Free The Dying Ground by Nichelle D. Tramble Page B

you from, but you cain’t just stop by unannounced and expect peoples to drop they plans.”
    She held up her hands. “You’re right, Chantal.” Her voice was polite but impatient. “Next time I’ll call when I want to spend time with my family.”
    “Oh, now we family.”
    “We always been family.”
    Chantal guffawed loudly into the air. “Yeah, right.”
    The woman’s eyes flickered over me in one dismissive gesture. I saw immediately that her gaze placed me on the far side of drug dealer. I looked no different from the boyfriends and exes that snuck in and out of the complex at all hours of the night. Her assumption bothered me and so did the possibility that she had placed Chantal and me together. I moved toward my car.
    “Where you going? I ain’t finished talking to you,” Chantal snapped.
    “Well, I’m finished taking your abuse.”
    “I ain’t even said nothing. I thought you was a tough guy, hanging around with ballers, hustlers. Ain’t some a Holly’s cool rubbed off on you?”
    I ignored her and spoke to Scottie. “Next time, little man.”
    “Don’t forget about what I asked you.”
    My mind was a blank. “What was that?”
    “Pitching. Teaching me how to pitch.”
    I hesitated. “We’ll talk about it.”
    The jogger stepped up to Chantal’s side. She stood with her hands on her hips, an anger I couldn’t claim right behind her eyes. “Don’t you want to give him a straight answer?”
    Chantal looked amused. “Relax, girl, that ain’t his daddy.” Bewilderment crossed the jogger’s face. Chantal smiled at me. “I been trying to explain to sister-girl that Scottie’s father ain’t a factor, but she don’t hear me when I talk.”
    She looked at me. “Sorry, I just thought—”
    “Don’t worry about it.” I caught her eye over the roof of the car. “I’m Maceo Redfield.”
    She held up a hand and gave a small wave. “Alixe Hunter.”
    Scottie grabbed her hand. “This my Auntie Alixe. My mama’s sister from Japan.”
    “Which explains why she wants to go jogging close to sundown.” Chantal continued her biting commentary. “Everybody else locked in the house, and she wanna go run the streets looking for trouble.”
    “The lake is well lit,” Alixe countered.
    “The bushes ain’t, and somebody’ll drag your ass in there so quick.”
    “Thanks for worrying about me.” She looked at me. “So, how do you know my nephew?”
    “The Big Brother program. Me and waterhead been hooked up for about a year.”
    She wrapped her arms around Scottie and kissed him on the head. “Nice kid, huh?”
    I smiled at Scottie. “Sometimes.”
    Scottie scowled. “I ain’t a troublemaker.”
    “Of course you’re not.” She kissed him again. “You can jog with me another time. Okay?”
    “Call first.” Chantal couldn’t resist a last jab.
    “I’ma get out of here too.” I had visions of intercepting the jogger on the next block.
    “There you go again, running off. Should I make an appointment to sit down and talk to you? ’cause you know you never said why you don’t call.”
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea, with me being Scottie’s Big Brother and all. I don’t want things to get messy with him.”
    “You wasn’t worried about all that when I met you at the club. You was kinda glad when you crawled in my bed.” Luckily, Alixe was distracted by Scottie.
    “‘Crawled’ being the operative word.”
    “Don’t talk shit.” She moved closer while I backed away. “What? You afraid of me now?”
    “I was afraid of you then.”
    “Trick.” But there was a little more humor in her voice.
    Alixe watched us with interest.
    “I’ll catch y’all later.”
    “Wait. You hear about Billy Crane?”
    “Yeah. Holly told me this morning.”
    “He was cool people. Too bad. Didn’t you kick it with his girlfriend for a minute?”
    “She was a friend of mine.”
    “So, you the shooter? You know, clear the way for yourself?”
    I slid into the front seat.