Audiobook Excerpt narrated by Dion Graham
Dear Martin |
Audiobook excerpt narrated by Dion Graham.
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Dion Graham: From where we standing across the street, Justice can see her, Mellow Taylor, ex-girlfriend slumped over beside her Benz on the damp concrete of the Farm Fresh parking lot. She's missing a shoe and the contents of her purse are scattered around her like the guts of a pulled party popper. You know, she's stone drunk but this is too much, even for her. Jus shakes his head, remembering the judgment all over his best friend, Manny's face as he left Manny's house not 15 minutes ago.
The walk symbol appears, as he approaches she opens her eyes and he waves and pulls his earbuds out just in time to hear her say, "What the hell are you doing here?" Justice asks himself the same question as he watches her try, and fail to shift to her knees. She falls over sideways and hits her face against a car door. He drops down and reaches for her cheek, which is as red as the candy apple paint job.
"Damn Mellow, are you okay?" She pushes his hand away. "What do you care?" Stun, Justice takes a deep breath, he cares a lot, obviously if he didn't, he wouldn't have walked a mile from Manny's house at 3: 00 in the morning. Manny's of the opinion that Mellow's the worst thing that ever happened to Jus. So, of course he refused to give his boy a ride all to keep his drunken disaster of an ex from driving.
He should walk away right now, Justice should. But he doesn't. "Jesser had called me," He tells her. "That skank." "Don't be like that, babe. She only called me because she cares about you." Jesser had planned to take Mellow home herself but Mel threatened to call the cops and say she'd been kidnapped if Jesser didn't drop her at her car. Mellow can be a little dramatic when she's drunk.
"I'm totally unfollowing her," she says. Case in point, "In life and online, nosy bitch." Justice shakes his head again. "I just came to make sure you get home okay." That's when it hits Justice that, well he might succeed in getting Mellow home, he has no idea how he'll get back. He closes his eyes as Manny's words ring through his head. "This Captain Save-a-Hoe thing is going to get you in trouble, dog." He looks Mellow over, she's now sitting with her head leaned back against the car door, half asleep, mouth open.
He sighs, even drunk, Jus can't deny Mellow's the finest girl he's ever laid eyes, not to mention hands on. She starts to tilt and Justice catches her by the shoulders to keep her from falling. She startles looking at him wide-eyed and Jus can see everything about her that initially caught his attention. Mellow's dad is this hall of fame and if I line back her, big black dude but her mom is from Norway.
She got Mrs Taylor's milky Norwegian complexion, wavy hair, the color of honey and amazing green eyes that are kind of purple around the edge but she has really full lips, a small waist, crazy curvy hips and probably the nicest butt Jus has ever seen in his life. That's part of his problem, he gets too tripped up by how beautiful she is, he never would've dreamed a girl as fine as her would be into him.
Now he's got the urge to kiss her even though her eyes are red and her hairs a mess and she smells like vodka and cigarettes and weed. But when he goes to push her hair out of her face, she shoves his hand away again, "Don't touch me, Justice." She starts shifting her stuff around on the ground, lipstick, Kleenex, tampons, one of those circular things with the makeup in one half and a mirror in the other, a flask. "Urgh, Where are my keys?" Justice spots them in front of the back tire and snatches them up.
"You not driving Mellow." "Give em." She swipes at the keys but falls into his arms instead. Justice props her against the car again and gathers the rest of her stuff to put it back in her bag which is large enough to hold a weeks worth of groceries. What is it with girls and purses the size of duffle bags? He unlocks the car, tosses the bag on the floor of the backseat and tries to get Mellow up off the ground. Then everything goes really wrong, really fast. First, she throws up all over the hoodie Jus is wearing. Which belongs to Manny, who specifically said, "Don't come back here with throw up on my hoodie." Perfect.
This audio excerpt is provided by Penguin Random House Audio Publishing.