of Markham, and she meeting us for lunch afterward. The timing kinda perfect.

Headlights flash through the kitchen windows. A minute later, the front door groan open. Ma never announce it’s her in case I’m asleep. Her purse thud as she toss it onto the living room sofa, and her feet thump toward the kitchen.

“Hey, baby.” She kiss my temple. “You didn’t have to stay up and wait for me.”

“I wanted to. How was work?”

Ma roll up her sleeves and open the refrigerator. “Things were pretty quiet at both jobs. How was your day? You were supposed to talk to Mr. Clayton, right?”

My mouth dry all of a sudden. Three words—“I can’t graduate”—that’s all I gotta say. But they stuck in the back of my throat.

I swallow them down even more. “It was fine. He told me what I need to do in order to graduate.” That’s sorta true.

Ma take out a container of food and sniff it. Her nose scrunch up. “Whew, Lord. Gotta throw that out. Glad it went well. You do whatever he said to do, Maverick. I have faith in you.”

I really ain’t shit compared to what she think. “Yes, ma’am.”

Ma take out a container of leftover spaghetti. “Before I forget, did you see the light bill in the mail? I need to pay it in the morning.”

“I already took care of it and the water bill.”

Ma look up from sniffing the spaghetti. “You did?”

“Yes, ma’am. I went to the bill-pay place earlier and paid them both.”

“Okay, Mr. Man,” she says, all impressed. “You’re spoiling me, helping me with these bills. Thank God for Mr. Wyatt and that job. How was my Seven tonight?”

“Fine. He put me through it.”

Ma chuckles. “That’s his job. You earned it for all that you put me and Adonis through.”

I push away from the table. “I only stayed up to say good night. I’m gon’ head to bed.”

“Hold on,” Ma says, closing the refrigerator door. “I need to talk to you.”

Her tone make me do a double take. “You okay, Ma?”

She pull out the chair next to me and sit. “Yeah. It’s nothing bad. Only long overdue.”

I sit back down. “Oh. What’s up, then?”

Ma’s fingers fumble with one another, then they drum the table, then they fumble again.

“I . . .” She snap her lips shut. Her eyes too. She take a deep breath. “I have a date on Sunday.”

Valentine’s Day is Sunday. “Oh. You seeing some dude behind Pops’s back?”

I ain’t mean to put it like that, but Ma and Pops are married. How else could I put it?

“No, actually. I’m not going behind his back,” Ma says. “Adonis knows. And it’s not a man. It’s Moe, Maverick.”

It take me a second. A lot of seconds, to be honest. Shit, I’m still stuck. “Moe?”

“Yes. Moe and I have been in a relationship for a few years.”

Relationship? “I thought y’all were just friends.”

“We—I thought it was best to appear that way,” she says. “Not everyone can be so accepting. Lord knows your grandmother isn’t.”

“Granny know?”

Ma sigh again, scratching through her hair. “She suspected. She’s always thought I was ‘funny,’ as she calls it. Your aunt ’Nita knows, and like I said, your father knows.”