Falling For Rome 2

by Edwina Fort

  He grunted, letting his intimidating gaze roam over my body.

  Okay, so maybe I didn’t wear the brightest of colors. That day I believed I had on my long maxi black skirt that fell to cover my feet completely and a grey oversized sweater that hung off one shoulder. I’d partnered that ensemble with my black hand beaded tasseled purse. I’ll admit it wasn’t the prettiest thing in my closet, but I didn’t look homeless either.

  His intense gaze was starting to unnerve me. He had yet to look away from me since I walked through those doors. He studied me so intensely it felt as if he could see under my shabby clothes to the figure I worked very hard to hide.

  After his insulting words, he didn't say anything else, he just stood there watching me. And the way that he did it was so unnerving. People walked past and said goodbye to him, but he never looked away from me. He just nodded his head to whoever it was and mumbled something in a language that was purely his because I don’t think it was English.

  I know he was a brute and probably uneducated…but even he had to know that it was rude as hell to stare at somebody like that. It was almost as if he knew he was making me nervous and was enjoying it.

  Although Westly and I were fairly new to this neighborhood, I'd heard enough from the girl who lived across the hall from me to know that he was something of a big shot around these parts. She said he used to be a professional boxer and was doing really good until an injury forced him to stop.

  Of course, I was very curious as to what the injury was, there weren’t many ailments my teas couldn’t take care of. There were some…

  But not many…

  However, he was such a brute we will never find out. If he had been civilized, I would have tried to reach out to him. There was no way that was happening now.

  I was so relieved when I looked up and saw Westly walking towards me that I nearly ran to him and threw myself into his arms. Although an addict, my brother has always protected me. The giant frowned when he saw this…

  “Hey, Bo…” His deep voice seemed to rumble through the floor. “This yo’ girl?”

  He still hadn’t moved from where he casually leaned against the counter.

  Westly seemed shocked that his boss was actually talking to him. I would later find out that was the first time he’d ever said anything to him.

  My brother chuckled in that way that let me know he was freshly high. In another few minutes, he would start the nodding.

  “Naw, bossman, this here my little sista.”

  The giant grunted again as his gaze once again raked down my body. “This the sista that stay with you?”

  Westly was now beaming like a small child whose hero had noticed them. “Yeah it is…I—I didn’t think you knew anything ‘bout me.”

  I rolled my eyes. I wanted to kick him for being so infatuated with the brute.

  At one time y’all, my brother was so very strong and handsome. Girls used to line up at our foster parent’s door to see him. Of course, I would get nervous whenever he went out because that meant I would be home with Kirk without Westly’s protection.

  Scary times…

  Very scary times…

  Anyway, back in those days, my brother was the man to know. Now, the heroin and whatever other drugs he liked had torn his body down. He was only a tenth of the man he used to be. Of late, he’s been scratching big sores on his arms and face.

  I pray he hadn’t started doing meth, but I fear that he has. I have paid for him to go to rehab more times than I can count, but so far, nothing has worked. However, I can’t turn my back on him. Had it not have been for him putting the fear of God in Kirk’s heart, I would have been brutally raped many times.

  No, I can’t turn my back on him. I take comfort in the fact that although he steals like nobody’s business…he’s never stolen from me.

  Not once…

  “I know about everybody working for me.” The giant spoke again, drawing my attention back to him. “Including the fact that you like to suck on that glass dick…” His intense gaze fell back to me.

  But I was too busy trying to pick my mouth up off the ground for the third time. He’d just put my poor brother on blast and brought up his ailment in a most vile way. The guy at the register pretended to shuffle around some papers.

  “You sure are rude…” I finally hissed. I’d had enough of his horrible personality.

  “Baby, I don’t shugga coat sh*t.”

  Westly gave a nervous laugh. “I’ll be right back, boss, I just need to talk to my sista outside for a minute.”

  His hands shook as he led me away. I looked back over my shoulder at the animal man and I swear, what he did next nearly made me trip, had Westly not been holding my arm so tightly I would have.

  He slowly licked his lips and then kissed toward me, but that wasn’t the shocking part. The shocking part was my body’s response to that scandalous gesture. I felt a spasm between my thighs that stole my breath.

  That was the first time anything like that has ever happened to me. When I frowned at the brute’s vulgarness, he had the nerve to wink at me with that evil grin on his face, as if he was very much aware of what his vulgar gesture had done to my body.

  Needless to say, after that day, I did my very best to avoid going to the gym for anything, but then I started seeing him in the oddest of places.

  Like the bus stop when I’m on my way to and from work. It isn’t every day, but some days he’d be sitting there watching me in that big black Hummer with the tan leather seats that my brother thought was the best vehicle to have ever been created under the heavens.

  He never said anything, just sat there and watched me get on the bus or get off. For my own sanity, I’d convinced myself that he wasn’t sitting there for me. The gym was right across the street. He could be sitting waiting for someone to come out or just waiting to go in.

  And then it was that time he’d shown up at the carnival that I’d taken my six-year-old niece to. She’d dragged me all over wanting this and that. And well, I was on a serious budget and could not afford to get any more tickets to get on any more rides.

  My God, the tickets were nearly five dollars apiece, and you needed at least three to get on each ride, which meant every ride was costing a whopping fifteen dollars for four minutes. And of course, like any kid her age who didn’t understand money, she started to have a fit on me.

  I know I need to be firmer with her, but the truth is, I didn’t have it in me…Both of her parents were drug addicts. The only time she got to be a kid free of worries is when she was with me.

  So there I stood in the middle of the carnival checking my bank account with my phone trying to see which account I could get away with pulling a few more dollars from when suddenly she went quiet and started thanking someone like crazy.

  I looked up to see her happily holding a hand full of tickets, so many tickets that it would take us the rest of the night of riding rides to use them all. My gaze rose to the crowd to try and see who the hell had just given her so many tickets when I saw Hitta’s muscled back walking away from us. And just like always, the crowd just automatically parted for him.

  Once again, I’d convinced myself that it was a coincidence and he was not following me. But I knew deep down that he was, which was confusing because he thought I dressed like a homeless person. Surely he wasn’t attracted to me. So why else was he following me?

  Anyway, I’d managed to avoid the gym and was doing a damn good job at it till today. Westly had been late on his half of the rent for the last three months and I’d had to pay the whole thing. Because of this, I’d fallen behind on a few things to do with my shop, like the insurance.

  Well, actually I’d lapsed on my insurance policy a few times, but it had never been an issue till now. My shop is in a very old building, only God knows when the last time the electric wiring had been updated.

  The fire started in the walls and did quite a bit of damage to my west wal
l. Because it happened during the time I’d let my insurance lapse, I was paying for the repairs out of pocket. With paying for that plus the rent on both the apartment and the shop, plus footing the bill for my niece’s schooling, because neither of her parents could do it, and I didn’t want her going to the school around her mother’s house, because it was a death trap. Just last week, three kids had gotten shot standing in front of the school…

  My money was extremely funny and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. The tea shop wasn’t doing too badly. I was blocks away from a college campus, so I had a steady stream of customers… It was only me working there because I couldn’t afford to hire anyone, so it wasn’t like I was paying for labor…

  And yet here I stood outside my brother’s job broke and needing him to come through with some major funding.

  It was bad…

  Not only was my wall half repaired, but I was also behind on the rent for both the apartment and the shop…not to mention Jessie's tuition that will be due at the end of this month.

  I paced back and forward in front of the gym, trying to work up enough nerves to go in. The members who went in and out looked at me as if something was wrong with me, but I didn’t care, I was a nervous wreck.

  What if he was in there?

  What if he was standing right by the desk again?

  After a group of three guys came out, I walked to the door and stood on my toes to try and look into the round window. I had to clutch the handle and try and hoist myself up because I was still too short to see.

  As you guys may have guessed, I am vertically challenged in a world where everything was made for tall people. I think I stopped growing at twelve and a whopping 5’2.

  My arms strained as I finally got myself up high enough to peep in the window and smiled when I saw he wasn’t standing at the front desk. There was a pretty girl behind the cash register today.

  A squeak left my throat when right then my arms gave out causing me to fall back. I braced myself for the impact with the ground, but it never happened.

  I was caught by something hard, but it wasn’t the ground. My eyes widened when I saw that the muscled arm that was wrapped around my waste shamelessly holding me against an equally muscled body, said Hard. The other arm slowly joined it securing me completely, said Hitta.

  Dear God! I had fallen right into the brute’s arms. For a moment I didn’t move. He tightened his arms as he brought me even closer gently burying his face in my long braids at my neck. My lips parted in a gasp when I felt his mouth lightly brush my skin.

  The caress was barely there, but because I was super sensitive in that moment, I’d felt it. His lips made their way up to my ear.

  “Man, shawty…I want to f*** you so bad.” He whispered.

  His words that should have angered me caused an answering response in my center that surprised me.

  The emotions that were racing around inside of me were all brand new and for just a moment, I paused to try and understand them.

  Arousal I understood. Although it was true, I’d never felt it to this extent, it was a feeling I understood. It was the other thing he caused me to feel that stunned me.

  It felt really good being held in his arms. The top of my feet rested on his bigger ones… For the first time in my life, I felt… safe.

  I know I said earlier that Westly always protected me and he did, but his protection was as shaky as him. Even though he protected me from Kirk, I was still afraid. I was always afraid. The feeling that I felt now was different.

  I felt safety in Hard Hitta’s arms. That thought frightened me right out of the stupor I had fallen in and I scrambled away from him.

  “I’m so sorry!” I told him staring at the ground because I was not brave enough to look into his face.

  “You looking for somebody?” His voice was so very deep.

  I nodded pushing the braid that had fallen in my face back behind my ear. “Yeah, my brother.”

  “Why?”

  That made me look up at him startled. I can’t believe how rude he is. I opened my mouth to tell him off but changed my mind. Instead, I cleared my throat.

  “Nothing important, I just have to tell him something.”

  He took a step closer to me and I took another step back.

  “This the only time I’m going to let you lie to me. Consider this a warning. You lie to me again and I will have to punish you. You hear?”

  He growled those words at me. And I’m not going to lie, they scared the hell out of me. He’d just threatened to punish me. What the hell did that mean?

  He is so freaking mean!

  Not able to take his intense angry gaze any longer, I turned my head and nodded, looking at the cars that were passing. He was too intimidating. And to top it off, he was not moving to walk away, not getting the picture that I didn’t want to talk to him about it. He just stood patiently waiting for me to tell him my business.

  Tough Titty…I ain’t telling him nothing. I may not be brave enough to tell him off to his face, but I can give the silent treatment like nobody’s business.

  I folded my arms and looked down at my foot that I was using to gently kick a rock around. He chuckled before his muscled arm came toward me. I jumped away from him as if he was holding hot coals, but exhaled in relief when I saw he was only opening the door. He held it open for me and gestured for me to proceed.

  I did so quickly, practically running to the counter to ask the pretty girl if she could tell my brother I was here to see him, but she was only half listening to me. Her attention was on the big man that had followed me in.

  He walked behind the counter and picked up a pile of mail and began to look through it. He must have just gotten here because he carried a gym bag on his arm. She walked over to him and began to tell him something with a big flirty smile on her face, but he stopped her.

  “Get over there and help the lady standing there?” He grumbled in his truly rude fashion.

  She turned red with embarrassment, for just a moment her mouth opened as if she couldn’t believe he’d talked to her that way. There was no doubt in my mind they were sleeping together.

  “I’m sorry, how can I help you?” She nearly snapped those words to me. She was not happy with me.

  Great! Now she hated me because of him. I smiled kindly at her, hoping to extend an olive branch. I didn’t want to make anything tough around here for Westly. He was doing so good.

  “Yes, may I speak with Westly Baker, please?” I repeated for the second time.

  She rolled her eyes and walked away to get him. This time I will not make the same mistake and stand here to be harassed by the mean guy. I turned and walked back out the door, Westly will know to look for me outside.

  A few minutes later he came out. “What’s going on, baby girl?”

  I groaned because he was high. I really wished he was sober so that he can know the severity of my words.

  “West, I need your rent money for the last three months. Ms. Armstrong came by the shop again today. She’s threatening to put me out. Although the fire happened because of the wiring in her building, she still blaming me. She wants me gone! With me not having her rent money, this will be just the excuse she needs to put me out! West, you know I will go crazy if I lose my shop! Working with my teas is the only thing that brings me comf---”

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Angel, Damn! Calm down!” He took my arm and pulled me away from the gym doors. “Just relax, I’m going to have the money for you tonight.”

  Y’all see what I mean? That was the drug talking.

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Westly, I’m serious!”

  He chuckled, his eyes blinked so slowly it looked as if he was going to nod off any second. “And I’m serious too, baby girl. I’m going to have the money tonight.”

  “Where you gon’ get that kind of money from?”

  “A patna of mine just got back into town. He owes me some mone
y from a job he and I did a few years ago.”

  See what I’m saying? I was in no mood for his crap. My brother may not steal from me, but he had no problem lying to me.

  “Westly, don’t you understand what I’m saying?! I’m getting ready to lose my shop!”

  “Hey! You ain’t gon’ lose nothing! Don’t I always come through? Now I told ya, a patna of mine is going to drop off a package to me tonight. I’m going to bring it home, just relax. You’ll be able to pay Ms. Armstrong worrisome a** in the morning.”

  I gave him a long look. He smiled at me with droopy eyes. “Relax…”

  Coming September 15, 2019

  Mean Tucker: The Bully

  The Prologue

  Free

  It was almost over. I was almost free from this hell known as high school. No…I take that back. I was almost free from this hell known as Aldshore Michigan, my house, my so-called family, high school, and most importantly, Naphtali Tucker Pelletier, who was a real-life sociopath that everybody called Tucker, but I called Mean Tuck.

  I looked up the name Tucker once because that's what I did. I stayed hidden in the library most times with my nose stuck in a book. It was the only safe place, the only place the Beautiful Ones will never travel.

  Anyway, I looked up the name Tucker and would you guys believe it is derived from an old English word in the 7th century that meant tormenter?

  What’s the irony? That’s exactly what he was, my tormenter.

  And no matter what I did to try and avoid him, he always found me because he was psychotic and tormented me to the cheers and encouragement of his posse, that the whole school referred to as the Beautiful Ones because there was not an unattractive one to be found in their midst…and he, the most beautiful of them all was their king.

  He was not only their king, he was king of the whole damn school, the golden boy of the small beach town, captain of the football team, adopted son of the Mayor and if you let everybody in this town tell it, the next best thing from the Second Coming.