Page 4 of Collateral Love
Not because we were involved.
Because we were adjacent.
And adjacency was enough to get our kind swallowed whole.
I didn’t watch from a distance.
That wasn’t my style.
I adjusted my baby phat bookbag on my shoulder and walked straight up to him while the frat boys were still tucking their purchase away like it was a secret.
“Y’all lost?” I asked, loud enough to cut through their laughter.
All three of them looked at me.
The frat boys blinked, looking frazzled. But Zayden didn’t flinch. His gaze slid to me slowly, measured, like he was reading the math of my face.
He wasn’t surprised.
That annoyed me.
One of the frat boys scoffed. “Who the hell are you?”
I didn’t give him my eyes. My focus stayed on Zayden.
“You shouldn’t be doing business right here,” I said, like I was commenting on the weather. “Not with the cameras on that corner and security doing their little hero loop every twenty minutes.”
The frat boys stiffened.
Zayden’s mouth didn’t move, but his eyes sharpened, as if I’d just stepped onto a chessboard he’d already been playing.
“You giving free advice, or you trying to get yourself hurt?” he asked.
His voice was low and calm, the kind of calm that meant he didn’t need permission to get ugly.
I smiled. “I’m trying to keep you from being stupid,” I said. “And I’m trying to keep whatever you brought from Crestwood from spilling onto my campus.”
One frat boy muttered, “Man, come on?—”
“Go,” Zayden said, finally, not even looking at them.
They left immediately.
When they were gone, the space between us tightened. Like the air itself knew it had to pick a side.
Zayden tilted his head. “You from Crestwood?”
I didn’t answer, but from the skeptical look on his face, I knew I didn’t need to.
“You know my brother?” he asked, and there was something in his voice when he saidbrother. Not warmth. But a hint of jealousy like he was assuming I fucked him or something.
I kept my chin lifted. “Everybody knows Xavier. He has the kind of face people write excuses for.”
Zayden’s eyes narrowed, like he didn’t like the way I said it.
I continued anyway. “But you… you’re the one people are actually scared of.”
That earned me a real look. Not the assessing one. The interested one.
