Chapter 131: The Past Returns?
Drake leaned against the chain-link fence behind the laundromat, the one with the busted sign that still flickered “OPEN” even though it closed hours ago. The block smelled like fried food from the corner spot and something harsher underneath it, the kind of smell that came with alleys nobody bothered to clean.
A few yards down, a woman paced back and forth mumbling to herself, scratching at her arm, oblivious to everyone around her. Nobody paid her any mind. Further up the block, two younger kids sat on a stoop passing something back and forth between them, low voices, occasional laughter that didn’t quite match the tension sitting under it.
“Yo, Drake, you got some ps?” a voice called out, heavy accent, gold chain catching the streetlight.
Drake glanced over. Enrique. Tattoos running up both forearms, buzz cut fresh enough to still show the razor lines. Drake shrugged.
“Nah, I’m dry right now.”
“Go hit a lick or something,” Drake added, waving him off.
Enrique laughed, unbothered, draping an arm over Drake’s shoulder like the rejection hadn’t landed at all. “Don’t be like that, man.”
Drake shrugged the arm off, reaching into his pocket for a blunt instead, tucking it between his lips and sparking it with a cheap lighter that took three tries to catch.
“You would not believe who I ran into today,” Drake said, exhaling slow, letting the smoke curl up past the streetlight.
Enrique raised an eyebrow, already grinning. “That big tittied bitch Diamond?”
Drake chuckled, shaking his head. “I’d be balls deep in her right now if it was her.”
“Then who the fuck did you meet?”
Drake took another pull before answering, drawing it out. “Lil boy, D.”
Enrique’s face shifted, genuine surprise breaking through. “Holy shit. Darren? Nigga’s still alive?”
Drake nodded, smoke spilling out as he laughed. “Yup. Homeboy’s got some motion going on for him too. Looked good. Real good.”
“Is that so?” Enrique leaned against the fence beside him, curiosity fully hooked now. “Why isn’t he out here with you right now, then?”
“Seems like he forgot where he came from,” Drake said, a flicker of something bitter crossing his expression before he smoothed it back over.
Enrique’s grin sharpened. “How about we remind him?”
“You crazy?” Drake shot him a look. “He’ll kick both our asses. You forget what he used to do when we were coming up? Nigga put Marcus in the hospital over a dice game.”
“That’s true. Scary motherfucker.” Enrique’s grin didn’t fade, though. He glanced around, then lifted the hem of his shirt just enough to reveal the grip of a pistol tucked into his waistband. “But what good are fists against this?”
Drake reached over and smacked him across the back of the head, hard enough to make Enrique stumble half a step.
“The fuck, man—”
“We need to stay low,” Drake snapped, voice dropping. “That’s the only reason we’re even out here right now. You wave that thing around and start some shit, it’s on all of us.”
Enrique rubbed the back of his head, muttering something under his breath, but he let the shirt fall back over the gun without further argument.
Behind them, one of the kids on the stoop laughed loud at something, and further down the block, a car crawled past slow, bass thudding through closed windows before it turned the corner and disappeared. The woman still paced near the fence, murmuring to no one, completely disconnected from the conversation happening ten feet away.
Drake took another hit off the blunt, letting the silence stretch a moment before speaking again. “Still,” he said slowly, “not saying we go start beef with him.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Drake’s eyes narrowed slightly, something calculating settling into his expression. “I’m saying — nigga’s got skills. Real ones. And if he’s out here now, moving different, dressing different, driving something that ain’t junk—” he paused, letting Enrique fill in the blank himself, “—then maybe there’s a way to make that useful. Without going about it stupid.”
Enrique considered that, arms crossing, the earlier aggression cooling into something more thoughtful. “You talking about bringing him in?”
“I’m talking about seeing what’s possible. That’s all.” Drake flicked ash off the end of the blunt. “Darren’s not the type you strong-arm into anything. But everybody’s got a price, or a reason, or something they need bad enough to overlook where it’s coming from.”
“And you think you know his?”
Drake didn’t answer right away, just took another slow pull, eyes drifting down the block toward nothing in particular.
“I got time to find out,” he said finally.
–
They finally pushed their plates away, all three of them thoroughly stuffed, the table a graveyard of empty dishes and half-finished dessert plates that Mateo had insisted on ordering despite already being full past reasonable capacity.
“I genuinely cannot move,” Mateo groaned, slumping back in his seat.
“You did this to yourself,” Darren said, equally full but considerably more composed about it.
“Worth it.”
Liam waved down the waiter for the check, and when it arrived, he barely glanced at the total before handing over his card. Between the appetizers Mateo had insisted on trying one of everything, the entrées, and the string of desserts that followed, the bill landed somewhere north of $600 — the kind of number that would’ve made most people wince, though Liam signed off on it without a second thought.
“Six hundred bucks for a meal,” Darren muttered, shaking his head as they stood to leave. “Kid ate his weight in lobster and truffle risotto.”
“Worth every penny,” Liam said, glancing back at Mateo, who was already trailing behind them with the slow, heavy-footed walk of someone in a genuine food coma.
They made their way out to the car, and by the time they’d pulled out of the lot and merged back onto the road toward Azure Heights, Mateo had gone quiet in the backseat.
Liam checked the mirror a few minutes later and found him out cold, head tilted against the window, mouth slightly open, the full stomach having done exactly what full stomachs do to sixteen-year-olds who’d just eaten an entire tasting menu’s worth of food by themselves.
“He’s done homework tonight, by the way,” Darren said, glancing back at him.
“He’ll be fine,” Liam said, unbothered. “Kid’s sharp. He’ll knock it out in twenty minutes once he’s up.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.” Liam kept his eyes on the road, a small, satisfied smile tugging at his mouth. “Today went well.”
Darren nodded, settling back into his seat, glancing once more at Mateo’s sleeping form in the rearview before facing forward again. “Yeah. It really did.”