Free Everything is Everything Book 2 by Pepper Pace

was time to collect.”
    Vanessa twirled her engagement ring as she thought about how Scotty had told grandma that he was her fiancée. Grandma would surely realize that at least some of the time that she had spent away from home had been spent in the company of Scotty. There was no doubt that her grandmother felt that this was just another example of her ‘irresponsibility’.
    Vanessa hadn’t talked to Jalissa or her grandmother since the confrontation, which had been three days ago. Since then Vanessa had time to think about how she had handled it all and if there was anything she wanted to do differently.
    There wasn’t.
    “Look, I have some ideas on how we can keep our finances manageable. I’ll be starting the fall semester at UC. Beady is already living on campus with a full ride.”
    “Right.” Vanessa stated.
    “Well … we can give up the apartment and move in with Miss Gloria. We can take the third floor. There are two rooms and a full bath up there.”
    “What about EJ?” She asked. She didn’t imagine that he’d be happy about giving up the larger upstairs to relocate to just a mere bedroom. He was soon to be fifteen and him and his friends were always up there listening to loud music and smoking cigarettes. Scotty would threaten to brain him if he was discovered smoking anything harder than cigarettes.
    Vanessa hadn’t seen much of EJ over the years. He was white and life had probably not been easy for him in the projects either. But unlike Scotty, EJ seemed perpetually angry. His face always settled into a scowl even when he wasn’t annoyed.
    Scotty shrugged. “He’ll deal with it. Besides, it wouldn’t be forever.”
    She thought about living under another woman’s roof before and after marriage with Scotty. It wasn’t anything that she looked forward to, but whatever needed to be done in order to take financial stress off Scotty was well worth it.
    She nodded her agreement and then rose from her seat at the dinette. She settled on the couch next to Scotty who smiled and clasped her hands in his.
    “How will we,” her face warmed, “you know… with all those people in the house?”
    “You,” he placed a kiss on her nose, “will have to learn to be quieter.”
    “Me?!” Vanessa exclaimed in disbelief. “You breathe so hard, Scotty, you sound like an old man walking up five flights of stairs!”
    He threw his head back and laughed. “We’ll turn on the radio or television set when we make love, okay?”
    She nodded and then he kissed her again.
     

     
    Scotty spotted his brother sitting at one of the tables already eating the Kentucky Fried Chicken that he’d asked his brother to meet him at. Scotty didn’t bother to go up to the counter to order anything and just met Phonso who gave him a wide grin and then licked chicken grease from his fingers.
    “Yo, bro. What’s up?”
    They slapped hands and Scotty took a seat across from Phonso.
    “We haven’t talked in a while.” For them ‘a while’ was nearly two weeks. The brothers were used to communicating a few times a day back when they both worked in the drug trade. There was no need for that now that Scotty had left being a drug dealer to the past.
    At eighteen the younger Tremont was handsome. His biracial background had given him a milk chocolate complexion and dark hair that curled naturally the way some guys spent mass money to achieve with Jheri curls. His dark brown eyes were nowhere near the same color of Scotty’s cornflower blue but the similarity in brow, eye shape and facial structure left no mistake that the two were definitely brothers.
    Phonso’s expression grew serious. “Have you talked to G lately?”
    Scotty shook his head. “I don’t think I’m his favorite person right now. Why?”
    “He’s been using that new shit; the crack. And man, he’s using it like a fiend. In New York they call people like him crackheads.”
    Scotty’s brow furrowed and he leaned forward. “G can’t be a junky that