At that, she burst out laughing.
“Girl, you got a screw loose. You hit me on the head?”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t you worry about Shirleen, Shirleen can take care of herself. If she can’t, she’l find someone who can.” That’s when Shirleen looked to Darius.
“You know ‘bout Jet gettin’ shot?” she asked.
He nodded.
“That’s it, son, you hear what I’m sayin’ to you?” He nodded again, this time his lips were turned up a little at the ends.
Something scary was going on and I knew it was the truth when Matt tensed and Daisy’s wide eyes swung to me.
“Shirleen,” Daisy said, turning back to Shirleen, “I got Marcus on the case.”
“Wel , then, I got Darius on the case. This is good, this means them stupid-ass motherfuckers won’t get away, wil they? Think they can f**k around at Shirleen’s table, shoot my friends, I don’t think so.”
No.
No, no, no.
I mean, okay, I liked it that Shirleen wasn’t mad at me and thought of me as a friend but I figured we were talking about someone getting whacked. Although I wanted my problems to go away, and I wanted the fix to be permanent, I wasn’t ready for that.
“What are we talking about here?” I asked.
Shirleen opened her mouth to speak but Daisy cut in,
“Her man is Eddie Chavez.”
Shirleen’s mouth snapped shut and her eyes grew wide.
Wonderful. Now, Eddie was “my man”.
I took in a deep breath.
Whatever.
“Real y, I can’t…” I started to say.
“Shut your mouth, get yourself an iced tea and sit your ass down. We’re gonna watch Days of Our Lives.” Without further ado, she flipped on the TV and someone handed me an iced tea. I was a little too scared of Shirleen to disobey her order to watch Days of Our Lives, even though I had other things to do, a lot of other things, like tel Eddie that I was pretty certain I just saw Shirleen give the order for Vince Fratel i to be whacked. Instead, I walked forward and sat down in a chair that was upholstered in Barney the Dinosaur purple.
Shirleen’s eyes watched Matt and Darius move toward the door.
“She’s got Nightingale’s protection,” Daisy said, settling in on the migraine couch at Shirleen’s feet with her own iced tea.
“Figured that after I heard his army swept through last night. That boy rocketed straight from wild child to badass motherfucker, now he scares the shit out me.” I was a little surprised to hear Lee could scare the shit out of Shirleen.
Shirleen didn’t seem to be scared of anything. Though, I knew where she was coming from and I nodded to her in agreement. She caught my nod and looked at me, “What’s the story with you and Eddie?”
Before I could answer, Daisy got there.
“They bought a coffee maker together the other day.” Shirleen’s eyes nearly popped out of her head and then she roared with laughter.
“Eddie Chavez and a coffee maker! Holy f**k! Darius, you hear that?” she cal ed.
Darius was standing at the door with Matt, he looked down the hal , not pleased at being interrupted.