Whodunit

Chapter 6

"Yessssss! That parade got me hella lit!" Ximena sang as the crew plus Nell and Mini shimmied into the den area of the Airbnb.

Despite the heavy traffic leaving from the festivities, no one wanted the night to end. The parade had begun what they hoped would be a night of partying and letting loose. Ximena moseyed over to the speaker and connected her phone to the Bluetooth. The others plopped in their various spots on the sectional couch and floor. Jordan grabbed the PlayStation 4 controller and sifted through the games organized on the television stand. Mini and Zaria skipped upstairs as they laughed and imitated TikTok videos Mini had saved on her phone, happy to have someone to relate to in the room full of young adults.

New Orleans Bounce legend, Magnolia Shorty, blared through the room with repetitive demands to twerk and a hypnotic rhythm harmonizing with her voice. Ximena followed directions by poking her butt out and placing elbows above her thighs then hands on her knees and shook her groove thing to the beat. She waved her hands and added a couple drops to the floor. Her fellow females laughed while the boys sat back and enjoyed the show.

Jordan glanced over at Nell and saw the twinkle in his eyes as he watched Ximena wild out. Flames crackled in Jordan's smoky brown irises. The tendons in his neck tightened.

"Ahem," he cleared his throat, catching Nell's attention, and said to Ximena, "Okay, Jenny from the Block, turn that off before I New Orleans Bounce yo' fine ass."

"Is that your idea of flirting?" Ximena rolled her eyes. At that moment, the beat dropped for Juvenile's Back That Azz Up. "Ohhh, this my song!"

Ximena instantly bent over and started up her twerking again.

Jordan's face lit up with a glow as he pulled a few ones out his pockets and tossed them at the girl. "Okay now. Shake ya' ass but watch yourself."

Dmitri sighed, his butt sinking in the edge of the couch cushion as he sat far away from everyone else, still trying to recollect from the social anxiety and mental suffocation triggered by the parade crowd. Fog hazed over his thoughts. He hardly even remembered going to the parade or anything else from the weekend so far.

"Ay, Nell, please tell me you got enough weed and Swishers to roll a blunt or two," he called to Nell who had relaxed into the couch and picked up the PlayStation 4 controller to play NBA 2K20.

Nell looked at him with a blank face. "Do aliens exist?"

"What?" Dmitri scrunched his nose. Nell asking random questions was like Kim Kardashian posting photos on social media—it was inevitable.

"Do aliens exist?" Nell asked again, no hint of joking in his voice.

Dmitri's sparse brows eyebrows furrowed into the creases of his dark skin. "Uhh, yeah, I guess. Probably."

A faint mixture of a grin and a smirk appeared on Nell's face. "Well, uhh, yeah, I guess. Probably."

Dmitri scrubbed his face. "Nigga, what?"

"That's the answer to your question," Nell said as if it should've been obvious. "Yeah, I probably always have enough weed and at least one cigar for a blunt."

The dread-headed boy reached into his sock and pulled out a small bag of weed and then reached into the front pocket of his hoodie for an opened pack of Diamond Game cigarillos. "I have seen aliens before though."

Dmitri snatched the blunt ingredients from him and began the therapeutic process of rolling the joint. Rolling the blunt always calmed him down and helped him relax when he was tripping. He had no idea how it worked, but he assumed it had to be because his brain could smell the marijuana and knew that it would soon have the high it needed to think straight.