Always Crew - Tijan Page 0,53
back, and then you know, the whole shit and caboodle thing with her dad. That’s a brain exploder if I ever heard of one, so I guess I wasn’t too surprised to find my crew member sitting in a ball, her knees pulled to her chest, her gaze staring out over some rich folks’ houses.
And they were rich.
Pools, shiite.
One day I was hoping to get a house like that. It’d be better than the trailer I grew up in, though I couldn’t gripe too much about it. My grandma and my older sister kept it cleaned. Outside the trailer might look like crap, but inside was nothing but class. Then again, that’s how my women folk rolled, Bren too.
“Yo.” I plopped down, settling in. The grass was lumpy, but I got comfy and glanced over.
Bren was watching me, the side of her head resting on her knees and she had a half-smile.
I looked in those eyes. Yeah. Haunted, but happy too. Happily haunted. It was a step up from the old Bren, and I nodded to myself, grunting. “I need to worry you’re going to break into one of those backyards and pick up all the pool toys?”
She froze a second, her eyes big, and then she started laughing. “You know about that?”
Another grunt. See. So much we knew that she didn’t think we knew. “I have my ways.”
“That’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t sweat it. I love the inner criminal saint you have inside of you.”
Her cheeks were getting red.
I made Bren blush. I felt like a fucking superhero for that feat.
Then, I asked, “What am I doing here, Bren?”
Her shoulders lifted, held, and lowered. Didn’t know why she needed to settle herself, but she did that often. She always seemed worried about someone or something. That would’ve exhausted me, but I wasn’t Bren. I cared about my grandma, my sister, Jordan, Cross, Bren, and Sunday. I didn’t give a fuck about anyone else. Not Bren. She cared about the world while she was denying to herself that she did.
“I wanted to ask about Sunday.”
Left curve.
I didn’t see that one coming.
“I dunno. She’s okay, I guess. Haven’t heard about the baby.” And because I knew Bren, I added, “But that’s not really why you asked me out here.” I nudged her with my arm. Lightly. “Come on. Spill. What’s going on in our head?”
She shot me another grin that was half a frown. Another look only Bren seemed to have perfected. Didn’t know how she did it, but I loved her for it. “Cross and I went back to Cougar Lanes. We broke in. He wouldn’t let me in a room, said I shouldn’t see it, and when we came back last night, he called Channing about it.”
I waited, but she didn’t continue.
Okay.
Bren was saying things, giving me crumbs, but she couldn’t bring herself to really say what she needed to know or hear or be reassured about. I had to put my thinking hat on for this one.
She told me what they did. Coolio. Breaking and entering was always a good time.
Cross called her brother about it, so yeah, he found something out that would upset B. That’s a no-brainer and made sense with everything else happening. And here she was, finding a spot to watch over a bunch of homes like she used to, and I was the one she called.
Why the fuck was I the one she called?
I was thinking I needed to run down what she would’ve gotten from the other two…
Jordan was Mr. Cut Off right now. He was in a dark place. Bren was usually in a darker place, so maybe she didn’t want to go to an even darker than normal place? And with Cross… yeah. I was thinking it would’ve been the same. The two of them were tight, but they were tense. Cross didn’t fuck around. He got to the point of shit, no matter the consequences, and then I could assume the two would move to the rabbit part of their relationship, because that was another thing J and I knew. B and C loved fucking. A lot. But cheers to them. Each person should get their rocks off as many times as they could.
I felt it was a worthy mission for the world’s population.
So. Me. I was back to me. I wasn’t as intense and dark as the other two. I could get there, mostly when I wanted to bust heads, but sneaking a peek at Brennie Bren, I wasn’t getting that