"Really?" I smiled. "You play ball?"

"Nah," he said.

"What will you major in?" I asked.

"I'm not really sure yet. I'll figure it out later," he said. "My moms wants me to be an architect, but I don't know about that. I'm a musician really."

"What kind of music do you do?"

"I play the keyboards...by ear," he boasted. "And I rap. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get on somebody's label. Matter of fact, I'm not even really feeling school. I'm just going because that's what she wants."

He glanced over at Fawn.

"Well, it's gotta be about what you want," I encouraged. "Can you flow?"

"Of course I can." He smiled and then started free-styling.

He flowed nicely and I was impressed. His sound was original and I liked what I heard.

"That was good," I said.

"You really think so?" he asked.

"Mos def," I said.

"Thank you," he said.

He seemed to really need the encouragement and I was glad that I could help out. When our short break was over, he pulled me up from the floor-successfully this time. We finished off the next set of exercises, Sean helping me out until we were done.

"Thank you for being my partner, Sean," I said.

"It was my pleasure." The ringing of his phone interrupted us. He walked away as he answered.

Indigo found her way over to me.

"Well, that was fun." She wiped sweat from her forehead.

"This is what we do every Saturday," I explained.

"You should come back next week," Deja told Indigo.

"I just might," Indi said.

"Nice to meet you, Indigo." Patricia waddled toward us. "You have a good week, Tameka. And I'll see you next Saturday."

"Okay." We embraced.

"See you later, Tameka," Fawn said. "Are you coming back again, Indi?"

"I'll probably come back next week."

Fawn got closer to me, whispered in my ear, "I think Sean's a little sweet on you."

"What? No." I laughed.

"I'll see you next week, honey." Fawn winked and then walked toward the door. "Let's go, Sean."

I watched him, wondered if he would look my way so that I could say goodbye. After all, we had shared an interesting conversation. He had even freestyled for me. He never looked my way. With the cell phone pressed against his ear, he followed his mother out the door. Indigo locked arms with mine and we headed toward the door.

"He's cute." She smiled as she watched me watch him.

I didn't even bother to ask who or to expound on the conversation. I just ignored her and walked toward the elevators.

"Thanks for coming with me today. I really appreciate it."

"Not a problem," she said. "Now can we stop and get a smoothie, please?"

"Of course," I said and felt my phone buzz.

It was Vance. He called just as he promised. This was turning out to be a better day than I expected.

eleven.

Vance Practice was the worst ever. It was hard trying to do physical activity with a pounding headache-or should I say hangover. The more beers I drank, the more they kept coming. Chauncey and Harlen made sure that Jaylen and I had the time of our lives. After practice, I called Tameka, just to let her know that I was capable of keeping a promise.

"What you doing?" I asked.

"Just leaving my exercise classes. Indi went with me today." She seemed to be in a much better mood than I was.

"That's cool. I'm glad you had support," I said.

"How was the party last night?" she asked.

"It was okay." That was a lie. It was the best party I'd ever been to in my life! But I hid my enthusiasm. Didn't want to hurt Tameka's feelings or set her off. It was nothing for her emotions to be out of whack.

"Was it a lot of girls there?"

"Yeah, it was girls there, Tameka. It was a party. What kind of question is that?" I laughed.

"You dance with anybody?" she asked.

"I danced a couple of times. Yeah."

The truth was, I stayed on the dance floor most of the night because Lexi was definitely a dancer. She was like the Energizer Bunny. She didn't quit. And it was hard just keeping up with her. We finally took a break and ended up in a quiet little spot outside, where I held her and shielded her from the night air. We talked about everything under the sun-everything except for my girl at home, Tameka, and the fact that she's pregnant. I couldn't bring myself to tell Lexi everything. I was afraid. Afraid that she would walk away before I had the chance to get to know her better.

She spilled her guts about the dude that she'd left behind in Mississippi. It seemed that they grew up together and their parents were the best of friends. It was their parents who insisted that they date each other, but the truth was, she didn't really like him like that. He wasn't her type, and she was so happy when she got the scholarship to Grambling. It was her escape; escape from parents who tried to run her life. And escape from Tyrone, the dude who wished he could hold her like I did. The dude who wished she would look into his eyes like she did mine. The dude who was stuck in Washington DC, at Howard University while the girl of his dreams was here in Louisiana falling in love with me.

"Who did you dance with?" Tameka asked.

"I don't really know their names. Just a couple of girls." I sat up in bed. "Hey, I gotta run right now. I need to go find something to eat. I just wanted to call you and check on you...like I said I would. I'll hit you back later."

"You promise?"

"Yeah, I promise."

Sometimes talking to Tameka was like pulling teeth, or sitting through a lecture from my parents, or struggling to stay awake in class-it was something that needed to be done but wasn't always easy. She made it hard for me. My mind drifted back to that night at her house when her parents were out of town-the night we made love for the first and last time. I had used protection, but it seemed that it wasn't enough to prevent her from getting pregnant. Condoms were never one hundred percent effective-they were more like ninety-nine percent effective. But they had never failed me before; they always seemed to protect me. But this one time, ninety-nine percent just wasn't enough. It was that one percent that got in the way-changed our lives forever.

My phone buzzed and interrupted my thoughts. It was Lexi. I picked up.

"Talk to me," I said.

"Still hung over?" she asked.

"I'm cool."

"I'm headed to the mall. You wanna hang out?"

My head was pounding and my body felt as if a tractor trailer had run over it. I was starving and a couple of extra hours of sleep would've been good. But the thought of seeing Lexi again made my heart race. Hanging out with her was better than anything else I could think of. She brought sunshine into my day.

"Let me hop in the shower and I'll meet you in about thirty minutes," I found myself saying.

"I'll be waiting."

Lexi leaned on the hood of a black Kia Sportage in the parking lot where she asked me to meet her. She was wearing a cropped top that showed off her pierced navel, a pair of denim capris and flip-flops.

"Whose car?" I asked.

"My friend Jessie's. She let me borrow it." She walked around to the driver's side of the car, hopped inside.

I hopped into the passenger's seat, immediately started adjusting the radio and stumbled upon the hip-hop station, 106. Lil Wayne's voice filled the car as Lexi headed for Pecanland Mall. The air in Jessie's car didn't work, so we let the windows all the way down just to catch a cool breeze. It was hot in Louisiana in June, very similar to Atlanta summers-the type of heat that made you want to jump into a pool of water just to keep cool.

At the mall, Lexi and I strolled past Foot Locker, and I popped my head into my favorite shoe store just to check out the latest in footwear. After browsing for a minute, Lexi pulled me away and into some girlie store where she seemed to find her home-trying on at least four pairs of jeans, two or three dresses. We stopped at a women's shoe store where she tried on several pairs of shoes. She tried on at least ten pairs of sunglasses at one of the mall's kiosks before settling on a pair with pink lenses to match the shirt that she wore.

"You are a shopper, for real, girl." I laughed as we strolled through the doors of the mall and headed for the parking lot. My hands filled with her shopping bags, I said, "I don't know if I can come back to the mall with you."

"What?" She acted as if she didn't know what I was talking about, took a sip of her smoothie. "I needed some stuff."

"You needed all this stuff?" I asked.

"All of it. The jeans were on sale, and fall is coming soon. Gonna need those for school," she explained. "And as far as the shoes, I can't wear flip-flops when it starts to get cold, right?"

"I guess not." I laughed.

Lexi hit the power locks and we both hopped into the hot car, the black leather burning our skin.

"Where does a college student get so much money to just kick around like that anyway?" I asked.

"I worked all through my senior year last year. My parents are always complaining about money, so I saved my own before I left for college. I got a pretty nice little bank account."

"That's cool," I said. "My parents gave me a credit card, but I can only use it for emergencies. In the fall, I plan on getting me a job somewhere...just so I can have my own cash."

"You have to," she agreed. "I refuse to be a cliche-a broke college student. Daddy's always talking about his college days and how he had to eat ramen noodles and canned soup that he warmed over a hot plate in his dorm. That will not be me."

"Yeah, I heard those stories before, too," I told her. "Both my parents talked about being broke in college."

"What do your parents do for a living?" she asked.

"My moms is a lawyer. And my father is a dentist."

"That's cool. My mother is a schoolteacher. My father works for General Motors. He recently got laid off, so money is tight for us right now. It's a good thing I got this basketball scholarship," she said.

"I feel you. Getting a scholarship is priceless," I told her.

"I'm thinking about going home for the Fourth of July. What about you?"

"Nah, I'm not going home until Thanksgiving. Maybe even Christmas, depending..." I told her. The truth was, Tameka was due sometime in November and it was very likely I would be going home for the birth of my kid.

"Depending on what?" she asked.

"I don't know...just depending..." I said. "Depending on how I feel around that time."

"Well on the Fourth of July every year, my family has this big family reunion-type thing in Jackson. Relatives come from all over and my Daddy barbecues and we play all sorts of games like tug-of-war and baseball, and we have balloon fights. It's a lot of fun. You should come."

"You for real?" I couldn't help getting excited. It sounded fun and I felt privileged that she invited me.

"Yeah, for real," she said.

"Nah, I can't. I'm down here with my boy, Jaylen. I couldn't just run off to Mississippi and leave him here by himself. He wouldn't know what to do without me."

"So bring him," she said. "There's plenty of room at my parents' house for everybody. We can all just hang out there. As long as I let them know ahead of time that I'm bringing some friends home."

"I'll think about it."

"You for real?" she asked. "You should come for real, Vance. It'll be fun."

"I said I would think about it." I smiled at Lexi.

She didn't know it, but my mind had been made up the minute she asked. It sounded like too much fun to pass up.

"I'm hungry, Vance. Are you?" she asked.