Steve walked over to Yvette and introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Steve. My friends call me Cobra. What’s your name beautiful?” Steve did not look at the other girls; he was hypnotized by Yvette’s beauty.

“Hi, I’m Yvette. These are my friends, Kathy, Katie, and Millie,” she said without taking her eyes off Steve.

“Can we help you?” Kathy interrupted and broke the hypnotic trance these two had.

“I believe you are holding my ball, Yvette.” Steve did not mean it to sound like it did. The girls giggled. Steve caught himself. “You are holding my blue ball.” He did it again without thinking. He felt flushed. Steve forgot about the fellas at the other side of the courts. “Do you play handball?”

Yvette looked at Kathy. “Don’t look at me. He’s talking to you Yvette. She does not know how to play handball nor know anything about the game. You might be able to teach her some lessons.” Yvette wanted to kill Kathy.

“C’mon. I’ll show you.” Steve grabbed Yvette’s hand and walked with her to the center of the handball court. She looked back and smile at Kathy. Millie saw what was happening and got jealous. Kathy saw Millie’s face and had a wicked smile. “That’s right bitch. Yvette has a fine man teaching her how to play. Better than Marcus will ever be; you can’t do a damn thing you hoe,” she said to herself.

Miguel and the rest of the guys were waiting for Steve to return with the ball.

“I’m going to check on Cobra. He’s taking too long.” Miguel went to the other side and saw Steve with his arms around Yvette showing her how to hit the ball. Miguel slowly backed away and told the guys. They all came to see what was happening and saw Steve having fun with Yvette while he was demonstrating a simple serve. The guys applauded and Steve took a bow.

“How long have you guys been standing there?” Steve walked over with Yvette and introduced his friends to her. “These are my boys, Peter, Miguel, George, Orlando, Louie, Jay Love, Eddie and his girlfriend Dolly. This is Yvette.” They all said hello. She introduced her girlfriends to the fellas.

George remembered seeing her before, but couldn’t place the face. He was trying to think where he had seen her. It dawned on him that this was the girl who was with the guy who bumped into him a few weeks ago.

“Cobra, can I talk to you?” George said.

“Not now George, later.”

“There’s something you should know.”

“I’ll talk to you in a while George, let me finish showing Yvette a few simple serves and then we can talk. You guys head back to the other side and I will be with you in a while.”

The guys acknowledge Steve and went to play on the other side. Steve grabbed Yvette’s hand once again and began teaching her how to serve and hit the ball. Kathy took the cigarette she had on her ear and lit it. When she turned around to blow smoke, she saw Marcus and Tito with some guys coming towards them.

“Oh shit, there’s trouble,” she said nervously. She tried to signal Yvette, but it was too late.

Marcus entered the park and caught Steve holding Yvette’s waist with one hand, and her hand with the other.

“Well, well. Look at this. Why wasn’t I invited to the party,” he said with the tone of jealousy in his voice. “So that’s why you left me. You found yourself another man, right bitch?”

“You should fuck him up, Marcus.” Tito instigated.

Steve looked to see if any of his boys were there. They weren’t. They were too busy playing on the other side.

“It’s not what you think. I was showing her how to play.” Steve counted six guys with Marcus. If something were to come down, his boys would back him up.

Marcus looked at Yvette. “Since when have you decided to become a handball player, Yvette? I could have taught you myself. All you had to do was ask. I could whip this guy’s ass anytime. I’m going to prove that to you right now.” Marcus took off his shirt and showed off his medium size frame. “C’mon big boy, show me what you got.”

Steve looked at Marcus and decided to play him some other time.

“Are you scared to play you faggot? Chicken shit.” Marcus got close to Steve’s face. “Why are you running? I thought you were showing my girl how to play?”

Yvette heard what Marcus told Steve about her being Marcus’ girl. “I’m not your girl Marcus,” Yvette said. “I broke up with you after you hit me. Don’t you remember?” Yvette showed Marcus her face and reminded him that she still had a little black and blue underneath her left eye.

Marcus ignored her. He continued talking trash to Steve.

“Are you afraid to play me? C’mon. I just caught you fucking around with my girl.

Steve agreed to play Marcus. All the girls were now together and wanted to see this challenge go down.

“Let me warm up first.” Steve began to warm up while Marcus and the guys went to the girls. Steve purposely hit the ball over the wall to let the guys know that there was trouble brewing on the other side. When he retrieved the ball, he signaled to his boys that there was trouble. They all went to the other side of the court and just stood watching. George immediately recognized Marcus’ face.

“I knew I remember that girl from somewhere. She was with that guy on the day he fucked somebody up with brass knuckles.” Orlando and Jay Love also remembered.

Steve walked over to his boys and told them the scoop on everything that had just transpired.

“Don’t worry Cobra, we got your back,” Eddie said.

“Thanks Bro’, I know I could always depend on you guys for anything.