In the middle of it all

Present day | The ceremony

"Thank god you came now Asad. I can't stand them." I grumble as Asad is driving. I was sitting in the passenger seat, Aneesa was sitting in silence in the back. " They're all so... ugh I don't even know how to explain this..." I say as my fingers bend into my palm. " And that Xavier guy..." Asad chuckles as he hears me rant yet I soon stop as I notice how quiet Neesa was behind me. Her head was looking down at the letter she had received from Dave before leaving. "What is it ? What did Dave give you ?" I turn around and ask.

"It's nothing. He just wrote silly things on a piece of paper and gave it to me as a joke." She answers.

"What the fuck ? Show me." I say, reaching for the letter. She folds it and shoves it inside her bag.

"Nah, it's too stupid." she says. I slightly pout before sitting back in my seat and shrugging it off. "Today's the ceremony, right ? Can't believe he survived a week with us..." added Aneesa, changing topics.

"He's not that bad in my opinion. I kind of get why Sha chose him, he has something that intrigues..." says Asad.

Of course he agrees...

"You're Sha's right hand, of course you think that." I say.

"I made my own opinion about him. He's decent. Try getting to know him or something" He says. I glare at him from the corner of my eye.

Arriving in front of a tall black gate, Asad honks. The gate slides open and we enter the premises. They park the car and we get off. We're surrounded by tall black gates whose paint began to fade away as there hasn't been anyone to take their time to repaint them. There are barely any people but Asad, Neesa and I still nod at them as we walk by.

"I'll go see if she's there already, you wait for him to arrive." says Asad before entering the house.

"Hold on." says Aneesa as she hurries herself into the house.  Coming back, she's holding a pack of cards. She shakes her hand, showing them off. "Let's play while we wait, oki ?"

"Okay." I reply. We were intensively playing our game, on the stairs, with other Silvers as we heard the gate open behind us. "Someone else is coming ?"

"Xav, how can you forget?" says Neesa, standing up.

"Oh right..." I mumble to myself before cleaning the pile of cards. Xavier gets out of his luxury car and Aneesa nears him. I continue minding my business, ignoring the newcomer.

"Are you ready ?" asks Aneesa. They both make their way towards the house. Neesa stops before the stairs and looks at me. "Why are you still sitting ? Get up, let's go."

"I'm busy." I say. Aneesa shakes her head and walks up the steps with Xavier. A few minutes later, as I finally decided to get up, the gate door opens and Tanisha enters the premises. We direct ourselves to the back of the house.

"Stand tall !" shouts Asad as he sees Nisha walk through the door. In that same moment, everyone stopped talking and stood straight looking serious. I stop near Aneesa and Xavier while Nisha continues to make her way towards the small podium.

"I thought you were busy ?" questions Xavier in a joking manner. I lift my palm up to the side of my face and lower each of my fingers besides the middle one. He scoffs it off and lays his hand on top of my fist, covering the middle finger. I sourly glance to my side and our eyes meet. They get locked on each other and weirdly enough, the sour expression of my face dissipates. For a second I thought I'd get lost inside them. My eyes even wandered around his face but kept going back to his eyes.

"Don't touch me." I say, scrunching my nose as I forcefully pull my arm towards my chest.

"Put down your finger." he replied firmly. I roll my eyes and move away from him, standing now next to Kyle, Izzy and Nate.

Standing on the podium with Asad on her right and four other Silvers behind her, Tanisha turns to face the crowd. "Respect." continues Asad, shouting in a hoarse voice. We all bow down and pay our respect to the leader.

"As you all know, today we're gathered to welcome a new member. There'll also be announcements but let's start with the main event. Please come forward." says Nisha. All eyes darted to the newcomer. He advances to the little podium and stands on the steps, facing our leader. " State your name."

"Xavier Presley."

"Xavier Presley, you will go by the name of X and I hereby declare you an exclusive member of the Silvers Gang. The people you now see around you are now your crew, your people, your family, your friends. Welcome." declares Nisha. He turns around and bows to the public. 

Soon after, he gets down the little podium and walks towards where I was. "I guess I'm officially part of the Silvers gang now..." he says.

The others arrive next to us. " How do you feel? Feels nice, yeah?" Asks Izzy.

"Yeah it felt amazing to be up there." Xav replies. Everyone starts speaking among themselves yet I see Xav's lips still moving. "I can't believe it... they let me join so easily... I thought it'd be harder... what a crew..." I hear him mumble to himself. His head was hanging low and he was grinning to himself. I look another way and JJ, Assad and Sha are making their way towards us.

"Xav, I'd like to formally introduce you to JJ."

"Xavier ? I'm Jessie nice to have an addition to the group." She smiles, handing out her hand.

"Nice to finally meet you, Jessie. I heard so much about you." Replies Xavier. Tanisha signals us to let them talk alone. Not like I was planning on staying there any longer... We move away from them, some going inside while some, me included, a few feet away.

"J-E-S-S-I-E. Is that how you spell your name ?" Continues Xav.

"Yeah that's how it gets spelled."

"Good. I don't like getting things wrong."

JJ chuckles with awkwardness attached to it. The corner of his lips rise again for a short while before he walks past her. As he catches me eyeing him, a large smile is seen on his face. He closes the average gap two bodies have between each other and his head slightly inclines down. "See you at school, Tamika." He grins.

"Fuck off." I reply, pushing him away from me. Instead of going back multiple steps, only one foot of his steps back and he grabs both of my wrists. They were laying on his torso, tightly glued to his chest. I lift my knee up, kicking it into his balls. His hands let go of my wrists and he arches forward, groaning in pain.

"See you next week, Xavier." I say, with a small smirk on my lips.