Page 63 of Collateral Love
The stadium lights washed the interior of the car with a faint, artificial glow.
We ate in silence for a while. Comfortable, but buzzing underneath.
“So,” I said finally, wiping salt from my fingers. “Distribution.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t looking at the maps on his phone.
He was looking at me.
“What?” I asked.
“I hit that boy,” he said casually.
I stilled. “What boy?”
“That goofy Nigga that tried to grab your arm outside the union last week.”
I frowned, thinking back. Trauma files, I called them. Moments I refused to dwell on but never fully deleted. A dude had reached for me when I walked away after shutting down his attempt to turn a casual conversation into begging for my number. His fingers had closed around my wrist for half a second before I snatched away and looked at him like he was invisible.
“I handled it,” I said.
“I know,” he replied. “This was for me.”
My brows lifted. “You beat him up because…?”
“He touched you like you were regular,” he said simply. “Like you weren’t protected.”
My chest tightened.
“Now he knows not to touch you at all.”
“How bad?” I asked quietly.
“Bad enough he won’t ever forget you got people,” he said. “Not bad enough to bring heat.”
I should’ve been mad. I should’ve told him he was being reckless. I should’ve reminded him that we were building something too big to jeopardize over a bruised ego or a casual slight.
Instead, something warm uncurled low in my stomach.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said.
“I know.”
“Zay?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“You can’t keep deciding who gets to learn lessons on my behalf,” I said. “I’m not your girl.”
He looked at me then, eyes dark, jaw tight.
“I know you not, my girl,” he said. “I still don’t like anybody treating you like you're easy to touch.”
Heat crawled up the back of my neck.
“You know what lines like that sound like, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like the truth.”
