"What the hell?" I yawned and looked over at Shayna as she turned the super loud TV back down.

"Oh," she asked innocently, "are you awake?"

I sighed hard at her and rolled back over, throwing the covers up over my head. She turned the TV back up again.

"Don't you see me trying to sleep?" I snapped, throwing the covers to the side and sitting up. Shayna laughed. "You're not funny." She just looked at me. "What?" Then a slow smile spread across my face. "Why are you up so early anyway?"

"No reason." Shayna stifled a grin and turned the television off. "Have you talked to Kenney lately?"

"What? We just saw him last night. You smoke too much. Can't remember a damn thing."

"A contraire. That's you, my friend. I don't smoke at all."

"Oh." I chuckled and laid back down, turning my back to her. "Right."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Well have you spoken to Kenney?"

"No, of course not! Your crazy butt been sittin' right there looking at me sleep the whole time. How you figure I talked to Kenney between going to sleep and waking up?"

Shayna just shrugged, kicked her feet up on her bed, and went back to her magazine.

"Shayna."

"What?" she put the Forbes down. I didn't know why she was always reading that boring crap.

"Do you want me to talk to him?"

"Oh...no." She tried to play it off. "About what?"

"I don't know, sweetie. You want me to ask him about your boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend?" She tried to catch an attitude but couldn't stop cheesing.

"Yeah. Let me go ahead and call him now so you can let my hung over behind go back to sleep."

"Oh! I forgot we were even drinking last night. Sorry about that."

I rolled my eyes at her. "No you're not."

"You're right." She shrugged as if there was nothing she could do about it.

"Besides, it's not the alcohol that got me. It's those crack-tastic cigarettes your boy had me smoking."

"Want nuthin' but a little sherm. I'd think a 'pro' like you," she mocked my smack talk the night before, "would be better equipped to handle something like that."

"Anyway..." I reached for the phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling Kenney."

"No. Don't."

"Ok." I started dialing.

"No," Shayna came over to my bed. "For real. Don't call him. I don't even know why I woke you up."

I grinned at her and hung the phone up. "Why Shayna, I do believe you're in luhuhuv."

"No. I just don't want you to wake them up."

"That's messed up. You care more about them getting their beauty rest than you do about your own roommate." I crawled back under the covers. "You suck Shayna."

I could hear her laughing as I quickly drifted back to sleep.

A few hours later, a loud brrrring! woke me up. I was so startled that I jumped out of bed and snatched up the phone.

"Who is this?"

A deep voice answered me on the other end. "Still trippin' I see."

I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it. "Kenney? What's with the voice?"

"You like?"

"No. And you're the one that's trippin' homie."

He laughed. "Naw, for real, how you feel?"

"Weird."

"I bet. You were hittin' that L...correction, those Ls, pretty hard."

"Yeah well, you know me. Never do anything half-assed."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." After I said it, I realized that we were about to go left and quickly put the conversation back on track. "So...what's up with your boy? You know Shayna likes him, right?"

Shayna immediately sat up out of a deep sleep and threw a pillow at me. I fell out. How did she even hear me over all that snoring?

"What's so funny?" Kenney asked yawning. I looked at the clock. It was 9:00 am. The first time, Shayna must have woke me up at the crack of dawn for real.

"Nothing. I just live wit' a fool that's all."

"Yeah." I heard Drama say something in the background. "I know the feeling." Kenney paused for a minute, then covered the mouthpiece and mumbled something back to him. "Rob wants to know...aye mayne! What the hell, mayne?" He covered the mouthpiece again and mumbled something else. "Shit. These fools 'bout to get on my damn nerves."

"Yours and mine both." I looked over at Shayna. "We should just go ahead and hook up sometime."

"Yeah," I could tell he was grinning. "We should."

"Nooo...."

"I know what you mean," Kenney said through what I'm sure were the biggest dimples ever. "All of us should go out one night."

"Sounds good. When?"

"Depends on where we go. If it's to my aunt's club, then it'll have to be during the week. That's the only time she would let us in."

"Ok. So when?"

"Let me get back to you."

"Alright." I hung up, ignoring Shayna's intense stare, and acted like I was about to go back to sleep.

"Ho, don't even try it."

I sat up. "Oh, why I gotta be a ho now?"

She laughed and gave me a devilish look. "Don't make me call Kenney back and tell him how much he was turning you on with those extra-long hugs last night." Why, oh why, did I tell her that?

Without thinking, I looked over at the phone to make sure I had hung it all the way up. Then grinning guiltily, I turned back to Shayna.

"So me, Kenney and Drama are all going out later this week..." She just looked at me, deadpan. "I guess you can come too..."

She ignored me and went down the hall to the community bathroom. I started to follow her, then decided that I was too lazy and went back to sleep.

Shayna shook me awake a little while later. "Get up. You missed breakfast. It was actually pretty good today. Waffles, blueberry syrup, bacon, eggs, grits, toast...dripping with butter, too." She looked like she was about to lick her fingers at the memory.

"Then why the hell are you waking me up? You know I got the munchies like a mug and here you go waking me up just to tell me that I missed breakfast?"

She laughed wickedly. "Payback's a biotch, ain't it?"

"You're the biotch," I snapped and drifted back into dreamland, hoping that Smith Island Cake and Old Bay everything awaited me on the other side.

Around Tuesday that next week, Kenney called and asked if we wanted to go with him and Drama to Jasmine's. Shayna almost hit the roof when I told her. She immediately started tearing through her closet trying to find something to wear, and then when nothing she saw was good enough for the almighty Drama, she started tearing through mine. At least that's what I think was going on when I walked into the flurry of clothes that had not yet hit the floor.

"What...?" I looked at Shayna like she had lost her freaking mind. "I don't know about your clothes, but I know my shit better be right back exactly the way I had it by the time I get back from class."

"But I just..." she ran over to me excitedly.

I quickly exchanged books and walked back out before she had time to reach me. "And you better not have not one thing that I own on when I get back," I called over my shoulder just as the door slammed behind me.

A few hours later I returned to a far more settled scene. I don't know what the hell Shayna was thinking tearing through my closet like that. I guess she thought I was a lot nicer than I really was. I mean, Shayna was cool and all, but clearly we still had a lot to learn about each other.

Kenney, on the other hand, seemed to already be able to read me like a book. I wondered where he had picked that little magic trick up from. I was one of the most two sided people I knew. But still it was nice to have somebody around here who knew exactly what not to do and say and when not to say and do it. I smiled at the thought of him.

"What are you grinning at?" Shayna asked as I closed the door behind me.

I decided to call a truce. Even if I wasn't the most obliging kid on the block, I was always raised to at the very least keep the peace at home.

"Oh nothing..." I grinned wider. "Just thinking about you and Drama." She looked confused. "...sittin' in a tree..." I continued on when she still stared at me blankly. "K-i-s-s-i-n-g...."

"You're crazy," she shook her head.

"Yeah. And you'll see just how crazy I am if you ever throw my stuff around like that again."

She looked over at me quickly. I guess she was raised to always keep peace at home, too, because her initial reaction seemed to drain away as she straightened her face and apologized. "Yeah, sorry about that. Guess I got carried away."

"Guess so. So..." I went over and sat down on my bed. "Kenney said that Drama's really excited about tonight."

"I bet Drama's not the only one excited." She thought for a minute. "And why don't you like Kenney again?"

"I do! I love Kenney. He's like the pain in the butt little brother I never wanted." I smiled in the other direction.

"Brother? The way Kenney was hugging on you last night? Girl..." She shook her head like the Kenney loves Natasha thing was a hopeless cause that she could no longer get behind. "Whatever. What time are they picking us up?"

"He said he'd call me when he got out of lab."

"Lab? This late?"

"Yeah girl. I didn't tell you? Kenney's all smarty-yarty."

"All the more reason..."

"Don't start." A shrill ring interrupted us. "I hate that sound. We have got to get another phone. Hello?"

"I don't think outside phones work on these lines," she whispered to me.

I covered the phone and mouthed, "Because these are tapped." She giggled and left to get dressed, but I was so serious.

"Hi...may I speak to Natasha?" I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it. I know this wasn't who I think it was. "Hello?" he repeated.

"Yeah. This is me."

"Waddup girl?"

"Nut'n." I knew this fool Collin wasn't calling me again for the third time that day. "What do you want?"

"Just wanted to say hi and you know, hear your voice."

"Ok. So you've heard it."

"Dag girl! Why you so mean? A brotha can't just call and say hi?"

"Yeah, but you don't ever have jack to say after that."

"What if I said..."?

"Don't."

Shayna walked in and read the aggravation on my face. "Who's that?" she mouthed. I just rolled my eyes in response.

"Look, Collin..."

"Oh." She sucked her teeth, then grabbed her bathrobe and left.

That's what I liked about Shayna. She was a ride or die type chick. She had no idea what went on between me and Collin, or who Collin even was for that matter. All she knew was that I got pissed every time I talked to him, and that he kept calling, and as far as she was concerned, if I had beef then we had beef.

"Look...I gotta go."

"No, wait..." He took a deep breath. "Can I come by and see you some time?"

"What? Do you even know where I stay?"

"Well no...but I will if you tell me..."

"Um...no. I'll talk to you later." I sighed loudly as I hung up the phone. It rang again as soon as I put it back on the hook. "What?" I yelled louder than I meant to.

"Hey, hey. Problem?"

"Oh sorry." I smiled. "What's up Kenney?"

"No. I think the question is what's up with you? Who pissed in your Wheaties this time?"

"What? You mean today? Well," I said thoughtfully, "let's start from the beginning..."

"Ok, ok. No time for foolishness. Look, we'll be by around eight, so be ready."

"Eight o'clock! Kenney it's already seven now!"

"I know. I'm sorry but my aunt has to let us in before folks start coming if she doesn't want to get busted."

"Ok, ok," I sighed. "We'll be waiting for you outside."