“Dixon,” I say, as if he isn’t already looking at me, “Brant really likes you.”
Dixon makes a face. I wonder if he’s unhappy I said that. I don’t know why I said it. “Tell him goodbye from me.”
I open my mouth to curse again, but don’t. Instead, I get into the car and let the Uber drive me home.
Dixon
The house is so loud that I can’t remember a time when there was silence. With the bag out of the house everyone seems to be back to normal. Back to normal. I can’t remember what that was like. Knox and Mer are fondling each other underneath a blanket on the couch to my right while some shitty movie drones on in the background. Explosions, screams, superheroes, and one-liners that I think are meant to be funny. I don’t see more than that, and I don’t realize they’ve changed the title until more credits roll in.
Mer gets up first, ripping the blanket off of her lap and exposing shorts that are too short. Maybe a pair of Knox’s briefs. Not that it matters. She isn’t my type. I have a type now. I didn’t have a type before. Mer’s got braids down the back of her head. When Knox stands, he reaches for them, like he’s going to grab a fistful and force her into submission. The thought might have made me smile wickedly if I could feel my face. I’m a whiskey bottle in and two blunts deep and I no longer find Knox and Mer’s relationship grating. It’s become torture to me, so I work hard to focus instead on the films that continue to run on an endless stream. If I hadn’t been so cold, so callus, such a wounded disaster I could be sitting on this couch next to my girl too.
Mer ducks under Knox’s next parry. She slaps his cheek and I don’t recognize my brother. He looks wholly consumed. I could’ve been electrocuted, branded, shot and lit up like a torch right next to him and he’d have never taken his eyes off of her. I wonder if that’s how I appear when Sara’s in the room.
My mind drifts. She’ll be getting ready now. Maybe just out of the shower. Maybe already in her clothes. I wonder what she’ll wear for him. My brother. I didn’t listen when he came in earlier to tell Knox his plans for the night and get Mer’s approval, but instead turned the volume up on the TV to the point that it’s now deafening. Mer glides towards the hall and there’s a cunning and carnivorous gleam in her eyes that even I can translate. Knox responds to it like a lion to a lioness in heat and lunges for her. She darts out of the way and moves down the hall until I can no longer see her. She’s begging to be chased and he does.
Clifton steps into the room as Knox steps out. A second later, there’s a bang. “What the…” Clifton plops down onto the sofa where Mer and Knox had been. There’s laughter from down the hall, followed by another loud thud. My guess, the end of the chase. “So what are we watching?” Clifton’s voice draws me into the present.
My gaze swivels back up to the screen. Who put that there? Looks farther away than I remember it. Everything looks so far away. My hand stretches forward and fumbles over the edge of my glass. Pushing it aside, instead I grab the bottle. Something amber colored. Could be rum or whiskey or something else. Anything else. I pour some of it down my throat and shrug.
“You eaten anything today, man?”
I shrug again.
Clifton makes a face and swipes one of the other bottles off of the table. Cracking it, he takes a sip. “Cheap shit.” He grimaces. “You trying to die or just forget about something?”
I feel the rumbling in my chest before I realize I’m making the sound out loud, like an animal. That’s what I feel like right now. Maybe less. I feel worthless. Like nothing. Clifton looks away with a small shake of his head, one whose intentions I don’t understand and I don’t like it. I feel words swimming somewhere in my chest, but as I attempt to cull the right ones to challenge my brother, a door opens and shuts and the sound of hard-soled shoes cleaves through everything.
“Alright, that’s it folks. Wish me luck on my date.” He steps into the living room looking like a goddamn Casanova. Navy blazer over another navy shirt. Light blue jeans to keep the ensemble just this side of casual. He’s soaped up, washed, smelling like a pimp, even from here. When he runs his fingers through his hair, holds out his arms and takes an extravagant turn of the room, Clifton begins a slow clap.
“Nice digs,” Clifton says with a grin that sends a renewed rush of blood thundering through my temples. “Looks like you’re actually trying with this one.”
“As opposed to the three other chicks you took out this week.” I didn’t see Mer or Knox walk back in, but there she is, framed by Knox who’s silhouetted by light from the hall. He’s got his arms wrapped around her. I hate the gesture. I hate her. I hate him. I hate me. But right now, I hate Charlie most.
Charlie points his finger at her. “Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.”
“So is that what this is? Just a game?” Clifton rolls his eyes when Charlie holds up both hands, as if in surrender.
“Whatever it is, it’s a hell of a time.” He winks, then tucks his right hand into his breast pocket. He heads for the door and my legs turn to cement. “Don’t wait up for me, ladies and gents. If I have anything to do with it, it’s going to be a long night.”
And it likely will be, because a guy like Charlie is not just what she wants, but what she needs. Someone whose interest in her is straightforward. Someone handsome and rich and uncomplicated who will like her but not love her that she can have a nice time with. I could never fill that role not least because she can’t have a nice time with me. That much she made abundantly clear.
The door opens and closes and the alcohol in my stomach climbs up the back of my throat along with a healthy heaping of bile. I wonder how much more I’ll need to drink before my body gives up and gives out because the one thing I cannot do is be awake when Charlie returns in the morning.
“You okay?” Clifton is staring at me. Mer and Knox are both staring at me. I close my eyes and flare my nostrils in an attempt to breathe through my nose. I think it’ll help me calm down, but each breath that comes is shorter than the last. My senses are all finely tuned, each tendon taut, each muscle strained. I’m waiting for the same sound I’m hoping to drown out with the sound of the television…and there it is.
The sound of Charlie’s Porsche engine revving explodes through my temples and though my torso is lead and my legs are concrete, neither stop me from flying off of the couch, through the living room and out of the front door. When I slam both palms down onto the trunk, he brakes right away and rolls down the window. His first two moves are his first two mistakes.
Ripping up on the emergency brake, Charlie throws both hands into the air. “What the fuck, dude?”
Rather than answer, I reach into the car and unlock the door – if his shoulders were narrower, I’d have ripped him right out through the window. I have him by the back of the neck and I drag him up the stoop and into the house. I throw him down and he crashes through the hall table before meeting the floorboards. A glass vase shatters and the beads inside of it scatter.
He clutches his right elbow and curses in an endless stream, but I don’t give a shit that he’s hurt. He’s got every intention of taking Sara out, making her laugh, treating her well, getting her drunk, and fucking her right. All things that she deserves and all things I should have done the first moment she walked into Camelot looking for a job. What did I do instead? I drove her away because I was scared. Petrified. I’m not supposed to be scared of anything. I’m supposed to be taking care of my brothers and I can’t even take care of myself.
“Look at me,” I growl and when I take another step towards Charlie, a heavy arm locks around my neck.
Clifton pushes me into the wall face-first and I’m too slurred and drunk to fight back without killing someone, or myself. “We are looking at you, Dixon,” Clifton grunts, teeth clenched as he resists my resistance.
“If Charlie leaves this house, I swear…” I don’t finish the sentence, because nothing comes to mind besides drinking myself into oblivion.
Cl
ifton eases up, but only slightly. “We know, man.” He’s still got my tee shirt in his fists and his forearm across the back of my neck. “We know…”
“Took you long enough to admit it,” Charlie spits. The way my face is angled, I can just see Mer grabbing him under the arm and helping him back onto his feet. Standing, Charlie straightens out his jacket and throws up his hands. “Jesus, man. How far would I have had to go before you admitted it to yourself? Did you want me to actually fuck her first? Not that I would have minded, but…woah!” Charlie backs up and I’m shocked when Mer edges in front of him. She angles her body to the side, but I never get that far. Clifton holds me back.
“If you…”
Charlie cuts me off. “I fucking won’t, man. Who the fuck do you think I am? You’re my goddamn brother and you’re in love with the girl!”
Love. What? I start to curse, just like her, but I also start to canter back. Clifton’s there again, this time to catch me. “Dixon? Dixon, hey. Hey!” He pushes me against the wall, this time using it as a brace as he settles me onto the floor. I place my elbows on my knees and let my head hang between them.
“Love,” I groan, voice so gravelly I barely understand it.
“Yeah man. Love.” I see Charlie’s shiny Oxford wing-tip nudge the side of my shitkicker. “And right now she’s waiting for your sorry ass. I thought one of y’all was supposed to be watching him.”
“Don’t worry, all the bottles in the kitchen were watered down,” Knox says.
I shake my head and tilt it back to face the many faces staring down. “Bottles on the table…from my room.” I cough into my fist while the world above me swirls in and out of focus.
“For fuck’s sake, Knox. I thought you were his brother. Didn’t you think he might have kept shit in his room? Pinche idiota.” Mer leans into him while Charlie turns to Clifton.
“Shit. I’m supposed to meet this bi…chick…woman…” His gaze finds mine and the brown pools fill with panic. He holds up his hands and edges backwards abruptly. “No offense. I’m just trying to figure out what the hell we’re going to do now. This wasn’t the plan. You were supposed to stop me half an hour ago and you weren’t supposed to be fucking wasted. Jesus, Knox. You had one job…”
Knox throws his arms in the air and Mer pushes on his chest when he starts to crowd the narrow sliver of hallway between Charlie and me. “What the hell was I supposed to do? Big brother’s got his door locked. There’s no way to get in there.”
“Alright, enough with the excuses.” Clifton slides his hands under my armpits, clenches his teeth together and drags me to my feet. I’m shaky, and it isn’t because of the booze. I’m petrified. Scared as hell of what’s happening to me. What is happening to me? I don’t know, but everyone else seems to. “Snap out of it. You’ve got a date to go to.”
“Date?” I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth and try to take a step, but as my adrenaline crashes the floor disappears from beneath me. I lurch forward and catch Charlie’s chest with my shoulder. Clifton’s cursing endlessly in my ear.
Then Mer’s voice. “Dixon, can you hear me? I know that even talking to you will probably piss you off but do I have your permission to go into your room?”
“No,” I moan. Bile pitches in my stomach and swims up my esophagus and into my mouth. I swallow it down and I can hear people speaking to me, but I’m too focused on what Mer just asked. Why is she speaking to me directly? She never has before, at least not unsolicited.
“What?” I choke.
“Knox here.” He grabs the back of my neck and forces me to look at him. He slaps my cheeks. “Stay awake there, buddy. Mer wants to go into your room because she’s trying to help you, for fuck’s sake.”
“Help me?” How the hell could she help me? No one helps me. Least of all a woman.
“Yeah. Help you.” He squeezes my pressure points until the idea of pain fires into my mind. I don’t feel it though. I feel nothing. Not the skin of my fingers or my brothers’ hands keeping me upright. “You look like hell and you smell like shit. Mer’s a chick…”
“Sort of,” Charlie chides. Mer lunges at him and he cracks up when she smacks her hand across his thigh.
Knox ignores them both and adds with a smile, “She’s a woman and she can help you if you’re going to see Sara tonight.” His gaze hits mine and I fail to find understanding. For the first moment. Then I lurch half a step forward so that Mer comes into view. Behind Knox’s body she looks quite small, but I’ve seen what the muscles that ripple down her arms can do.
I nod once. “Go.”
She balances on the balls of her feet. With her arms crossed tight over Knox’s tee shirt she looks uncomfortable. “Shit, man. I know I’m not welcome here, but I was just trying to…”
“No. Go to my room.”
Her eyes widen and she glances around, braids whipping over her shoulder. When none of my brothers contradict her, she whispers, “You serious?”
I nod and Knox backs up, dragging Mer with him. “Be quick,” he tells her, squeezing her ass hard when she turns from him and breaks out into a light jog. “And pick out something that normal girls would like.”
“I know what I’m doing, puto!” Just before she disappears around the end of the long hallway, she looks at my brothers standing around me and says, “Run a rag over his face and neck so she won’t be able to smell too much of the booze bleeding through his pores. And get him to brush his teeth.”
I’m walking or falling into the kitchen and onto one of the bar stools. Clifton’s pressing water glasses into my hand and somebody’s lifting my shirt off over my head. A cold, damp rag comes over me and I hiss. Trying to pull away from it, I’m at the sink and someone is forcing a toothbrush into my hand. By the time I finish scrubbing up, Mer is back.
She’s got a tee shirt for me. It’s black with little grey dots that are hand stitched into the heavy cotton material. I know that it’s mine but for the life of me, I can’t remember buying it or ever wearing it before. She sprays cologne in my general direction while I punch my fists through the sleeves of the leather jacket she hands me. Pants off, the jeans she gives me are dark grey. Charlie adds oil to my hair and brushes it up into shape so that the short fade doesn’t look so schizophrenic. Suddenly they’re all standing away from me, as if to review their collective masterpiece.
Clifton is first to say, “Not bad.”
Charlie whistles. “You might just be able to pull this off.”
“But we don’t have time to chit chat,” Mer snaps, none too apologetically. “You’re supposed to be there in five minutes.”
“The Uber’s already here.” Glancing at his cell, Knox moves forward to the front door. He pulls it open and cold air rushes into the house. “Come on. Your chariot awaits.”
“You got your wallet? Your keys?” Charlie asks.
I reach into my pockets at the same time that I take a step forward and the dual action proves to be too much because my right knee buckles and my body embarks on a short and dangerous journey to the floor. Simultaneous curses reign. It’s Charlie who grabs me this time. Charlie and Mer.
“Dios mio, you weigh a goddamn ton,” she says, transferring my weight to her other, bigger half. Knox grabs me and he and Charlie help me to the door. “Where are you going?”
“With him, I guess.”
“On his date?” Mer curses. “You and Clifton can’t go alone and Charlie, you can’t go at all. Give me thirty seconds to grab a shirt.”
Clifton laughs. “A group date, it is.”
“Why can’t I go?” Charlie whines.
“Because if you even look at Sara,” Knox says as he helps me out of the door and into the cool, dark night, “I guarantee that Dixon will rip out your throat.”
As we reach the Lexus parked in the center of the driveway Charlie shouts, “How do you know?”
“Because that’s what I would do.” Knox laughs. Mer grins and I can see a surge o
f lust color her expression crimson. I don’t know what it would do to me if Sara ever looked at me like that. Like she wanted me more than anything else.
“Don’t forget to check in,” I grumble. Charlie nods and retreats into the house. As he does, he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, I’m sure to call any number of other women who he’s got on retainer. Just another reminder of why I’m doing this. I may not be enough to deserve her but she sure as hell deserves better than that.
In the Uber we sit three in the back. Me, Knox, Mer and in that order. I keep the window cracked despite the protests of my brothers. I’m burning up, charcoaling from within. She was supposed to be with Charlie alone and now I’m about to rock up with two of my brothers and Mer. As if I weren’t terrifying enough. As if she didn’t already hate me. I never want to arrive. Can’t get there fast enough.
My palms are sweaty and my breathing is shallow and weak. We cross the city in its entirety, the lights on Seventh Street flashing past. Looks like a torch compared to the darkness surrounding her complex though my brothers don’t comment on it, or on the state of the building as we pull into the lot. Suddenly my body has become a battlefield. My mind is clear with the desire to act, but I can’t move. My fingers fumble over the doorknob and from the other side of the car, I hear Mer curse. Her door opens and suddenly she’s standing in front of me.
“No, you stay,” she says as Knox tries to slide out after her. His lips clench together, and he looks at me, then at Mer and back again. “What the hell do you think will happen?”
“Dixon,” Knox growls.
I meet his gaze bluntly and say, “She gets hurt while she’s with me and I’ll give you my life.”
The severity of his face releases, he slouches back into his seat and he crosses his arms over his chest. He nods once, but Mer doesn’t see it. She’s already wrapping my arm around her neck and leading me towards the building. I tell her where to go and she guides me up the stairs and down the hall to Sara’s door. My mouth is dry as ash. I can’t lift my fist. What the hell am I doing? She’s going to take one look at me and slam the door shut and I don’t want or need Mer with me there to see it.
The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 25
