Love In the Red Zone (Connecticut Kings Book 1) (21 page)

“Hello…”

“Hey…” My eyelids squeezed in frustration. “It’s me, Shawnie. What’re you up to?”

“Shit. Tired as a muthafucka.” She yawned.

“Oh, okay.” I bit my lip then took a deep breath. “So, I’m finally calling you back about your text last week.”

“‘Bout damn time. I almost forgot about that.” She burst out laughing. “No, I didn’t. Trent Bailey is fine as fuck!”

I rolled my eyes, feeling a sting of jealousy my cousin didn’t deserve. It was evidence of my rampant feelings for this man.
This stranger
. “I know my mother told you about running into us in church.”

“Yeah. If Aunt Chéri didn’t tell my mother, I wouldn’t’ve known shit.”

“Yeah, I know.” I squeezed my eyes shut again. “I’ve been vague about me and Ky’s living situation too…”

I didn’t know how much time I had on the clock, and to be honest, the time had actually been generous before my mother told her sister, Lashawn’s mother, that she ran into Ky and me with a man at church. Gratefully, my lecture to Ky about privacy worked because he hadn’t told my mother we’d been staying with Trent—at least not that I was aware of. But after last night, going down on that man, I felt like I lost control. I’d always been impulsive, and possessive, but never this out of control and confused about my motives. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I didn’t know why even after I deep throated the man and knew it was wrong, I didn’t feel an ounce of regret. I did feel slight embarrassment over losing control like I had.

“What about it? Landlord caught up to you?”

“Yeah.” I muttered softly, my throat closing up on me. “Last month. They put all my things out on the curb and I didn’t have time to call for help.”

“Get the hell outta here!” she gasped her words. “I ain’t even know. Ky didn’t mention it when I saw him.”

“He doesn’t quite get that part of it. But he does get that we moved.”

“Where are y’all?” she croaked in a panic.

“Ummmm… Alpine.”

“Alpine?” she shrieked. “How? Without—Trent Bailey?”

She put the two together.

That struck a thought.

My eyes narrowed. “Shawnie, do you follow football?” My head angled over the countertop. I tried keeping my voice low because of the late hour. Ky was upstairs sleeping and Trent could be home any minute. “How do you know about Trent?”

“What the fuck, Jade! You been living under a damn rock?” she trilled into the phone with incredulity, “Aunt Chéri had you in too many of them Home Ec classes and shit. Too many fancy balls, etiquette schools, and shit. She should’ve put you in a damn sport! Everybody know TB the QB from the
Kings
!”

I grabbed the front of my neck, feeling eerily uncomfortable.

“I don’t,” my voice cracked.

“It’s all good. It was like 2012-2013 when all that went down anyway,” Shawnie tried to soothe.

My hands started shaking on the marble countertop. “When all what went down?”  I heard my aunt Magness shouting in the background. “Yo!” Lashawn charged back. “What is all that volume about?”

As my aunt returned her daughter’s tone, I thought how it had always amazed me how Lashawn took on this hood girl persona when she came up in a stable household in Nutley with two educated and committed parents. It was so hypocritical a thought when I considered how I had the same padded fortune only with more money and a great deal of influence, thanks to George.

“Look, she trippin’ I gotta go—”

“Wait, Shawnie!” I called out dramatically because I felt so much of my life—or yet another major error—was hanging in the balance. “I need to know what’s up with Trent.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Google “Trent Bailey’s conviction and prison sentence” and you should be good from there.”

My heart stammered in my chest and mouth went completely dry.

I didn’t register ending the call. All that rang in my mind as I reached for my laptop was
Conviction!
and
Prison Sentence!

I yawned as the truck pulled up to the side of the house near the garage. I was beat tired.

“You good, yo?” StentRo laughed with tight eyes next to me.

It had been a long day of working out, then Pop Warner’s last game—
where I saw Kyree and Jade and she wouldn’t even look at me
—and then hanging out with Stenton and JJ, who just so happened to be in Brooklyn this weekend.  They wanted to celebrate my contract, no matter how weak it was, so we hit up a party a D.J. we all knew in common was working. We broke out after one in the morning, splitting with JJ, who headed home to Connecticut.

“Too much damn
Mauve
, thinking I was on some low key, grown man shit,” I groaned, my head rolling to the side against the headrest.

“As the current face of the brand, I have to inform you,
Mauve
is
a grown man’s drink,” he laughed through low lids, telling of his tipsiness.

I forgot StentRo was in the last season of his career and was still signing endorsement deals. He signed with
Mauve
this summer and was deserving of it. He was a good dude.

“Nah, they only luh you for multi-colored bawdy,” I teased, unable to hide my humor. “Nigga, if you ain’t have all them tats the ladies love, Divine wouldn’t be checkin’ for you!”

We laughed together.

“Yeah, a’ight!” he responded, cracking the hell up. “My brand is tight. The swag flows.” He popped his imaginary collar.

We sputtered in laughter again, feet stomping in the backseat of his
G63
, curled over while laughing. We were a little twisted and it felt good, but I had to stop delaying the inevitable.

“Look, man,” I tried breathing. “Lemme get outta here. I got service in the morning.”

“We may see you. Zo mentioned wanting to spend more time at
Redeeming Souls
since we’ll be moving in full time soon.”

“A’ight.” I offered him dap. “It’s a bet. Peace and blessings.”

“Peace and blessings, my dude.”

After he reciprocated, I made my way to the side door and fished for my keys to let myself in.  It was mad late when I trekked down the long hall to the kitchen, so I was shocked as hell to see Jade in there, hovered over her laptop.

I exhaled, widening my slanted lids.

Not this shit agai
n
…

Jade really messed my head up last night with the trap she tried to pull. It had been the one thing I drank to forget tonight. At this point in my life, I was tired of conniving women, and here I was, letting one live in my crib. I was a damn glutton for punishment. Pretty and sexy as sin or not, I couldn’t get caught up with this dangerous woman.

I decided to quietly creep out of the kitchen through the other doorway the moment I strolled in, finding her petite frame with hunched shoulders over the countertop.

“You were going to let me continue to stay here with my son and not tell me you’re a convicted criminal?”

That weighted my feet, cementing them in place. My throat dropped to my damn stomach. I turned to glance at her over my shoulder.

“Pardon?”

I saw her bloodshot eyes and tightened lips around her teeth as she basically growled, “You are a convicted criminal who served time for aiding and abetting someone who shot a federal officer?”

I turned, anger stirring in my belly. “At least that was a question and not an assumed fact because it’s damn sure false.”

“So, I didn’t spend the last two hours googling details of your arrest, conviction, and imprisonment?”

“Another question, but this one you can answer. I wasn’t here for that.” I stood in the middle of the kitchen feeling like a damn kid being found out by a parent.

“Don’t shit me, Trent! I don’t deserve that!” she screamed.

“I don’t deserve coming home at this hour and being confronted about some shit that’s personal, old, and don’t have shit to do with the person doing bootleg research.” I didn’t match her volume, but my fury seethed to the same degree.

She turned completely from the island to face me. “What’s bootleg about it, Trent? Please tell me.”

I didn’t feel like getting into it, but saw no way out at this point. “None of my charges had to do with aiding and abetting. That’s not even an actual crime, but I bet your research didn’t yield that. The bloggers had you believe that. You shouldn’t include them in your research, I’m sure your professors would tell you the same.” I felt violated in my own damn house, so yeah, I would talk my shit. “Credible sources would cite I was convicted of three counts of perjury and one of conspiracy.”

“For what? My son is upstairs sleeping in your home,” she reminded with wide nostrils while goading me, snarling with her teeth.

“For not snitching on my uncle’s—”

“Who apparently shot a federal agent in a deal gone bad.”

“A deal I had no knowledge of until after I told him it was cool to stay at my boarded house in Camden. When I found out about the shooting, I talked him into turning himself in.”

“Yeah, after lying to the agents about not knowing where he was.”

“I wasn’t a snitch, Jade. I thought you could understand that with all the hood niggas you worship.”

She sucked in a breath and flinched like she’d been punched in the face. And she had, intentionally, with that blow.  

“Fuck you!”

“You want to.”

Her face fell at that. I stood stock still, enduring the heat of her glower.

“I know what you’re doing, Trent. You’re trying to end this conversation by firing off insults. That’s not going to happen.”

I pushed my hands into my jean pockets and exhaled. “Yeah, about that. I ain’t ‘bout to keep with this back and forth. What more do you want?”

“I want to know what happened. I want to know who you are and if who I thought you were was an illusion.” Her lips trembled, she was fighting back a cry and that cut me.

“Look, man.” I rubbed my face. “I wouldn’t say I knew anything about the shooting because that was the God’s honest truth. And in saying that, I wouldn’t say I knew where the dude, Glock, was staying. I was in the middle of a season and wasn’t even in touch with him. He was just someone I knew from CMD and used to run with my uncle, Trick. They called, asking if they could lay low at my boarded up house there and I said it was cool.” I had no idea there was a shooting involved until weeks later when federal agents approached me at
Kings
headquarters in the middle of practice.”