Free New York's Finest by Kiki Swinson Page B

chimed in as well.
    I could tell Vanessa had been crying a lot longer than I was because her eyes were blood shot red and visibly puffy. So when she opened her mouth, Damian and I both were waiting on pins and needles to hear what she had to say.
    “ He was shot in the left shoulder and his left leg. He lost a lot of blood, so the doctor operating on him said he may need a blood transfusion. Other than that, his injuries aren’t life threatening so he should be fine after surgery.”
    I let out a sigh of relief. And without thinking about it, I grabbed Vanessa into my arms. She stood very stiff with her arms hanging by her side. And when I realized this, I let her go and stepped back from her. I wanted so badly to ask her what her damn problem was, but my mouth wouldn’t open. Damian, of course, saw this and grabbed me by the arm.
    “ Come on. Let’s go back and sit down,” he instructed me.
    I turned around to look at him and when I looked at his facial expression, I noticed how he wanted me to get away from Vanessa as quickly as possible. I didn’t put up a fuss and followed him back to where we were sitting before this bitch walked in.
    Vanessa took a seat on the other side of the waiting room. I watched her as she took her iPhone from her handbag and began texting someone. As time passed, the bitch continued to text her life away. She acted as if Damian and I weren’t even in the same damn room. I shook my head and turned my focus towards Damian.
    Meanwhile, my Blackberry rang. I looked down at the screen and noticed that it was Marco. I had forgotten that quickly that I was supposed to have met him at his apartment. I looked at Damian and sighed.
    “ What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “ I was supposed to meet Marco before I got the call from Vanessa. And this is him calling me now.”
    “ Are you going to tell him what happened?” he asked me with concern written all over his face.
    “ I’m not sure. What do you think? I mean we don’t know why Reggie was shot. And you know Marco’s gonna ask,” I said and waited for Damian to give me the go ahead.
    Before he could respond, my phone stopped ringing. So I held it in the palm of my hand and debated on whether or not to call him back.
    “ Nah, wait,” Damian finally spoke up. “Don’t tell him anything right now. Remember how paranoid he is and if he thinks we’re having problems out here, then he’s liable to shut our supply off and disappear from the face of this earth. So let’s wait until Reggie comes out of surgery and sees what he says.”
    “ Well, what excuse am I going to give him about why I didn’t meet him when in fact I told him I would?” I asked curiously.
    “ I can’t help you with that,” Damian replied facetiously. “But you’re a woman so I know you’ll come up with something.”
    I cracked a smile. This was the first time I smiled since finding out Reggie had gotten shot. I knew Damian made this remark to simply make me smile. I poked him in his side. “Don’t play with me. You know men are masters at the lying game.”
    “ Nah, I doubt that,” he chuckled as he looked back over at Vanessa who was still texting someone. “I wonder who the fuck she’s texting,” he changed the subject.
    I looked at Vanessa with a disgusted look on my face. I figured that whoever she was texting had to be saying some pretty good stuff because she’d been going at it for close to forty minutes nonstop. I couldn’t stand the sight of her so I turned my attention back to my phone. When I did that, I immediately thought to myself what was I going to tell Marco? I knew he’d be pissed off if I stood him up. I knew he would even be more furious to know that he’d tried to call me and I wouldn’t answer his call nor call him back and explained my whereabouts. I sat there and wracked my brain trying to figure out what I was going to tell him. He was a man who always wanted answers no matter how bad it was. He detested liars and if he found