“Uh… yeah. Smoke. That’s how he introduced himself.”
He stopped laughing but was still grinning when he stated, “Babe, he was f**kin’ with you. His name isn’t Smoke. It’s Jorge.”
I stared at him. Then I said, “He’s not known as Smoke?”
“Nope.”
“That’s not, like, his street name or something?”
A brief chuckle then, “No.”
“Why would he tell me his name was Smoke?” I asked.
“Because he’s like that and because you’d believe him and because you believed him, he probably found that hilarious.”
I crossed my arms on my chest. “Well, you have another guy named Fang. You’re called Hawk. Why wouldn’t I believe a name like Smoke?”
“Fang is definitely a Fang and Hawk is who I am.”
Fang was, unfortunately for him, definitely a Fang.
“No,” I stated, turning my head to look at him again, “you’re Cabe Delgado.”
“I used to be Cabe Delgado, Gwen, but shit happens in life and that man is still in me but now I’m not that man.”
Interesting.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“You still addin’ to your list of pros and cons?” he asked back.
“Yes,” I replied.
“The pros win out, Sweet Pea, and uncertainty becomes certainty, then I’ll tell you what that means.”
Now I wanted to know what that meant.
I decided my best bet for the moment was to pass on that.
So I looked back out the windscreen and changed the subject. “You have a girl?”
Something weird and tense filled the car and it was coming from Hawk when he asked back, “I have a girl?”
“The girl who got me my shoes,” I explained, freakishly scared to look at him due to the strange tenseness.
Then the tenseness evaporated, poof! like it was never there when he answered easily, “Yeah, I have a girl.”
Um… weird!
I hesitantly pressed forward. “What kind of girl?”
Hawk unhesitantly shared, “A secretary, receptionist kind of girl.”
Interesting.
“What’s her name?”
“Elvira.”