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offered with an eye roll.
    â€œAin’t nobody tripping. I’m just making sure that my child doesn’t find herself right back where her no-good daddy left us,” Keisha corrected with a huff as Altimus sauntered over and enveloped her from behind in a hug.
    â€œRelax, Keish, Syd’s a good kid,” he said as he nuzzled her neck. “You don’t gotta badmouth her father for her not to end up in the hood.” He looked over Keisha’s shoulder at Sydney knowingly.
    â€œWhatever, she’d better not,” Keisha pouted, immediately deferring to Altimus’s authoritative tone.
    â€œUh, yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence. And if the two of you are finished getting all hugged up in my room, I’d like to do some homework before I go to sleep,” she responded sarcastically.
    â€œYou know I always got your back, princess,” Altimus laughed as he ushered Keisha out of the room. “Don’t stay up too late, babe.”
    â€œAnd you know, I’m dead-ass serious,” Mrs. Duke added over her retreating shoulder for emphasis.
    As the two disappeared down the hall, Sydney reclosed the door with a firm snap. Nothing annoyed her more than when her mother brought up the twins’ biological father. Even though—as usual—Altimus had managed to shut her down, Keisha’s harsh words still stung. Sure, the convicted gun smuggler was less than Atlanta’s most upstanding citizen, but as far as Sydney was concerned, Dice was still a good man. And Sydney worshipped the ground he walked on.
    Turning toward the waiting pile of textbooks on her desk, Sydney allowed a smirk to cross her face. She could only imagine what her know-it-all mother would say if she knew Sydney was planning to see the very same biological father she’d just finished bashing…first thing in the morning.

4
LAUREN
    Lauren could hardly see straight through her tears as she programmed 1315 Hope Street into the navigation system—yet another seedy, shady place where she didn’t have any business going. Four wrong turns, two near-accidents, one gas station stop later, and she finally parked across from her destination, still unsure just what the hell possessed her to—or why—she was taking Dice up on his offer to visit. She’d sat in the parking lot of a gas station not too far from the video shoot for a half hour, replaying their short conversation in her mind, alternately pissed that he’d called at all and giddy at the fact that her father truly wanted to see her, despite that her mom had insisted to her and her sister all those years their dad was in prison that he didn’t want any contact. If that were indeed the case, why would Dice’s first call out the pen be to hisdaughters, Lauren asked herself. But if he really cared, like he was trying to make himself sound over the phone, why didn’t he try to keep in contact with them while he was locked up? Could he have kept in touch? Do they even let inmates have stamps? she asked herself. At 8:30 P.M., Lauren wanted to confront him—tell him face-to-face that he wasn’t shit and that he better stop dialing her number. By 8:32, every inch of her wanted to look into her biological’s eyes, feel his embrace—find out for sure why he didn’t fight harder to stay out of prison and be with his girls. When the neon orange 8:34 lit up her dashboard, Lauren was so paralyzed by indecision that the hot tears wouldn’t stop coming. Just fifty yards away was her father, and all she could think about was what he might look like. Would he be a gray, old, haggard, beat-down version of the handsome, strong man she used to love to hang on? Or would he be muscular and packed, like the buff, crazy psychopaths in that HBO show Oz ?
    God. Her father could be one of those guys.
    Too nervous to get out of the car, Lauren called her girl, Dara, to calm her nerves.
    â€œWhat up? Where you at?”