90s Love

Chapter 8

"Stay away from him."

"Don't you think I know that?"

"Well, I'm being serious. Your friends-"

"Janae."

"Calvin!" I raised my voice slightly, wanting to be taken seriously. "Your friends are doing stupid shit, and that will not be you, do you understand me?" I pointed at him sternly.

"I don't need my little sister trying to educate me."

"And I don't need my brother's friends offering me shit, but that happened." I rolled my eyes, making my exit from his room.

"What?! Janae." He called after me, and I just ignored him going into my room. "Who?" He demanded, appearing in my doorway.

I crossed my arms as I turned to him. "You're seriously gonna play like you ain't know?"

"No, I didn't. Who offered you it?"

"Oh, so now you wanna listen to me?"

"Answer my question."

"For what? You don't want me to educate you, remember?"

"Janae!"

"You either know what's up or you don't Calvin!" I argued.

"I really don't!"

"Hey! Quit all that yelling!" Daddy called out to us.

I looked to Calvin feeling deflated."Stop hanging with Henry," I informed softly. "He's with Nico's crew."

I watched as his face changed at the news. It was more than clear that he was in the dark about this one. "Come here." He spoke, motioning me towards him, and I just hugged him softly. "I'mma make the right decisions, okay?"

"You promise?"

"Promise." He held out his fists, and I fist-pounded him with a small smile.

"Y'all good?" Kelly asked as she and Shad appeared in the doorway.

Calvin and I exchanged looks before nodding softly.

"I don't like that," Rashad spoke, pointing between the two of us. "That's the type of stuff me and Kelly used to do when Ma and Pop asked us about something we weren't tryna talk about."

"We know Nico's back. That's common knowledge." Kelly spoke, as she walked further into the room, closing the door behind her. "So what's he up to?"

I just sat myself on my bed trying to mentally prepare myself for a talk that I didn't even want to have in the first place. But I knew it would happen eventually. The only reason we were so strong as siblings was because we leaned on each other, no matter how smart we thought we were, we allowed ourselves to listen. 'Cause we all wanted each other to succeed, the right way.

🖤

I ended my night by sitting on Nicki's front porch steps, talking to her about everything that was going on after Kelly and Shad left the house.

"Shad's gonna talk to Dre," I informed.

"That's good. Rocky's gonna be a lot more chill knowing that."

"And he's tryna hang around more."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Ehh."

That just made Nicki let out a laugh. "He's just tryna look out."

"I'm tryna make sure all the boys in my life don't sell drugs, and then we'll be fine. It's not that deep."

"I don't know, it gets wild out here." She warned jokingly.

I sighed, looking over at my home. "You're lucky you're an only kid."

"Girl, with friends like y'all it's like I got at least 12 siblings."

I smiled. We were all like a big crazy-ass family in the end.

"So what's up with that Nate boy?" I asked curiously, deciding to change the subject to something normal.

Boys.

A smile came on her face as she quickly looked away from me, acting shy "We're cool."

"That's it?"

Nicki looked back at me. "Yes, that's it."

A slow smirk appeared on my face after taking in her reaction. "You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"You positive?"

Seeing that I was pushing for more, she finally gave me something to work with. "He's coming to Will's game on Friday."

"Ooouuu!"

"Oh, hush." She pushed my shoulder, making me laugh.

We were gonna be alright.

Despite circumstances and crazy lives, if we could still smile and laugh.

We were fine.