(Ace)
2 Weeks Later
Today finna be a good day.
I parked in my usual spot about two blocks away from the school.
"You ready to go in yet?" I turned the car off and took the key out the ignition.
"I'm not done eating," Nee answered before taking a sip of her hot chocolate.
"Aight, we can go when you done."
"Ace, you can go inside without me, just gimme the car keys and go," shorty said before taking a bite of her breakfast sandwich.
"Nah, I'm good right here," I say. "By the way I needa ask you sumn important."
"What?" She asked with her hand blocking her mouth.
"My moms wants us to live together," I let her know.
Her eyes widened. "...what?"
"Don't think too much, it's not finna happen. I just wanted to tell you what she thinks," I say with a shrug at the end.
"How you know it's 'not finna happen'?" She finished chewing.
"Cause I shut her down on the spot."
"That's it? Just because you 'shut her down' doesn't mean she'll drop it," she says, putting the rest of the sandwich back in the wrapper.
"You done eating after one bite?" I asked her, watching her out it back in the paperbag. "And even if she don't drop it and pulls strings and we actually end up living together, what would be the problem wit that? Cause we defo not strangers."
"Money~, Ace. Money. None of us work so who's gonna pay living expenses," she reaches for my sprite. Before her lips could even touch the straw, I stopped her.
"Put it down," I said. "You know you not supposed to be havin no damn soda."
She kissed her teeth before she pleaded. "Can I just take a sip? ... Please?"
I put my hand on the cup. "Aight, take a sip."
She took a awfully long sip but I yanked that shit out her mouth before it could go any further.
"Damn. You coulda waited till I was done taking my sip," she says, using a napkin to clean her mouth.
I put my sprite back in the cup holder. "Anyways, back to the conversation."
"What conversation? I closed it up with the expenses line."
"What living expenses? We gon be set if we have to move in togeth-"
"Ace, why are we even talking about this? You said you told your mom to forget about it..."
"You was the one that wanted to stretch shit out, I ain't do nothin," I let her know. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah," she stuffs the paper bag in her bookbag.
"Aight, let's go."
We both got out of the car allowing me to lock it. We made it into the school's indoor cafeteria to meet everyone at the table.
"Wassup," I dapped Rio and I dapped up Jay. Darnell wasn't here yet.
"Why y'all quiet?" Nee asked, taking a seat next to Nina.
"Facts. Why y'all dead today?" I added.
"Darnell outed y'all," Armani blurted out.
"Watchu mean 'outed'?" I sat down.
"Dude was talkin mad shit on his live last night. You ain't see?" Jay got out his phone.
"Live?! That nigga got viewers?" I asked, looking at everyone.
"He has like 50k followers and fifteen percent is the school," Amani says.
"Aight, cool," I say, ready to drop the conversation. "So what y'all finna do for spring break?"
"No bullshit, I'm thinkin about flying to Atlanta wit my family," Jay tells us.
"Ace," I felt Davanee pull on my jacket.
I looked at her. "What?"
"Did you process what they just told us? The whole school knows now..." she says to me in a quiet yet frustrated tone.
"So? It's not like we can do anything to change it now," I tell her, shrugging.
"He got a point, Nee," Nina comments.
Nee simply smacked her lips and cussed under her breath.
"Aye Nina, you tryna help me wit sumn after school?" Jay asked.
"Yeah, what?"
"Do it matter?"
I tuned they ugly asses out and gave my attention to Davanee who looked to be deep in thought.
"You ok?" I ask her.
"People are gonna look at me weird now," she says.
"Nah, people finna be lookin at us weird now," I corrected. "It don't even matter, the news finna blow over in about a week."
She lets out a sigh before I seen her face start to morph into the face she made before she cried. Before the first tear could make it past her cheek, I buried her head into my chest.
"Aye," I said softly so she could hear. "There's mad people here ... you want them to see that chu a crybaby?"
I hear her sniffle. "I'm not even showing yet."
"Stop cryin," I rubbed her back.
"Hey, Ace," I shifted my head up to see Jennifer.
Why she here right now?
"Wassup," I say.
Davanee pulled away from me, putting her head down on the table.
"Can we go somewhere to talk?" Jennifer asked me.
"Oop-" i heard Armani comment.
"Uh...talk wit him about what, sis?" Nina butted in with a weird look on her face.
"Umm, I-"
"Nina, stay outta people business," Jay told her.
"Aight, let's go and talk," I got up, looking at Davanee who still had her head laid on the table. I followed her to an empty lunch table.
"What chu wanna talk about?" I asked her.
"Comme vous pouvez l'entendre, mon français s'est un peu amélioré," she chuckled at the end of her sentence.
[As you can hear, my French has improved a bit]
"Low key," I said dryly.
"...really? I thought it sounded weird," she laughed showing all teeth.
"Yeah."
She smile disappeared. "...uh...Ace, is it true?"
"Is what true?" I played dumb.
"I heard a bunch of people talking about it outside at the outdoor cafeteria and they were pretty loud about it."
"In all of what you just said, you ain't answer my question," I say, shaking my head.
"People are saying you got a girl pregnant," she finally says.
"Oh really?"
"Yes, and then one of my friends sent me a videos a while ago of one of your friends on live," she starts to pull out her phone.
I stopped her. "You really called me over here to ask me if it's true?"
"Yeah, I just wanted you to confirm that it wasn't..."
"Confirm?!" I scrunched up my face.
She slowly nodded. "It's not true is i-"
I cut her off before she could finish the question. "Ayo, my b. I gotta go, I'm needed somewhere else. I'a see you around tho, yeah?"
I got up and sprinted back to my my table.
"What did she want?" Rio asked me.
"Don't worry about it," I took my seat next to Nee.
"Ain't it funny how Darnell ain't here yet?" Jay asked.
"Real funny," Nina agreed.
⁂ 4 Hours After ⁂
(Davanee)
The next time someone turned their head to look in my direction, ima simply pull out a gun.
Where is the gun gunna come from? I don't know. But what I do know is, everyone in this Math class suddenly has a staring problem. Damn.
Either they're lookin at me and talking or they're trying to get a look at my stomach that laid under the red hoodie I had on.
Who knew people would believe what they heard on an Instagram live. I let out a sigh.
Finally, the bell rings indicating that it's time for lunch. Packing up, I was the first one out the door.
"Shordy, the bell is still ringing," I was stopped by someone's voice. "Where you goin in such a hurry?"
I looked to my left and I saw Ace.
"Why are you here?" I asked him as I proceeded to make my way outside.
He follows. "I snuck out of class early."
"Ace, if people see us together, th-"
"Shut the fuck up. Why is you so worried about what everyone else thinks?"
"Cause ... I just am."
"That's not really a good reas-" he cuts himself off.
"Aight, ima go find Darnell," he says before he pulls off in a hurry.
Before he could get far, I grabbed his arm. "What are you gonna do when you 'find' him?"
"Relax, all ima do is simply talk wit him. I seen him in the hallway before second period," he answered.
He gently pulled his arm away and carried on.
I don't have the energy nor the patience today. I let out a sigh.
Earlier Ace seemed to be unbothered by the news about Darnell's live. I can't blame him cause he's not the one that's pregnant.
Ugh. This ain't it.
[End of 18]
I think Davanee is just a lil frustrated. Lmao, couldn't be me.