Page 35 of The Sweetest Return

I pulled back. “Why would you even put that in the atmosphere?”

“Because I’m not driving downtown at midnight to get you out of holding over Andre Jones.”

“I can handle Milan.”

“Milan been trying too hard for that man since junior year. She don’t know how to act around him, and you don’t know how to act around her.”

“That is not true.”

Bari looked at me.

I looked away first.

Milan had always been a bugaboo in good shoes. Pretty, loud with her eyes, and convinced proximity could become opportunity if she stood close enough to Dre for long enough. Dre never gave her much, which somehow made her try harder.

“I am grown now,” I said.

“Great. Be grown enough to call me before you commit a felony.”

“Goodbye, Jabari.”

“Love you too.”

His laugh followed him toward the elevator.

When the door closed, the condo seemed to exhale with me.

I stood there for a minute, listening to the quiet. A half-open box sat beside the couch, my heels were still near the bedroom door, and the room smelled faintly like lemon cleaner, french fries, and new furniture.

Four days.

I picked up my phone.

Damien’s message was still there.

So was a notification I had ignored earlier from AWU.

I opened that one first.

A Crown Weekend graphic filled the screen, all purple and gold, announcing Friday night’s Distinguished Alumni honorees.

Andre Malik Jones was first.

Of course he was.

The photograph they chose looked recent. Black suit. White shirt open at the throat. Full beard. Low cut. Older than the Dre who used to lie across my dorm bed pretending he understood marketing terminology because he wanted me to keep talking.

But close enough that my thumb went still against the screen.

Eight years had been generous to that man.

Extremely.

I enlarged the picture before I could talk myself into acting like I had sense.

“Girl.”

My own voice sounded foolish in the empty condo.