Author's Note- Hey! Thank you to all that reviewed and alerted and whatnot. I really appreciate it. So, with midterms & regents exams out of the way I got around to writing! I've still got a couple thangs due, but I'll get them done without it interfering with this. Now, I must say, I'm really not digging this chapter. Compared to the last one, this one just falls flat, and it's a lil' boring, but I had to write this to get to what I have planned for chapter 11. And...I've mentioned Hiro in passing, like, three times, but I figured that he should make an appearance. Italics are flashbacks.

Disclaimer- Really though?

"Son, come on! This is the last time to chill, drink, and have a little bit of fun before finals." Caesar blew out a sigh and crossed his arms, sucking his teeth as he did so. "Yo, I know you ain't gonna let some little fight with J keep you from enjoying yourself."

''First of all, I ain't your 'son'. How many times do I have to tell you that? Secondly, that 'little fight with J' wasn't so little. This is serious, Cease. She's really fucking pissed at me and I don't think that me going out to some party, hanging around a bunch of people I don't even like and getting fucked up, is going to help matters,'' Huey said, irritation lacing his voice and showing in the way he glared at his best friend. It seemed as though frat parties were Caesar's solution to every problem. And while it was good for killing a bad case of boredom, Huey didn't think that Jazmine would be too happy if she somehow heard through the grapevine that he was out having a jolly good time when their relationship was in a state of distress.

Caesar waved a hand like he usually did when he didn't think that something should be taken seriously. Huey didn't really know why it irritated him this time. After all these years of being exposed Caesar's optimistic, cool as the breeze, I-could-really-care-less attitude, Huey should have been expecting such a response.

"Look, Huey, this isn't the first fight you and J have had. You give her some time, a few days to be angry and vent to Cindy about how much she hates you, and you two will be right back to cupcaking like normal. But until then," Caesar paused, walking to the coffee table and picking up Huey's worn leather wallet and keys, tossing them towards his chest, "we're going to this damn party. You're too damn young to be sittin' around here all depressed and I'm far too sexy to be alone on a Friday night."

Huey sighed, giving a shake of his head and glanced down at his cell phone he held in his hand. It had been a few days, five to be exact, since he and Jazmine had had a conversation that wasn't held through stilted, awkward texts and phone calls. Huey had tried to get Jazmine to talk to him, but the girl could be stubborn as hell when she wanted to be and with Cindy guarding their apartment like the watchdog from hell, seeing her face to face was not an option. Huey let his thumb ghost over the call button on his phone, before he put it in his back pocket. Cease was right. Jazmine just needed some space. There was always tomorrow.

Huey stood, grabbing his leather jacket from where it sat slung over the back of the couch. "Let's go."

Caesar smiled, bright and wide, his arms spread. "See, brother? Uncle Cease knows best. You should listen to him more often."

"...so what do you think, man?"

Huey glanced up from small carton of lo mein and up towards Hiro's face. He shrugged, not having really listened to Hiro debate whether or not he should drop a mixtape in the summer or if he should just wait and if he did, would people even want to hear it? Huey decided to give his friend a cop out of an answer.

"It's really up to you."

Hiro made a jerky move of his head, rolling his eyes. "A lot of help you are."

Huey threw up his hands, leaning back in the rickety chair where he sat, exasperated. "Well, excuse me for having my own damn problems to figure out." Huey snatched his carton of half eaten lo mein off of the tacky green tableclothe covered table of Hiro's family restaurant and grumpily poked at it. He hadn't gotten a wink of sleep the night before, mainly because his mind decided to torture him by concocting scenarios where Huey ran into Jazmine and Caesar in public and they proceeded to have wild sex in front of him. Huey shook his head. He wasn't about to think about that shit.

Hiro cast Huey a sympathetic look. Huey had let him in on what had happened the night before and Hiro felt for his friend. He didn't know much about the whole fiasco that was Huey and Jazmine's break up- the topic of Jazmine was off limits for Huey and Hiro and Jazmine had never been that close to begin with- but Hiro knew that he was still caught up on her. It wasn't a secret though, it could be seen in the way Huey tensed when her name was brought up and how he hadn't been involved with other women since the breakup. Hiro didn't really know how it felt to be in such a position, but he imagined that being in love with an ex girlfriend when there seemed to be little to no hope of getting her back had to be one of the shittiest things ever. Damn, it hurt to see his mans like this, all pitiful and angry and sad and whatnot. Huey was all kinds of fucked up right now.

"You know what I'm gonna do for you?"

Huey lifted an eyebrow.

"I'm gonna find you a bitch," Hiro said smiling as though he had come up with the best idea since sliced bread. It was only until he registered the blank, hardened stare on Huey's face that his smile faltered. "What, man?"

Huey shook his head. How fucking dumb. "You're starting to sound like Riley."

"Hiro!" Both Hiro and Huey turned at the sound of the tiny Asian woman standing at the counter just a few feet away from their table. Hiro sucked his teeth loudly and Huey almost did the same. Mrs. Otomo was always hollering about something-usually in Japanese- for no reason. Hadn't they taught her about inside voices back in Japan, or wherever the hell she came from?

"What, Ma?" Mrs. Otomo replied rapidly in her native language, her arms gesturing wildly and her voice growing louder with each word. Huey glanced at the other three customers in the small family restaurant and wondered if Hiro's mother realized that they were staring.

"I'll do it later, damn! Don't you see me talking to Huey?", Hiro's voice was as loud as his mother's. Huey grabbed his black leather jacket from the empty seat next to him and slipped it on, blowing out a sigh past his lips. Although watching Hiro and his mother go back and forth about the littlest things was sometimes entertaining and reminded him of how his grandfather and Riley used to bicker, Huey just didn't have the patience for it.

"Hey, man, I'll catch you later", Huey said giving Hiro dap.

Hiro looked disappointed. "Aw, you leavin' already? Look at what you did, Ma! Now Huey's leaving! You good, homie?"

Huey nodded. "Yeah. I just...I just need some alone time.''

Hiro shot Huey a skeptical look, but said nothing. He knew Huey and he knew that he liked to work through his problems by himself, without assistance. It was a pride thing, Hiro knew. Huey Freeman didn't need or ask for anyone's help.

"Aight. I'll holler at you later."

''Bet.'' Huey made his way to the door not bothering to say anything to Hiro's mother. Her mean ass would probably screw face him like she always did.

"Dammit, Ma! You always do that!"

"Two for five, two for five. Ladies, I got CDs, DVDs, what you want, what you need?"

Cindy and Jazmine flashed the balding dark skinned man charming smiles as they politely declined his offer of pirated albums and movies. They manuevered through the somewhat crowded sidewalk filled with suit wearing businessmen and women on their lunch hour easily as they talked.

"So when I am I going to meet your boyfriend?"

"He is not my boyfriend," Cindy huffed, glaring at Jazmine. Although Cindy did like Jamal, and he liked her, and they had engaged in very heated make out sessions, very frequently, she was hesitant to jump into a relationship with him. Cindy had yet to determine if it was because she was a bit of a commitaphobe or if she was just waiting for someone (her mind told her Riley, but she shut down the suggestion. She didn't want Riley.) else.

"Cin, I heard you while you were on the phone with him. You called him 'baby' a grand total of four times-"

"You actually counted? Really?'', Cindy asked, her voice filled with increduality.

"-And you kept doing that giggle you do when a guy says something that you think is really cute", Jazmine said, a teasing smile alighting her face, ignoring Cindy's interruption.

Cindy snorted, an affronted expression overtaking her features. "Giggle? Girl, please, I'm too gangsta for giggles.''

"Well, they didn't call you McFearsome for nothin'," Jazmine replied airily, hooking her arm through Cindy's. The blonde side-eyed the curly haired young woman next to her. Jazmine was smiling way too much today. Not that there was a limit on the number of smiles that one could throw around, but this, for Jazmine, was unusual.

"You're in a pretty good mood," Cindy stated, her eyes trained on Jazmine's. Her green eyes flashed in a way that Cindy couldn't quite decipher before it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"The weather's nice today." Jazmine shrugged her shoulders feigning an attitude of nonchalance. It was always easy to pretend that she was great until someone called her out.

Cindy glanced around their surroundings. Yeah, it was sunny and the sky was blue without a cloud in sight, with only the slightest chill in the air but this was typical for mid-April. Cindy repressed the urge to roll her eyes. The weather. Yeah fucking right.

"Well, how was dinner last night? You and Caesar went with some other couple, right?"

Jazmine exhaled heavily, her shoulders slumping as she did so. She had done a good job of not thinking about what had happened, pushing it to the back of her mind and telling herself that she would deal with it another day. Of course Cindy was making her deal with something that she would rather forget. "Cin, it was bad."

"What happened?", Cindy asked concern in her eyes.

Shaking her head and rolling her eyes a bit, Jazmine quietly replied, "Huey was there."

Cindy leaned in closer to Jazmine, wondering if she had misheard. "Who?"

"Huey!", Jazmine snapped, a bit of misdirected annoyance present in her voice.

"Well, you don't have to get loud!", Cindy snapped back. The girls glanced at each other and rolled their eyes at one another, neither saying anything for a short moment before Cindy's curiosity overruled her slight irritation.

"So...what did you do?"

Jazmine scoffed as she remembered being too scared to say anything to Huey because of Caesar's presence and not knowing what to say. "I didn't do anything. I just sort of stood there while Huey and Caesar exchanged thinly veiled insults."

"World War Three didn't break out, did it?" Cindy was there the last time Huey and Caesar were in a room together and it had not been pretty. It had taken Riley, Hiro, and herself to get Huey to stop throwing punches at Caesar. The fighting had completly ruined her party but she hadn't minded too much because that night, Caesar needed a good ass-whupping.

"No. Thank goodness." Jazmine would not have been able to deal with that.

"Have ya'll talked since he called you that one night?"

Yes, but Jazmine didn't really want to disclose that information. She had a feeling that Cindy would outright question her about why she and her ex were on speaking terms all of a sudden and Jazmine knew that she would lie, even though she really didn't have to with Cindy, about why because even she didn't know. All Jazmine knew was that Huey's sudden reappearance in her life was making her question things that she thought she had already figured out. "No."

"Maybe ya'll should. I mean, you and Huey got a lot of unfinished business. Maybe if you talked, face to face, ya'll could get some, I don' know, closure", Cindy explained.

Jazmine chewed on her bottom lip, mulling Cindy's suggestion over. Huey had brought the whole 'we should talk' thing up not too long ago, but Jazmine had copped out with a response of 'soon'. It wasn't that she didn't want to see Huey. It was just that she didn't know what she would do once she and Huey were in a room together, alone. Huey was an enigma. She had the hardest time trying to figure him out while he already knew her like the back of his hand. Which made it hard to try and lie and fool him. It would be a futile attempt. He saw right through her. "I guess."

"Just think about it, okay?"

Jazmine nodded, even though she had already made a decision. "I will."

"Yo, Huey, where you been? I was lookin' all over for you," Caesar said, leaning in towards Huey so he could be heard through the music once he found him posted against the wall alone, nursing a bottle of vodka. Caesar briefly wondered where Huey got it from, before shrugging it off. He could smell the alcohol emanating off of his friend and it made him shake his head. Huey didn't drink often but when he did, he usually went all out, trying to drown his troubles. And it usually worked until he ended up doing something that he almost always regretted in the morning.

Huey swayed the slightest bit before regaining his balance and standing tall. "I was with Frankie."

Caesar's brow furrowed with the information. Who the hell was Frankie? Huey glanced somewhere behind Caesar and raised a hand, a drunken smirk on his face. Caesar turned, immediately noticing the attractive but scantily dressed mocha skinned girl with a long black weave. Oh, yeah. That Frankie. The ratchet ass Frankie that had a class with Huey and made passes and blatantly flirted with him every chance she got despite knowing damn well that he was with Jazmine. Huey didn't like the girl at all (Frankie was always looking for ways to stir up trouble in his and Jazmine's relationship, and she was kind of a ho.) so why was he standing in front of Caesar grinning and cheesing at her like she the sun magically shone out of her ass?

"You were talkin' to Frankie? I thought you didn't like her ass?", Caesar asked, turning back to Huey.

Huey shrugged, his eyes closing lazily. "I guess she's alright. S'not like we did much talkin' anyway." Caesar stood there, his face questioning, as he watched Huey suddenly open his eyes and glance down at the practically empty bottle of vodka in his hand. Huey slowly bent down, putting the bottle on the floor against the wall, and stood back up, scrubbing a hand over his face as he did so. Huey sighed, looking the most sober and clear headed Caesar had seen him in the past five minutes. "Look, man, I gotta- I gotta get outta here."

"Want me to come with you? I can-"

"No," Huey shook his head, and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. Caesar couldn't help but notice that Huey looked a bit lost as he looked around at the rest of the oblivious partygoers. What the hell was wrong with him? "You stay. Have fun. I'll see you back at the apartment."

"Alright." Caesar stood watching Huey make his way out of the party. ''S'not like we did much talkin' anyway." What had Huey meant by that?

Caesar's musing was interrupted by a harsh tapping on his shoulder. He quickly turned around and upon setting his eyes on Frankie rolled his dark brown eyes. This girl... "Wassup?"

Frankie let her eyes roam up and down Caesar's body before she smiled appreciatively. Caesar rolled his eyes once more. Did she not know a thing about subtly? "You and Huey are friends, right?"

"Yeah..."

''Well, let him know that if he ever wants to," Frankie paused here, a mischievious and sneaky smirk emerging on face, and emitted a laugh and Caesar wondered what was so damn funny, "talk again, Frankie's always around for another round." The young woman collapsed into a fit of laughter, and stumbled away from Caesar.

"S'not like we did much talkin' anyway."

"...another round.''

The moment Caesar realized what had most likely happened between Huey and Frankie, it was as though a light bulb had flickered on. "Shit."

Oh, yeah. Huey was definetly going to be regretting this in the morning.

Jazmine stood in front of apartment 4E wishing like she always did. She wished that she didn't have to be there, her heel clad feet rooted to the slightly dirty carpet of the hallway, with an anxiety that coursed through her body and turned her nerves into a frayed mess. She wished that she could turn her back on her past, which was right on the other side of the door she stood in front of. Jazmine shifted from one foot to the other, glancing towards the elevator at the end of the hall, before turning her glance to the small scrap of paper ripped from an old flyer sitting on the floor of her car in her hand. It had taken the promise of free hair braiding sessions for a month for Jazmine to get Huey's address from Riley (she'd asked for his number from Cindy who, with a slightly suspicious look on her face, gave it to her without question) because he didn't 'do favors for fake ass Mariah Carey lookin' bitches that like to drop a nigga jus' 'cause my wack ass brother fronted on yo' ass without gettin' somethin' in return'. Jazmine recognized that she could have simply called Huey and asked him where he lived- it wouldn't have been nearly as difficult as dealing with her old friend- but she had a feeling that she would immediately lose the little bit of courage she had managed to scrape up once she heard his voice.

Jazmine sighed. Huey shouldn't have affected her so much. Not after all this time.

Shaking her head and squaring her shoulders as if that would give her a bit of confidence, Jazmine raised her hand and knocked, her heart beating faster each time her knuckles made contact with the door.

This was...blah. Yeah...that's that. The big fight or argument that Jaz & Huey had back when they were together will be eplained soon. I'll try to update as soon as possible, I'm not certain when, but you won't have to wait for the next chapter as long as you had to for this one. I hope you enjoyed it. Drop me a review, please. :) Peace.