Duc, knows exactly what that means. “Damn,” he says under his breath and looks at Samantha, who has already turned to the robber and froze in fear. He sees terror in her eyes and looks to see the guy holding up a gun at them. He sees the gun and pulls Samantha directly behind him to shield her. Coming out of her shock once he grabs her, she screams loudly, causing the robber to raise his gun to eye level and say to her “If you don’t Shut the fuck up, bitch!” Duc then goes into survival mode.
“Everybody chill. I got her. Just take the money. Ain’t nobody gotta get hurt, man.”
The gunman again says “I said shut the fuck up” as he becomes visibly nervous. Duc, thinking on his toes, just throws the money over towards him and raises his hands telling Samantha to stay calm while trying to slowly push her back a little. After a few seconds he reaches down to grab the money and looks at Duc’s shoes. He’s wearing a clean pair of all white Jordans he got a year ago when they re-released. Unfortunately, he won’t be wearing them home as the gunman yells “Come out dem shoes homeboy!” Duc sadly kicks them off his feet and the gunman snatches them from the ground before he runs off and hops into the car sitting at the ATM with a driver waiting.
They stand there, Duc in his socks, until they hear the car speed off. Then he turns around to Samantha, who is pressed closely into his back, and says “They left. Everything is going to be okay. Are you okay?” She just wraps her arms around him as she begins crying and he reassures her she will be okay. They call the cops and Angie, who drives over immediately with her boyfriend to make sure they are okay. Duc feels responsible for not being aware enough to spot the set up and offers Angie his profit from the night back to help with the loss. She is shocked at the gesture, but her concern is their safety. It’s funny how terrible situations can bring the best or worst out of people. Both Angie and Samantha leave that evening feeling that Duc is someone they want around in bad times by the way he handles himself and takes responsibility even when it isn’t necessary.
The next day Duc is instructed by Angie and Malik to take a day or two to himself to make sure he's okay. He starts the day getting those difficult conversations he has to have out of the way. First, he calls his parents that morning, who immediately want him to take some time away to come home to Maryland so they can make sure he is okay. They will even settle for him going to see his sister in New York as long as one of them got to check on him. He then begins to call the fellas to let them know what happened. He hopes those conversations won’t be as intense but each of them takes the news way more seriously than he hopes as he tries to joke his way through the conversations. Mike tries to talk him through his reaction and feelings after the incident, ensuring him it is okay to be scared or upset. Ovaughn pretty much echoes the sentiments that his parents had about seeing family, but he added possibly coming to visit his friends in Louisiana. Jairus tries to walk through all the things he can do to add precautions to his process so that he can feel safe and avoid another robbery. He even calls Chris, who is in shock and doesn’t want to force him to talk anymore about it but asks if he is good. He has been hanging out with Chris since he is still in Atlanta, so it only feels right to let him know what’s up. By the time he is done with all those conversations his morning has passed him by and it is the early afternoon, but he doesn’t feel right not checking on Samantha, so he gives her a call, too. She has been in the house on the phone all day as well and thanks him for calling to check on her.
“I feel like you saved my life last night.”
It makes him feel very awkward. He doesn’t think he is a hero. He was just doing what needed to be done to protect a woman who was with him. In his eyes all he did was give up money and lose his shoes. To her, he is the guy who stood in front of a gun before he let her be harmed.
After finishing all his phone conversations, he goes out to grab some lunch and then comes back to the apartment. And almost immediately after he sits down to eat, he hears a banging at his door that makes him jump. He is more rattled than he has been admitting to himself. He answers the door to find Carlos coming to pay him a visit. He talked to Mike about what happened and immediately came over to check on Duc in person. Carlos is the “always does the unexpected” type so it is shocking for him to pop up unannounced. Only this time he comes in with a new bottle of vodka telling Duc he needs to take some shots to put his mind at ease. Duc is reluctant but Carlos is intent on doing the only thing he knows to help Duc relax after the robbery, explaining that he’s been there before. Duc, still resisting taking shots at 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday, tells him they can drink that weekend. Still trying to do what he can, Carlos then moves to the second thing he brought and pulls out a handgun. He abruptly pulls it out and slaps it down onto the kitchen table.
“It you won’t take the shots then at least take this. I can’t let you be out here slipping.”
Duc’s eyes lock on the gun and he doesn’t say anything so Carlos tries to convince him he can just keep it for protection even though he knows it’s not his thing. But surprisingly to Carlos it doesn’t take much convincing with Duc breaking his silence to cut off his diatribe.
“Is that joint loaded?”
Before Carlos can finish saying yes, he grabs it and takes it back to his bedroom. In Shock, Carlos warns him that he can’t ride around with it on him all the time, suddenly worried that he may have taken to the gun too easily. Before he can tell him more about how to handle himself with the gun there’s another knock at the apartment door.
Duc answers the door to find Riley over to check on him. She immediately comes in and gives him a big, long hug. She spoke to some of the people from the open mic the night before and word started to spread. After talking to Angie to find that they told him to stay home for a couple of days she headed right over. And once she comes in Carlos makes his exit after telling Duc he is going to need ‘that’ back eventually.
Riley makes herself comfortable trying to take care of things around the apartment in an effort to seem helpful. She brings him food and starts cleaning the kitchen and bathroom as well as organizing the books and papers on the dining room table. She has been over plenty of times, but she never makes herself quite this comfortable and never as touchy-feely with Duc as she is this day. He keeps assuring her that he is fine and she doesn’t need to worry but she felt a surprising fear in hearing about what happened to him and just wants to make sure he is okay. He briefly thinks to himself that she is acting like a girlfriend more than a platonic friend and wonders if they have been kidding themselves about staying professional this entire time. But he doesn’t feel the urge to try and take the next step with her. He keeps thinking about whether Samantha is doing okay the more he talks about it with Riley. Of course, he isn’t going to tell her that. But after his continual attempts to assure her that he is fine and him not responding to her attempts to get cozy on the couch, she begins to feel a bit rejected and decides it is better to let him have his space so he can deal with it in his own way.
The next day Jairus wakes up to multiple phone calls from people checking on him. One of which is Samantha who still has not left her apartment since getting home the night of the robbery. He tries to convince her to meet him for lunch to get her out to feel more normal, but she still refuses to leave. Instead, he goes and picks up lunch and takes it to her place. He knocks on the door and it feels like an eternity before she opens the door. She is happy to welcome him in to have lunch with her. She feels closer to him now than she ever thought she would previously in their working relationship. As they eat lunch, they talk about what day of that weekend they plan to get back to work and what they have on their plate once they return. Duc eventually asks “So, what did Malik say when you told him what happened? Has he been checking in on you? I assumed he was.” and in response she says, “Yeah, he did this morning. What about you? Your boys aren’t around. Has Riley...or anyone been checking on you?” Both are fishing to see just how close they are to their respective counterparts in those working relationships. They finish eating and talking and Samantha says, “You wanna stay and watch television for a while? I could use the company.” So they sit on her couch and watch a movie. This time Duc feels completely comfortable to have Samantha cuddling up to him on the couch. He doesn’t understand the feeling, but he just knows the shared experience makes them closer. It endears them to each other more. He has never really looked too hard at Samantha, but this new emotion added to her tight shorts and low-cut tank top has him thinking thoughts he has never had before. But before he acts on those thoughts, he decides he should probably leave. He figures his friends will be proud of him because this isn’t the type of decision he normally makes in this situation.
Samantha walks him to the door as he is leaving and even though he is trying to avoid doing something he will regret. Samantha has different thoughts and leans into him and kisses him before he leaves as naturally as if they do it every time they part ways. It isn’t until she pulls back that the shock sets in of what she has done. It is like they are both surprised.
“Call me if you need anything. I’ll see you this weekend,” as he grabs her hand before walking out of her apartment. When they get back to work that weekend they are at the club with Malik, who calls Duc to the back when he shows up. Duc goes into the club office with Malik and sees a shoe box sitting on the desk. “Go ahead and open them. They’re yours.” Malik says. Duc opens the box to see a fresh new pair of Jordans for him. Not the ones he lost but a pair that came out earlier that summer that no one seemed to be able to get. He was very appreciative of the shoes and happy to be back to work and normal operations.
After a week of the kiss not coming up with Samantha and Duc not knowing what to think, he wanted to talk to his friends about what had happened to get their opinions. He was insecure about interracial dating and apprehensive to bring it up to Mike and Jairus because they grew up around almost all black people all their lives. He was afraid of being judged for being hung up on someone who wasn’t what they considered black. Samantha had a Korean mother and a father who was half black and half white. Mike once described her as the tanned white girl with brown freckles and Asian eyes. Instead of calling either of them he just waited for Ovaughn to get back to town that week to start training camp for the basketball season at the beginning of August. He wanted to ask Ovaughn because he was the only one in the group who claimed to have any dealings with women who weren’t black out of their group of friends. It was the perfect time since the others wouldn’t return for over two weeks and Duc could have figured it out by then. Or at least that’s what he planned. He didn’t realize Ovaughn had no way to truly relate to the emotions of the situation with Samantha due to the life and death aspect that drives the connection.
Meanwhile in New York, Jairus is counting down the days before he leaves to head back to Atlanta. He loves Lisa but living so closely with each other shines a light on some things that annoy him that he never knew before, specifically how much trash talking she does. A part of him wonders if she is really happy with him since she talks so much trash to him. Maybe he is just getting a bigger taste of her aggressive New Yorker side since she’s been at home for a while, but it can be off-putting to him at times. Not that it changes the way he feels but it’s just annoying. In the last month of the internship, he feels like the only time she eases up with the jokes and trash talk to him is when Duc’s sister invites them to an album release party for a new artist at her record label. It is the type of event that Lisa loves and that night she shows only gratitude. The summer together is an opportunity for them to see how things can be once they are out of school and how each other operates. It doesn’t change the way they operate in the relationship because they are already full of emotion for each other, but it teaches them both something about the other. He learns that Lisa parties just as hard as she works, and he already respects her work ethic more than anyone he knows except maybe Mike.
In Baton Rouge, Mike is still very much single just as he was when he arrived. In fact, he continues throughout the summer to avoid getting into anything for fear of things getting messy and taking his focus off his reason for being there. He continues to be cool with Silly whose tomboy-ish interests in sports and music make her feel just like one of the other guys at times. He’s never really had a girl he thought of in that sense, but he never knew a girl so interested in things like sports, action movies, cars and other surface stuff guys talk about. That makes him comfortable sharing his thoughts on situations like the few times they visit the local HBCU or mall and Mike meets young ladies he’s attracted to. He doesn’t notice that she never shares those same interests with him outside of her agreeing that it isn’t worth the trouble to look for someone to date that summer. Maria is just the opposite. She is very confident and clear when she finds someone interesting and thinks they are both weird to ignore those basic needs even though she respects the choice. It is clear she grew up very sheltered and is now open and willing to explore anything that comes her way as she ventures out into the world.
It comes as a big surprise to Mike when they get to the last two weeks and Silly comes up to him and awkwardly says “Hey, umm...I really don’t want to be all in your business but someone asked me to relay a message to you since we are so cool with each other. I was told to let you know that someone really wants to go on a date with you before we all leave to go home.” Mike is caught off guard and has a look as if he’s unsure he wants to know but he still asks, ”Who?” “Maria” she replies with a slight look of disappointment.
He never saw a sign of Maria liking him prior to that. Or maybe he didn’t care to see any signs because Cecilia doesn’t seem to be surprised at all when they talk about it. Even a little salty at her for trying to cross those lines within their friend group. Mike can’t help but be intrigued because at this point, he has nothing holding him back besides focusing on a job that is about to come to an end very soon. And the fact that Maria has been very open with Mike and Silly about her sexual liberation over the summer doesn’t help him. At first, he chooses to just ignore it. After all Maria hasn’t given him any signs directly and it isn’t like he really likes her or is going to try and keep in touch after they leave there. That all changes a few days later when he finds himself crossing paths with her walking into the intern housing building after working out one night.
“So you just gonna act like Silly ain’t say nothing to you about me?”
He was stuck and didn’t know what to say. He flashes her a dumbfounded look as he scratches his head and says “I...I thought she was just messing with me or something. You have never said anything to me about that before.”
She knew exactly what she wanted to say. “Well I’m saying something now. So when are you gonna take me out?”
By the time they are done talking they have made plans to go out the next weekend, which is the last before the final week of work. The rest of that week he notices Maria is no longer having lunch with them when they break away from the group. In fact, everyone starts trying to do more group things knowing that their time together is coming to an end. A part of him wonders if he’s overthinking it since no one else seems to notice.
Eventually he tells Silly that he and Maria made plans to go out before the weekend arrives. She doesn’t have much to say in response but seems initially surprised and then disappointed in his decision. She ends the awkward silence by reluctantly wishing him “Good Luck with that” in a sarcastic tone. This confuses him even more because it isn’t like he hasn’t talked about women with her before. Why is this any different? He doesn’t want to believe that Silly is jealous because he thinks it would be thinking too highly of himself, but he doesn’t understand what else it can be. He doesn’t want things to be ugly between them, so he just ignores it and let it go. She and Anthony are the two people he hopes to keep in contact with after this experience. It is better to not press the issue at this point. When word spreads of the interns all getting together for a game and movie night, the same night he is planning to go out with Maria, he knows he has a challenge ahead of him because he and Cecilia always team up with each other for those events having strong competitive spirits.
Date night with Maria arrives and they meet downstairs in the community area early, around 5:30 P.M., to avoid the game night crowd and people being in their business. They start the night having dinner and a spot in downtown Baton Rouge that Mike has been wanting to try all summer and never got around to. Maria is doing most of the talking at the start because it still feels awkward for Mike. The conversation is cool. Maria is just being very flirtatious with comments like “don’t act like you don’t know you’re attractive Mike, we all noticed it this summer” but he doesn’t feel the intrigue that he’s felt on other first dates. He can’t help but think about how it doesn’t compare at all to how nervous he felt when he went out with Monique the first time. Maybe it’s because they have already spent a lot of time around each other in groups or with Cecilia, but it feels like something is missing. Any time there is a weird silence she keeps falling back on the running joke about Mike still not having a cell phone that was started at the beginning of the summer by James. It is his way to take Mike down a peg because he’s jealous he’s not in the advanced intern group. He laughs it off and tries his best to keep the small talk going. They finish dinner and decide to walk to a spot that is supposed to have great desserts nearby. When they arrive, they pick out desserts and Maria suggests “How about we take it back to the rooms to eat so we can chill? You can just come to my room. I wanna taste yours and I know you wanna taste mine.” Mike, surprised at the suggestions, isn’t going to disagree as he is now starting to think she has other intentions with this date.
They get back to the intern housing just before 8:00 P.M. when the game night is supposed to be starting but luckily no one has started to come down, or at least no one they care about seeing them. That is until Anthony and Kevin get off the elevator they are waiting for, to go up. Mike freezes up when he sees them in the elevator, but Maria doesn’t bat an eye greeting them and asking where they are going as if nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. Anthony sees right through it and just daps up Mike saying he will holla at him later while giving him a look of approval. Kevin doesn’t catch on until after Mike and Maria are on the elevator and heading up to Maria’s room.
They get up to Maria’s room and open the desserts. Maria abruptly starts raving about hers saying “Oh my god! You won’t believe how good this is. No! You have to try this.” and she reaches over offering him a spoonful. As he chews on that she looks down at his dessert and says “That looks good too. Let me taste it.” He slides his container over to her so that she can get some and she looks at him surprised and asks “You’re not going to feed me?” So he pulls the container back and scoops some then leans over to feed it to her. As she eats it she makes that forkful of cheesecake the most sensual bite of dessert he’s ever seen. Not finished she then says “You gotta let me taste everything” pointing at one of the strawberries he has that are covered with chocolate syrup. Syrup that somehow drips down onto her cleavage that’s showing from her blouse. At this point he’s fully aware of what she’s doing but if it isn’t enough Maria then wipes the syrup off her chest, sucks the chocolate off her finger, and says “I’m going to be sticky now. I gotta go clean up. You wanna get in the shower with me?” She stands up and pulls off her shirt, drops her skirt to the floor then walks to the bathroom leaving him sitting there alone. But it is only for a few seconds before he hops up and walks into the bathroom with her as he pulls off his shirt and kicks off his shoes. He quickly learns that night that her attraction to him is purely physical, which is why she didn’t care about the drab conversation and has no interest in prolonging the date. There is one thing she knows she wants and waited until they are about to leave because she knew he wasn’t trying to mess around with coworkers during the internship.
About 45 minutes later Mike gets to his room to take an actual shower. About 20 minutes after that he finally goes downstairs to the game night that has been going for almost an hour now. When he arrives, he walks into the room saying what’s up to Kevin, Anthony, and James, then goes straight over to Cecilia who is sitting with her legs up on the end of one of the couches. When he approaches she looks up and sees it’s him and moves her legs so he can sit next to her while also looking around the room to see if she sees Maria. She is nowhere to be found so she lets it go and gets back into the game night, now with her favorite teammate alongside her. As the evening progresses more people begin to leave the game night whether it be to go out and party or because they’ve had too much to drink and want to sleep. They began to just play movies as the crowd dies down. About halfway through the second movie and approaching midnight Mike notices that Cecilia is starting to look tired.
“Silly, you ready to go up? It’s only like three other people still down here.”
“I’m not ready for it to end yet.”
He doesn’t question it anymore as she cuddles up next to him more to finish the remaining hour or so of the movie. As the movie ends, they finish the night just as they will the summer by going their separate ways. They promise to stay in contact but they both know it’s very likely they may never see each other again as they leave Baton Rouge and return to their normal lives.
12
“Man, This Is Chaotic”
The fellas are set to start their third year of school although things will be much different than they had been the two years before. Jairus and Ovaughn are once again in their same room in the athletic dorm, but they would no longer have Mike and Duc across the hall. With the financial issues his family had, Mike could no longer afford to live on campus and will now commute from home after his grandmother made a deal so he could have her Altima that he had been borrowing occasionally. Once Duc got a taste of having his own apartment there was no way he was going back on campus to be cramped into a little dorm room again. As the start of school approached everyone began to move into their dorms across campus. Jairus finally came back to town on the first day his room became available. He was the last of the group to come back, with Ovaughn having been back to start summer camp with the team’s upperclassmen and Mike being back home already. With a lot of his stuff being stored at Duc’s apartment, the fellas all helped to move him into his dorm that day and found themselves being recruited to help with another move on the next day by Mike. They were already regretting signing up to move Jairus’ stuff, feeling like it took a lot more than they expected for them not to be moving furniture. But Mike was persistent in getting them to help and even guilt tripped them into helping because it was a girl who needed assistance.
The next day Mike and Duc arrived at the dorm to get Jairus and Ovaughn to go help them with the move. Ovaughn started trying to weasel his way out of helping.
“Man, I forgot I have to go over to Kennedy’s room to help her friends with moving some stuff.”
