Thy Neighbor II: Lovin' The Crew

Chapter Eighteen

"Ci! Girl, the trunk ain't that big..." Ashley steps outside to see Ciara's face showing a joyful kind of surprise as Winston struggles to wipe the smile off of his face. She interrupts their romance-movie gazes at each other, slamming the hard-oak door to the AirBnB behind her causing them both to break their gaze. "Ci, you good...?"

Ciara reluctantly exits her love story. "Ash, yeah ... I'm good. This is Winston. We go to Penn together. We just ran into each other." Winston walks up to shake Ashley's hand, his good boy manners getting the best of him. Ashley wasn't ready for all that politeness but she appreciates Winston's respectful nature.

"Nice to meet you, Ashley, I presume?"

"Good call ... the bottles are in the trunk, right?" Ashley presses Ciara on with a heavy look inside of the trunk. As much as she would love to meet new friends, she relishes her first weekend off in months and doesn't want to stop her fun to be friendly. She grabs the bottles of Hennessey and some cheap box wine and proceeds to walk back into the house, waving bye to Winston with her elbow. He goes back in for more conversation with Ciara.

"You guys are in for some fun, huh?"

"Yep, girl's weekend. I needed a break from my thesis."

"Ah, man. Me too, me too. I didn't want to come up for this planning meeting for my church..."

Winston jumped onto so many committees, he lost count. The more commitments, the more he doesn't have time to toll away at his papers.

"Where do you go?"

"Flower Street Baptist..."

Ciara knows Flower Street to be Y'lan's church and begins to understand how Winston and Y'lan got to know each other. It's another painful reminder that Trevante still doesn't know about her and Y'lan's past. She figures that Y'lan will be with Trevante this weekend and fears the moment Trevante tells all and Y'lan feels pushed to let the cat out of the bag about he and Ciara's last conversation together. It was only days ago that Y'lan confronted Ciara about her relationship with Trevante all the while somewhat confessing to her that he still carried feelings for her. Ciara's chest tenses up at the conversation she must have with Trevante once she gets home but she desires an escape from her emotions and Winston can provide that.

"FSB, yeah. Solid church. Reverend J.B. Jones, yeah ...so what brought you down the road here?"

"There's a trailway up ahead that the lodge owner recommended. I, uh, just needed to clear my head for a minute." Winston wants to escape as well. Boggled down in meetings and planning groups all day, he wants to take his mind off of everything from Flower Street to his thesis. Ciara's been in the recesses of his mind since she messaged him back about the playlist. Ciara didn't know that certain songs on the playlist were for her in mind, soundtracks to the what-ifs only if the Universe got everybody out of the way. But if "Can We Talk?" by Tevin Campbell could be acted out in this moment, why stop it? "I'm actually about to take a walk around real quick if you want me to show you where it is?"

"Oh, man. Yes! Let me just let my girls know. " Ciara jumps ahead of the curve. Winston's heart just jumps. He watches her walk inside of the house, emotions growing from bewildered into excitement. He texts Y'lan the good news.

Hey, man. Guess who I ran into up here?

Y'lan doesn't have much time to respond to Winston once Trevante, Stephan and the rest of Trevante's fraternity brothers barge their way throughout the multi-level rental just outside of Center City. They wanted to be close to Old City -- all the bars and hangout spots -- plus a short Uber ride to the strip club.

As the crowd grows larger, Y'lan's face grows more nervous. Y'lan, unlike his older brothers, didn't do the fraternity thing in college because he was scared by all of the stories he heard. Tre and Michael's fraternity brothers are living up to the hype.

"I can't believe you married her, bruh." Stephan says to Malik, one of the older fraternity brothers. "She was a damn slide..." He's on his third glass of Crown and letting himself get all the way loose. Trevante watches Malik's nostrils flare up and knows it's time to cut this out. "Yo, Stephan. Watch your mouth."

"Whatever, Tre. He knows I'm just playing. Tracee is a sweeeeeeetheart." The laughs and snickers carry throughout the room and Trevante's laugh is a mixture between embarrassment and wince. "Plus, who are you to say shit? You run through bitches like a track meet, Tre!"

Trevante waivers on whether to tell his friends about his new normal; about this girl named Ciara who came into his life after a moment of tragedy and became the woman that he saw himself building a future with. This woman who Y'lan is starting to fall back in love with and who he just learned is up in the Poconos with Winston.

Trevante decides to wait.