Page 12

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Malik sat on the porch, his hoodie pulled low just watching, listening, and thinking. That was his thing—watchin…letting the night talk to him. Feeling the weight of it settle in his chest.

The app had been going up but he was in for the night. His body was tired, and his eyes already hurt from the coding he needed to do later.

New pings. New users. More encrypted threads filling up with neighborhood gossip, missing dog alerts, and anonymous confessions that made the neighborhood feel like it had a pulse of its own.

But Malik was in for the night.

His body felt like it had been dragged behind that old Chevy of his—tired in a way that didn’t just sit in his bones, but reached down and gripped his spirit. His eyes lowkey begged him not to look at another screen, and he still had shit to fix before the next backend update rolled out.

He loved coding.

But it wasn’t always like that. Pharoah was the leader.

He’d linked up with one of the middle school teachers who taught him how to code.

Then one night when Malik was falling in too deep with the gang, Pharoah showed him the world he’d created, linking him with their technology teacher who taught both of them everything he knew.

It had been Malik’s saving grace as a kid, when everything became too much.

Their computer teacher planted the seed on what technology could do for the world and how it could make them rich men one day.

The lessons stuck with Malik ’cause for the first time he wasn’t just a tall black kid who the world, kept pushing a ball into his hands as if sports was the only way out.

He could hoop, but his aspirations stopped at pick-up games with his boys.

Then when Pharoah got shot and couldn’t really code, Malik felt it was only right that he made their business into what it was.

Now he had something tangible that supported him, supported Pharaoh – that would maybe even one day give them a much better life.

Something he could build and use for the betterment of his people.

It started off as a safer way to serve weed but now, Plugged In had grown legs and Crescent Park didn’t know how to function without it.

Still, he had no idea what to do with it or how he could use it to get out of the hood.

After sitting outside for a few hours, he decided it was time to head in.

Kicking his shoes off at the door, he tossed his phone on the couch. Notifications still buzzed in quick succession.

And even though he was in the house, the grind stayed on him like a second skin.

He rubbed his eyes and let his head fall back against the couch, the dark corners of the house were quiet for once.

But even in the silence, those voices called to him—reminders of people depending on him, the streets watching, the boys in Crescent Park hoping he made it so they could believe they could too.

Success came with its own kind of hauntings, or maybe it was the idea of making it when so many of his boys hadn’t. That kind of guilt clung to him like sweaty clothes, ’cause no one talked about the devil whispering to you, that you wasn’t special even though God had deemed you worthy of it all.

With his phone back in his hands, he clicked into the app until his thumb hovered over StylistBae .

That was it. Plain, no emoji. No flirty status. Just clean and cold like she hadn’t even meant to stand out—but still did. She had posted earlier that day about a shoot she styled, then replied to someone with a slick ‘I ain’t in Kansas no more’ and it had been sitting on Malik’s mind ever since.

Aku had been running through his mind since that night on the hood of his car, when he taught her to play dominoes like he knew she’d be around forever.

When he looked into her eyes, he could tell she didn’t mind sticking around, but Malik wasn’t the type of nigga to hold onto something so valuable. He never felt worthy of shit like that.

Key: You up?

She ain’t reply for a full two minutes. Long enough for him to feel stupid. Long enough for him to question if he looked thirsty. But just as he clicked off the app, his phone vibrated again.

StlylistBae: It’s 4am. What you want, Crescent Park?

He smirked and cracked his knuckles before typing back.

Key: Your number.

This time, it took her less than a minute. The message came through with ten digits and a warning.

StylistBae: Don’t play on my line, Malik.

He dialed her immediately.

“Wow.” Her voice slid through the speaker like she’d been waiting for this call all week and wasn’t tryna show it. “You don’t even text first?”

“I don’t play,” his voice was lazy and soaked in the kind of tired that made you say ‘shit you mean’. “And I been meanin’ to call you.”

“You drunk?” she asked.

He swiped his tongue against his lips, wishing he’d popped a pill or something just to cut through his nerves. “Nah, just done actin’ like I ain’t been thinkin’ about you.”

Aku didn’t say anything at first, just let his words swirl in her ear with that cursive accent she loved so much. “That’s cute.”

“You cute…hella cute,” he fired back, lips tugging up into a grin. “Stylin’ on my block like you ain’t know girls like you don’t normally walk through Crescent without a bodyguard.”

“I had you,” she teased, thinking about the last part of the shoot she had with Zaire earlier that day. Malik didn’t say anything to her, just a head nod that only she caught. “Ain’t that what you told your boys?”

He laughed with a low rumble. “Damn, so you heard all that?” He twisted his finger around his hair.

“I hear everything. I just act like I don’t.”

“You dangerous,” he said, sitting back again. “That’s probably why I keep thinkin’ about you.”

She got quiet again, but it wasn’t awkward. It was thick. Heavy, but not in a bad way. Like the space between them was filling up with something neither of them could put their finger on.

“Why you didn’t come say anything to me?” she asked.

Malik huffed. “Everybody don’t need to know you know me…it ain’t always safe, Dorothy.”

She kissed her teeth. “You telling them to stay away from me don’t plant the seed that maybe you know me?”

The air between them hummed.

“Truth is…” Malik scratched at his jaw. “My life hella loud right now. Like, the streets won’t shut up…my thoughts either. So, no I ain’t want the world to know I’m orbiting close to you, but I had to let my people know you was off limits.”

Malik wasn’t the type of man that expressed his feelings. Until now, he never really acknowledged he had feelings. In Crescent, feelings got you killed and came at an expense he was tired of paying.

“Damn,” she whispered. “You tryna make a bitch blush at 4:18 in the morning?”

“Nah,” he laughed. “I’m just tryna fall somewhere safe for once.”

The line got still again, like even the cell towers were holding their breath.

Aku’s voice cut through, “You ever think about gravity?”

Malik frowned slightly, confused. “Like the force?”

“Yea,” her tone was dreamy and a little playful. “How it always pulls you where you supposed to be. No matter how far you float off, it brings you right back.”

He let her words sit…let the weight of them hit places inside him he didn’t even know was open. “You fallin’?” His voice a little rough now.

“I might be,” she confessed. “But don’t let me hit the ground.”

Malik closed his eyes, the streets, the demons—all fading out. “I got you...I promise.”

“What’s your biggest fear?” Aku could tell she had him wide open, so she wanted to dig deeper.

Malik rubbed his hand over his head, eyes scanning the ceiling. “Bein’ remembered for all the wrong shit.” He didn’t have to think long and hard because he already knew the answer.

“Like what?”

“The streets...the mistakes...the version of me that only exists in old beef and bad memories.”

Aku gulped. “But that’s not all you are.”

“I know that. You think you know that, but sometimes the streets don’t care. It just wanna label you and move on.”

He heard her shift again, maybe onto her side.

“You want kids?” she asked, holding her breath. She’d asked Devin this and even when he was honest, she stuck around longer than she should’ve. Not this time though.

“Yea…I think I do. But only if I’m healed enough not to hand them my demons.”

Aku’s breath caught. “I respect that. My mama always said love ain’t supposed to complete you—it’s supposed to hold you while you become who you’re meant to be.”

“She sounds wise.”

“She is,” Aku’s voice smiled. “She’s a wild card sometimes, but Solar has the best heart.”

Malik’s shoulders relaxed for the first time all night. “I like you, Aku.”

“I know.”

“I’m serious.”

“So be serious,” she said. “You want me? Show me…Be consistent…Be honest, and don’t try to cage me. I’m too free for that.”

“You ain’t gotta say all that,” he sucked his teeth. “You don’t know what you just got yourself into, though.”

“Mmm…I think I do.”

The line stayed quiet after that, just the sound of her breathing matching his, both of them letting the weight of the world fall to the side for a minute.

The sun started to rise, casting that early blue glow through the window. Malik didn’t move. He didn’t want to, not while she was still on the phone…not while he felt this light.

“You still there?” she whispered.

“Yea.”

“Good,” she murmured. “Don’t go yet.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “I’m here.”

Aku jumped up, confused and in a foggy daze.

She could hear footsteps. When she went to sleep, no one was there besides her and she didn’t have any knowledge of Noodle coming back.

Who the hell was walking around this early?

She was in the guest bedroom that she had long since claimed as her own, posted up like a squatter and no one was brave enough to tell her to leave.

Her lashes blinked slowly, her heart doing double time until her gaze dropped to her phone screen.

The faint glow showed Malik’s name still sitting at the top. A soft smile crept across her lips. Four hours and sixteen minutes. They had talked all night.