Page 86 of Not So Goode

“No shit, Prez.”

Fuck, it was still on speaker. Fuck, fuck, fuck. No point in turning it off now that was out of the bag. I felt Charlie stiffen behind me. But I had to finish talking to Tran. God, this was bad. End of the road for Charlie and me, that kinda bad.

I was silent too long, apparently. “You’re awful quiet, Crow.” Tran was wicked smart. “She didn’t know, did she?”

“Not yet, no.”

“And she’s on the back of the bike, listening, ain’t she?”

“Yep.”

“An’ if she ain’t from the life, that shit is probably not gonna fly over too great, is it?”

“Probably not.”

“Name?”

“Charlie Goode.”

Tran raised his voice. “Listen to me, Charlie Goode. Crow is a good man. One of the best I’ve ever met. Don’t let this shake you. He does what he gotta do, but it ain’t all of him, okay? So try not to hold this against him.”

Charlie nodded.

“Tran can’t hear a nod, babe,” I murmured.

“Yes, I hear you,” she said. “Thank you.”

“She’s freakin’,” Tran said.

“It was a mess, and this is a shock,” I said.

“Go. Deal with it.” A pause. “Word of advice from your ol’ Prez, Crow-bro?

Crow-bro. Haven’t been called that in a while. “Sure.”

“Take it off speaker.”

I did. “All right.”

“She’s gonna run, brother, and you just gotta let her go. If she ain’t from this life, she won’t get it. She’ll need time to process it. And you can’t force it. Don’t mean you gotta let her go forever, but you gotta give her time.”

“That what happened with you and Mahalia?”

“Sorta. She wasn’t from the life, but she wasn’t soft, either.” A moment of silence. “How soft is she?”

I laughed. “She’s from Connecticut. She’s got a double major from Harvard.”

“Yale,” Charlie corrected from behind me.

“Yale, my bad. This is the first time she’s been on a bike, and she was raised not to curse.”

He laughed again, whistling. “You snagged yourself a real nice piece of silky soft, didn’t’cha?”

“Yes, sir, I did.” I sighed. “Hopefully that’s not past tense.”

“All right. I gotta make those calls. Just be cool, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you, Tran.”