Page 106 of Kissed By the Trillest Thug 2

“You sure?”

I forced a small smile.

“Yeah.”

She studied me for a second like she wanted to ask another question. Instead, she handed me the bowl of popcorn, and I took it from her.

“Thanks.”

She nodded and turned back toward the movie. For some reason, I was grateful she didn’t press me. About halfway through the movie, a thought crossed my mind.

“You know, I still don’t understand how people can watch movies like this and then act surprised when the two main characters end up together.”

Usually, she would have had something witty to say, but she was quiet.

“Penn?”

Still nothing. I turned a little farther toward her and couldn’t help but laugh. She was asleep.

Somewhere between the small-town Christmas festival and the fake snow, she had completely knocked out. Her glasses had slipped slightly down her nose, and the bowl of popcorn rested in her lap, tilted just enough that one wrong move would’ve sent it crashing onto the floor.

I carefully lifted the bowl from her lap and sat it on the coffee table before reaching over to slide her glasses off. She stirred for half a second.

“Mmm…”

“It’s okay,” I whispered, “you ain’t missing much.”

She settled right back down. I shook my head, smiling to myself as I pulled the blanket a little higher over her shoulder.

“I should’ve known. You fall asleep every movie.”

She didn’t hear a word I said, or maybe she did. Either way, she never opened her eyes.

I leaned back into my corner of the sectional and turned the volume down a couple of clicks before looking over at her one more time. She looked so peaceful and comfortable. Knowing that she felt comfortable in my apartment made something in my chest feel a little lighter. I looked back at the television, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore. The movie kept playing, and the popcorn sat untouched on the coffee table. Between thecheesy Christmas music and Penelope’s soft, steady breathing, I realized this was something that I had gotten used to. I don’t know when I was going to muster up the courage to tell this girl that I liked her, but I knew that I had to. Especially before one of these other niggas in our school tried to get at her.

GHOST

Three Weeks Later

Some things got easier with time. This wasn’t one of them. Three weeks had passed since I slammed the door in Trigga’s face, and I still hadn’t picked up the phone. Neither had he. At first, I kept expecting my phone to ring. He had to see where the fuck he was wrong in all of this. When week one had passed, I stopped checking. I told myself it didn’t matter and that I didn’t care. If he really was moving this way and wanted to drop me and my mother to be over there with his girl and her family, then fuck him.

It was easier to tell myself that than to admit that the silence between us was bothering me. I pulled into the gas station on the corner and cut the engine. My gas light had been on since yesterday, and if I pushed my luck any longer, I was going to end up walking. I slid my mother’s card into the pump and started filling the tank. That’s when I heard it.

“Nah, son. It goes in like this.”

I glanced over.

At the pump beside mine, a little boy couldn’t have been older than eight stood beside his father with both hands wrapped around the gas nozzle. The man kept one hand overhis son’s, showing him how to work the pump without spilling a drop.

“There you go,” he said with a smile.

“I did it!”

“Damn right you did.”

The little boy puffed his chest out like he’d just won a trophy. It was the sweetest thing I had ever seen, yet I looked away.

For the longest time, I’d wondered what something that simple felt like. I wondered what it was like to have a father teach you and to show you things. To be proud of you over something as small as pumping gas. Then I thought about my childhood. Mr. Reynolds had taught me and Trigga how to ride our bikes in the empty church parking lot every Saturday morning for almost a month. If Trigga fell, he picked him up. And if I fell, he picked me up too. I used to think he was just a good man. A man who saw a little boy without a father and decided to help.