Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One)

by Rachel Dunning

  Rat poison’s a real fave.

  But that’ll be later. Right now, it’s just us. And the music.

  And...that girl.

  -6-

  Into the fourth hour my legs are giving in. Trev’s in his own cloud nine. He grabs my neck like a football and pulls me down to him. (Trev’s a big guy, but few people reach up to my six-four.) “This beat’s the bomb!”

  I see he’s tired as well, sweat pouring down like Niagara on his brow and the sides of his fade hair. He’s taken off his shirt and I swear he looks as large as Adrian Peterson. Dude’s gotten big in the last three years. Mammoth is more the word, and ripped.

  He pulls me down again. “I’m prouda you, homes.” He fixes me with his gaze. I almost can’t look at his honest hazelnut eyes.

  I know what he’s talking about. The E.

  I look over at Skate, lips slightly parted, oblivious to the room even if the roof were to fall on his head right now. Soaked.

  I give Trev a tight nod. I was lucky tonight. I lift up my fist and he taps it.

  I look up at the DJ. She rubs her eyes, still rocks to the music, but I see the exhaustion.

  Not rolling? Impossible...

  A skinnyish Hispanic dude about my age, with curls to his shoulders and wearing red tartan pants, comes over to her and talks in her ear. He holds a plastic bottle out and she grabs it and downs it greedily, spilling some of the water (or Vodka?) on her black tank, not once taking her eyes off the mixer.

  Mr. Curls steps away and plants one on—Oh, my god she’s hot!—another bottle blonde with tits that damn near poke his eye out. He grabs the blonde’s hand in his and raises it up to his lips, looking up at her like the Don Juan he clearly wants to be. Then he slides his hand away from hers as if they’re exchanging—

  Oh, I get it.

  They smooch, and their tongues look like wild snakes in a jungle. It grosses me out a little. Because I can’t help wonder if the hand “exchange” was really just a one way exchange, and if payment for his goods is being expected in another way, at another time. In another place...

  Later.

  Curls moves back to the DJ-chick, talks in her ear. She shakes her head—eyes constantly on the mixer.

  He pauses, looks a little worried, then smiles briefly. He turns to Randy Dhawan behind him and Randy’s smiling. The Hispanic with the designer curls gives Randy a thumbs up. Randy’s bobbing his head—no doubt blasted up to the high heavens himself—and smiles back, thumbs up as well, then nods to the girl DJ.

  Balding or not, Randy’s still sporting one helluva pony-tail with the hair he has left.

  Then Mr. Hispanic Curls turns back to the female DJ, pats her on the back, talks in her ear. She shakes her head again vehemently, eyes locked on her decks.

  He rubs her back a little more, then turns back to Randy and shrugs.

  Randy shouts “Woohoo!” He gets up, starts clapping and—Oh my god—Randy’s heading down to the dancefloor. Randy never heads down to the dancefloor during one of his parties!

  He’s actually partying! His middle-aged big belly rumbles away. He undoes the pony-tail and soon he looks almost like a Native American in a trance.

  Normally he just sits back and watches the crowd, handles interference for the DJ, makes sure things are running smooth, drops a few Es and just lets it all roll. But he never takes his finger off the pulse.

  Whoever this DJ is, she’s got his attention. I wanna pull out my phone and snap a photo. I wanna tweet how totally awesome this party is. I wanna scream out to the world how I’m grooving without an ounce of dope in my system!

  But none of these things are allowed in here. Randy’s rules.

  So, instead, I just dance.

  I dance until dawn.

  Sun comes in through the warehouse windows.

  By eight A.M. the party’s still going. Eventually, the DJ nearly collapses back away from her decks, held up by Mr. Curls. She’s smiling. And he’s completely elated for some reason, pumping a quiet fist up in the air.

  Randy goes up to the decks. He eases the music down and sets a mellow beat on loop. He pulls out a mic.

  Curls leaves the DJ to get down with a redhead, hands all over her nearly naked body.

  Randy: “Party people...give it up for Brooklyn’s hottest undiscovered talent...discovered right here at House Market...DJing solid for a mind-numbing seven unbelievably groovy hours! I’ve been told she can do everything from Hip Hop to Chill to Electro to—as you heard tonight—a mix of genres which is entirely her own. The girl is a genius, a gift from the Underlords of House Music themselves”—and then, when he says her name, it comes out like an announcer at a Heavyweight Title Match—“Give it up for...Brooklyn born and raised: DJ—Heaven—Leighhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  Nice fucking name. I feel like a total groupie, let me tell you.

  DJ Heaven-Leigh sits back, behind the box, drinking liquids, her head falling from exhaustion. Mr. Curls extracts himself from the redhead, goes to the DJ. He claps, then raises the DJs hands like she’s just taken the belt. But when he lets them go, she just drops them.

  She lifts her half-shaved head and gives a wan smile to the crowd. It seems to take all the effort she has. She nods to them, acknowledging their applause. They cheer, they clap, they fucking roar. Randy takes over the box and starts mixing slowdown tunes, Chill House.

  And just like that, bit by bit, the crowd starts to leave. Their voices buzzing audibly about the babe DJ. Several of them go past and she shakes their hands politely enough.

  At twenty-two, I’m too old to be infatuated with someone. But I’ll be damned if this chick with the wild and crazy hair is not the only thing dancing around in my mind right now.

  Trev sucks down the last of the G-Series, then backhands me on the chest. “Let’s beat it. I need to sleep. And all the pussy’s gone home anyway.”

  I look over at Heaven-Leigh. Heavenly indeed, I think. Trev tugs at my arm absently. Skate’s coming down from his high and I see him getting tired.

  I stand firm for a second, wondering if I should go over to her and ask her for a mix tape. That had been the plan at the start of the night. Only now, it’s different. Now that would sound like the lamest pick-up line to ever be uttered by anyone anywhere—like...ever. Because the last thing I want from her now is a freaking mix-tape.

  What I want now, the only thing I want— Call it hormones, fine, I’m weak, I admit it, and I’m also male. But the only thing I want now, is her.

  I want her bad. I want her...in all the ways a dude should (and shouldn’t) want a girl.

  I’m so glad I didn’t roll tonight. Because Molly makes you feel all sorts of shit for all sorts of people. And although I confess this might be a little bit of infatuation—a female DJ, hot as far as sounds go, hot as far as looks go; I like the wild look, always have—I also know that she seems damn interesting. And I’d hate to think I was thinking that only because I’d been rolling. So I’m real glad I didn’t.

  I feel Trev’s grip leave my wrist. Skate lumbers past me. I feel a cool breeze around me from other people’s sudden absence, the body-heat now being replaced by a Sunday morning chill blowing in from some of the broken windows.

  I’m motionless. Staring.

  I decide I’ll go touch fists with Randy, say hi.

  My eyes flick over from her—still sitting behind the DJ box—to the box itself.

  When they flick back to her, she’s looking up at me.

  And she’s smirking.

  -7-

  I head to the DJ box, touch fists with Randy. “Declan baby! Nice to see you! What you think of the set?” He swings his head over at Heaven-Leigh. In his Sri Lankan accent he says, “Da babe is good, eh?”

  I raise my eyebrows, and I mouth, WOW!

  “Hot, eh? Hey, Xavier!”

  Mr. Curls seems to have permanently dropped the redhead—she must’ve gotten what she wanted, and promised to see him “later.” He’s standing next to Heaven-Leigh. Or, as I’m startin
g to think of her, The Heavenliest Heaven There Is. She looks so bad-ass, and yet, so tiny and delicate...

  Mr. Curls comes over to the DJ Box. He puts a hand in his tartans, then pulls it out, gives Randy some skin. And then runs the hand around his greasy hair and looks around like he’s expecting five-oh to jump him or something.

  Uh-huh. As I thought. Dealer. And his name is Xavier. Mental note.

  “Xavier, this is an old friend of mine, Declan Cox.”

  “Cox?” Xavier Curls says to me. “Like the DJ—”

  “Yeah, like Carl,” I say, already anticipating the statement. It’s a regular one around this crowd.

  “Alright, esseh! Cool, man!” Xavier fires an imaginary gun at me. Randy flips some dials and changes the beat, sticks his hand up to let me and Xavier know he’ll turn his attention to us in just a sec.

  “So, where was I?” Randy says. “Oh, yeah, Cox here. Best damn football player Brooklyn’s ever seen.”

  “No, Randy, that’s Trev.”

  “Bullshit. It was both of yooze. That he has the limelight now doesn’t change the facts. He threw, you caught and ran. You guys were dynamite on the field. Beyond increasing my cholesterol levels on Bowl Weekend, I don’t know shit about the game—but what I do know is the two of yooze was chain lightning over at Lincoln.” In Randy’s accent, threw comes out as true. But he’s straight Brooklyn when he says yooze. As in: Da two-a-yooze was chain lightning.

  “How’s your pops?” he asks.

  “Still hating the world as far as I know.”

  Randy rolls his eyes, shrugs. Pops is a slimeball. But compared to Randy’s own father, no truer angel has ever walked the earth. “You still not talkin to him?”

  I shuffle my feet, look around. I’m trying to figure out how to change the subject when Randy puts his finger up again to pause our conversation. He turns a few knobs on the mixer. I stand there uncomfortably for a second. Waiting. Xavier looks wired, eyes too jittery. It looks like he’s got more than a little ice-cream habit going (that’s the same as being a chipper.) Maybe he does a bit of dragon chasing on the side as well. But he doesn’t look like an H addict. Big C? That’s likely. He’s sniffed and run an arm over his noise more than once since I’ve been standing here.

  Dudes like him make me nervous. Time bombs. Like pops’s Catalina.

  Randy turns back to me, forgetting his earlier question. “I put on some premixed Café del Mar so we can talk some more. Had a good roll, Deck-Man?”

  “Uh, no, didn’t roll tonight.”

  “Problem? Xavier here’s our in-house thoroughbred, sells only pure-grade; but you can never turn away the dudes who sell stepped-on shit. Not everyone can afford the high-quality stuff. Hey I got some for you if—”

  “No, no, Randy. That’s not it.” I put my hands up to say I definitely don’t want the drugs. I do too many of them as it is. “No, actually, the sound was so good I outright forgot to drop. By the time Skate was hitting his peak and wanted more, he just took mine.”

  “No shit, eh?” Randy says this with all the disbelief of a guy who’s been in the scene too long—and done too many drugs—to have come to consider that music and drugs are not separately discernible entities. “Well, Xavier here knows her. First time I ever took anyone’s advice on picking a DJ for the night. It was a gamble. But it worked out. She took the spot of two other guys!”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Uncle trouble.”

  “Cops?”

  “Yeah, we were expecting a raid any time tonight because of it. But it seems they kept their mouths shut. Seems one of them was so high he lit up a blunt right next to a Johnny Law! Maybe was for the best. I’m all for a little Molly and weed when doing a mix, but you can’t take that shit too far. You’re working and providing a service for money at the end of the day.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Hey, a bunch of us are gonna mow some grass at a Chillout party at my loft after this. Wanna come?” Mow some grass...

  “Nah, I’m cool. Trev is up here from Penn for a few days, so I’ll be kickin it with him for a bit.”

  “Trev’s in town? Shit! Where is that damned QB?” Randy’s really taken to football—despite his comments to not knowing anything about it. That and strip clubs. Real All-American boy now.

  “Uh, he’s outside. Probably chatting up the seventh chick for the night. But I’ll tell him you say hi. I think he grabbed a few House Market shirts from the merch table on the way out as well.”

  “Awesome. It pays the bills. These parties don’t pay for themselves, you know. Although the record label sales do pick up after the shows anyway. Word of mouth. So maybe they do pay for themselves at the end of the day.”

  “Good to hear. Good to hear. Hey”—I point to the DJ—“I’m just gonna tell her what a kickin set she played.”

  Mr. Curls scowls at me. What is he, her freaking big brother? I ignore him.

  Randy says, “You know she did her entire set without so much as even a sip of Absolut to soothe the nerves? The girl is a musical goddess, I tell you.”

  I don’t comment.

  Xavier Curls is still eying me. In my imagination, I give him the finger.

  When I get to Heaven-Leigh, her head’s down on her arm, which is on her knee. And it looks like she’s sleeping.

  Fuck! For a very brief moment, I consider waking her. But that would be pushing it too far.

  I turn away.

  Back at the DJ box, I say to Randy, “She’s asleep. Would you tell her I thought her stuff was kickin when she wakes up?”

  “Declan, Xavier was just telling me here that she needs a ride home. She’s over on Bogart. By the Morgan station. Xavier would do it, but he’s too loaded to get behind a wheel.”

  Xavier—who is now a little unsteady on his feet—says, “I’m fine. And how can we trust”—he waves a floppy hand at me—“this random guy!?”

  “Xavier, Declan is no Random Guy. And me and him go way back. Heck, he’s also probably moved half the people who came to this party in and out of their apartments when their leases were up—or when they got evicted. How’s business, by the way, Deck-man?”

  “Good, very good. Got a new truck today. Ford F one-fifty—” I remember that Randy’s not much into cars, so I shut up.

  “See? And he’s successful. Not like half these airheads around here complainin about rent and then thinking the world owes them something because they’re ‘artistes.’ You see all those muscles?” He points at me. “Football and furniture removals. Both of them from hard work. And he’s trustworthy. More trustworthy than me, I tell you. If I were your ages and I had that candy in my car”—he points at Heaven-Leigh—“I’d be much less of a gentleman than I’m sure Deck here will be.”

  I swallow. Because it’s true that I wouldn’t take advantage of her. But it’s also true that I find her so damned appealing that I can’t stop thinking about doing just that!

  Randy fixes an eye on me. “Right, Deck-Man?”

  That was a hint. And Randy is too well connected for me to ignore it. Going “way back” has shit to do with it. I swallow a dry lump. “Uhm, right, of course.”

  Xavier sticks a hand in his checkered pants’ pocket—eyes glued to me—and eases out the butt of a small pistol, then slides it back inside; smiles gently. Another hint. OK, Point taken, dudes.

  What gun is he packing, you ask? It wasn’t a Beretta Nano. That’s all I know. Because I’m intimately familiar with that one.

  I look over at Xavier waking Heaven-Leigh up. She wipes her eyes—an entirely human gesture; the goddess down from her pedestal—and I have to look away because Infatuation has taken on graffiti blockbuster dimensions in my head. But, just as I’m doing it, just as my head is skimming left, I catch the gentlest tug of a smile on her lips again as she looks me over. Full, red lips in the shape of a gentle O.

  Oh, damn, the game is on!

  My own lip tugs into a smile of its own. I keep facing the dance floor becaus
e I can’t have her see me all embarrassed like this.

  I’m trying so hard to forget she’s behind me—packing her bag or whatever she’s doing—that I’m a little shocked when she instantly materializes on my left, shaved side of her head—the right—facing me.

  The smell of her rosy-perfume mixed in with her all-night sweat makes me light-headed. She looks up at me with eyes the color of glowing jade. Sweet, searching eyes set in a porcelain face, eyelashes dark and long.

  She’s smiling. She steps in front of me, sticks out her purple-nailed hand. “I’m Blaze Ryleigh. And you’re the guy who was checking me out all night, right?”

  Yeah, uhm, I have no mirror, but I knows me cheeks is swimmin in da redness right about now.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  I grab her hand, shake it.

  “Dig your ink,” she says, looking at the sleeve on my right arm.

  My eyes move over to her own tats—left arm, mirror image—shoulder to wrist. Colors wild and passionate. Crazy red rose on the top, huge; but darker, much darker, images on the bottom. Fucking beautiful.

  I try and say something, but nothing comes up.

  So much for cool.

  She laughs, grabs me by the upper arms, then says, “Let’s get the fuck outta here. You might not be able to talk, but I sure hope you can drive. ’Cause I’m freaking wiped, and I need to sleep.”

  Her hand on my skin is like a sheepskin rug.

  Did I mention the word “infatuated”?

  Well, it isn’t that. This is something else entirely. And damned if I don’t like rolling on it.