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“Don’t listen to him,” she said, flipping pages and making a note. “You
gotta plan what you want to say.”
Amilcar made a pfft sound.
Tasha was probably right, but I had no plans. I was dormant, and I hated
it. All the time and money in the world couldn’t buy me a purpose. I sat
back on the couch and threw open a sketchbook, finding a blank page I
could fill with meaningless garbage.
I was drawing arrows all over it, rendering them in fine detail, when
Logan texted me.
—Home at six. You?—
“Bullshit,” I muttered.
“What?” Tasha asked. She was curious and stubborn. She never took
“nothing” for an answer.
—I’m going to be out—
“Logan thinks he’s going to be home at six. As if.”
Tasha shook her head as she took notes. “Men ain’t worth it. Give them
your name and you get grief back.”
“Stop talking about us like that,” Amilcar said. “I’m right here.”
“You’re not a man. You’re a teddy bear.”
He threw a pillow at her. She put up her arm to deflect it just as Logan
dinged me.
—Where?—
“You almost done?” Amilcar asked his sister. “We gotta stop at Liddy’s
before the play.”
“Give me five.” She flipped a page.
“How is Liddy?” I asked.
Liddy was a GAC member, from way back when the Collective was the
only meaningful thing in my life.
—Going to see a friend in her high school musical—
“We’re doing a piece by the river and we’re checking out—”
“What?” I bolted straight in my seat, sketchbook snapped closed in my
lap.
Amilcar and Tasha glanced at each other, then she went back to her
work.
“A piece?” I might as well have been clutching my pearls in horror.
“With who?”
“Come on, Fance,” Amilcar replied. “You know the crew.”