Page 29 of Omar

"Yeah."

He didn't look convinced but he didn't push it. I got out of the car and walked two blocks to where I'd parked my own. Started the engine and pulled into traffic heading toward Crown Heights.

Asha's salon was on a corner in a neighborhood that used to be rough but was cleaning up now, coffee shops and boutiques moving in next to the bodegas and check-cashing places. I parked three blocks away and walked back. Cee was outside in a black sedan, driver's seat, eyes on his phone.

I stood on the corner across the street with a clear sightline to the salon entrance. Cee couldn't see me from where he was parked. I waited.

She came out twenty minutes later wearing jeans and a sweater, her hair pulled back, bag over her shoulder. She said something to Cee through his window and he nodded. She turned and started walking up the block away from where he was parked.

I crossed the street and fell into step behind her. She made it half a block before she must have heard my footsteps because she turned around and stopped.

Her face went through three things fast. Recognition, something that might have been relief, then fear.

"What are you doing here?" She looked past me down the block toward where Cee was parked.

"Wanted to see you."

"Omar." She said my name like it hurt. "You can't just show up like this. I just told Cee I needed to pick up some things from the shop. There are eyes on me."

Cee was old school hood nigga that used to roll with Supreme's pops and now wanted easy work. Everyone knew Cee. Harmless, but loyal. He'd bring any shit straight back to Supreme no questions asked.

As if on cue, two women came out of a store ahead of us laughing, their voices loud enough to carry. They looked at us as they passed and one of them slowed down like she recognized Asha. Asha smiled and said something I couldn't hear and the women kept walking.

"Come on." She grabbed my arm and pulled me around the corner into an alley between two buildings. We were out of sight of the street but not by much. "You can't be here. Cee is waiting for me."

"So let him wait."

"You don't understand." Her voice dropped lower. "Supreme has people everywhere. Someone sees us together and tells him, he'll know. And then..."

She didn't finish the sentence but she didn't have to.

I looked at her standing there trying to figure out how to make me leave and I couldn't do it. Couldn't walk away. Not again.

"There's a park two blocks from here," I said. "Come with me."

"Omar."

"Just for a few minutes."

She looked back toward the street like she was calculating how long she had before Cee came looking. Then she looked at me and something in her face changed.

"Okay," she said quietly. "But we have to be quick."

We walked fast, not touching, both of us watching the street. The park was small, just a block of green space with benches and a playground where a few kids were running around screaming. We sat down on a bench at the far end away from everyone else.

"But why are you here?" she asked again.

"I told you. I wanted to see you."

I knew I shouldn't have said it, but this was Asha Cole. THE Asha Cole. How the hell was I supposed to hold back now?

Her eyes searched over every inch of my body before they rested on the scar on my arm. The knife scar where I'd been stabbed in a fight two years back.

"I thought you were going to get out?" she said quietly.

I looked down at the scar her eyes were fixed on before they met mine again. "I wanted to, but it was inevitable. This is where I'm supposed to be. Working that Baptiste name. That scare you?"

"No." She paused while a couple walked past with a stroller. "I wanted better for you, you know that. It's what we planned. The life we planned."