JUST FRIENDS

o6

But Maze wasn't a faller, she was a flier.

She called him, "Hi baby,"

"Nah, Maze, don't 'hey baby' me this morning."

"Am I in trouble?" She asked innocently.

"You tell me."

Maze did the one thing he hated when he was angry, she giggled. A bubbly, girlish sound, uncontainable and extending for longer than necessary.

"What do you expect me to say? I'm sorry I'm sexy? Shebazz, be real. If you're going to be upset about every man I dance on in the club, then maybe you shouldn't have made me your girlfriend."

She could feel the anger simmering off of him on the other end of the receiver, however it didn't stop her from continuing.

"You knew the kinda girl I was when you met me. It turned you on. But after you had your little love in this club, you wannna control me? Think again, babe."

"So I'm supposed to stand around and be disrespected while another man is taking my place?"

"Your place, as in sitting in a chair?"

He sighed. "My place as in- you know what? I'm not even about to go back and forth with you. You know what you did, and with him of all people. Have it."

"I will have it. Because the last thing I feel like dealing with this morning is a man and his wounded ego."

Silence stretched.

"Wait 'til I see you."

For the second time this morning, Maze was hung up on and she was drat tired of it. But, one thing more exhausting than getting hung up on was clingy men.

Maze hated clingy men.

Shebazz was so different in the beginning, he was fun, crazy, wild but his possessiveness was starting to cloud everything she liked about him, because the issue wasn't just possessiveness in the typical sense, it was warped in with that weird envy, that deep jealousy he had for Blu. All the time she would ask him if he'd rather trade places with Blu since he was such a threat, be her best friend instead of receiving all the benefits of being her boyfriend. He'd just grow quiet and look at her as if he was trying to see through her.

Every boyfriend thought they could be cordial with the best friend of their girlfriend until they realized one or more of the three things: one, the best friend had a dick, two, the best friend knew far more about the girlfriend than he ever would, and three, the best friend would never ever grow to like the boyfriend.

Most people liked Shebazz, though, he had been told often that he was a likable person. He could carry a conversation, shake things up a little, had a great sense of humor.

When he wasn't rapping, he was tattooing because pushing a needle through ripe flesh was his peace, watching people bleed for art gave him a sense of fulfillment, hearing the buzz of the tattoo shop was enough to settle his nerves.

At a young age, he had some ties to the streets, mostly because his older brothers were dope boys. But the streets were never friendly to a young, ambitious dealer and one of his brothers, Shad, learned that the hard way at twenty-two. His family was in so much pain and he'd never ever forget the scream his mother let out that night when she had to identify his body. It broke her. It broke him, that was a feeling he wouldn't wish on his greatest enemy, especially with Shebazz being fourteen at the time.

Young men didn't belong in caskets, his older brother surely didn't, but there he was with a smile on his face like he was waiting to leave this world all along. Bullet fragments gone, looking like he was perfectly fine with sleeping forever.