Dre caught it before Kiana finished her sentence.
Her eyes weren't on him.
They kept drifting past his shoulder, toward the house next door, where the blinds had shifted again.
"Why do you keep looking over there?" he asked.
"I'm not."
"You been looking the whole damn time. Every line you said, you said it toward that house." He turned his head slowly. "That's Mrs. Pruitt's daughter's room. Monica."
Kiana's face went still. That was the answer.
"Your sorority sister," Dre said. "That's who you’re being loud for."
"Don't make it a whole thing out of this."
"It’s more than a whole thing." He laughed once, low. "That's why you backed in front of my car. That's why you were loud. You wanted her to hear it."
The blind moved again, and this time a shadow stayed behind the glass.
"You and Monica have been telling people I smoke dope," Dre said. "My boy at the barbershop is asking me if I need help and shit.
One of my cousins I don’t get along with sent me a number for a program. Like I’m losing my damn mind."
"I never talked to her about you."
"Kiana."
"All I said I was worried about you and I told that to your mom."
"Worried." He nodded.
"Then that explains why my mama calls, saying I need to stop smoking dope and she's scared for me.”
My mama, who doesn’t know anybody in this neighborhood except you.
He stepped closer.
"You and her work together, right? Y'all sit in the break room, and you fill her head, and she believes every bit of it."
"I wasn't trying to hurt your mother by telling her."
"But you were trying to hurt me."
He stepped back and nodded toward the door he'd been holding open.
"You can come inside and tell me the truth, all of it, what you said and who you said it to. Or you can get back in your car and leave. But I'm not doing this part so the whole street can see."
Monica slipped back into her house. The porch light went out.
Kiana stood between her car and his door, keys shaking in her hand.
To be continued...