Our Muted Recklessness (Muted Hopelessness Book 2)

by Love Belvin

  I felt myself blinking hard.

  Fuck…

  This was the NormaJean? The one everyone had been whispering about? Ashton’s best friend that he’d clearly fucked at some point in his life. This woman looked like a glass doll, perfect. Too perfect. Her makeup was flawless. Aivery wore eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss for the most part. But this woman face’s was beat well: lashes, perfectly arched brows, lightly bronzed cheeks.

  “KaToria,” she sounded out my full name.

  How does she know—

  A seductive smile spread across her face as she lifted the champagne glass to her mouth for a sip. When she was done, she caught what her mouth missed with her tongue. That’s when the gravity of all this shit hit me. She was one of the chicks on the porn videos Ashton and I watched in New York.

  My mind was spinning, completely overwhelmed by all going on around me. To add to the fuckery, Ashton began dancing on my ass.

  “Is it just infatuation…” he tried singing high-pitched, but low for only me to hear. I had no idea of the song, but listened to the lyrics.

  “‘Infatuation,’ ahhhh…” NormaJean’s breathy laughter had my attention returning to her. “How ironic?” She watched him “perform” his two-step on me.

  This was a side of Ashton I’d never seen, but liked on the low low. I would have much preferred it when we were alone. The flash of angry an squint in NormaJean’s twinkling eyes told me she didn’t like it either, though she watched with her glass resting on her red lips.

  Ashton stopped singing to chastise me. “Speak, KaToria.”

  I was being weird. That’s what he meant.

  “Who’s singing this?”

  “NormaJean’s boy, Jamie Foxx.”

  NormaJean’s breathy laughter burst in the air. “Are you serious!” She waved him off. “That was so long ago, like this song. I remember when it came out.”

  Ashton’s apartment phone rang. “Damn. That’s my cousin calling me about my aunt’s birthday party.” He kissed my neck. “I’ll be ready for you as soon as I’m done.” He then left my back and moved toward his “best friend.” “NormaJean, baby girl, thanks for coming through. Now that you’ve met her, I can now give her a proper Valentine’s Day. Call me when you land.”

  Ashton went to kiss her cheek, but as she eyed me hard, NormaJean went for his lips. That shit nipped at me. It happened so quickly, even her wiping his mouth as he took off for the back of the apartment.

  “Well, Marv.” She sighed, laying her glass on the counter. “We’re being kicked out. Let’s let these lovers do what lovers do.” Her smile wouldn’t fade. Until she grabbed her black, top handle designer bag. I knew it had to be designer, based on her shoes and belt. Her face went hard as stone. “FU.”

  “What?”

  “FU, the letters. While enjoying fucking Ashton, remember those two letters can be an analogy, as they both can begin words like fucking and future.” Her voice was soft, yet strong, and each word flowed smoothly. “But fucking Ashton absolutely does not lead to a future with him.” Her eyes dropped to my tits again. “I could show you how to use them to do more than he’s taught you already.” She made a clicking sound with her mouth. “But then that’d be teaching you how to delay the inevitable between him and Aivery.” She began for the hallway to leave. “You do know that will be resuming soon enough, right?”

  She was out of my eyesight before finishing her question. The big guy, Marv, too. I stood in the middle of the living room with my head spinning. What the hell just happened?

  And how did I not know NormaJean was a fucking porn star?

  “Nabby-girl.” His thick voice had me spinning around. Ashton carried a big box filled with a bouquet of red and black roses. The black ones formed into a K. “Happy Valentine’s Day, champ. I didn’t know if you were a flowers girl, so I may have overdone it.”

  Flowers. Suddenly, I remembered walking in to rose petals. I turned around and saw small bouquets everywhere. And candles. They lit the entire living room.

  When I swiveled back to him, Ashton caught me in the mouth with a kiss. He held me at the small of my back, faces pressed together.

  “C’mon. I’m starving. And I got the night off, so you’re mine until tomorrow morning at six-fifty nine.”

  I couldn’t speak. He didn’t give me a chance before yanking me behind him on the way to the kitchen.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  -THEN-

  As I walked toward the office, I could see her head down as she scribbled with a pen on a writing pad. My steps were heavy, long, needing to get to her. Coming out of nowhere with his face in the stack of folders, Collin had me stumbling over my feet. He didn’t look up, too focused on balancing the bundle in his arms. I was relieved when he made a right, heading down the opposite hall.

  Trisha didn’t even notice me. Either that or she didn’t acknowledge having someone walk into her office. That was until I pushed the door closed.

  “Trisha.” My voice was so small.

  Her head shot up. Big eyes hit me, then the door finally shut.

  She squinted. “What’s up?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to figure out where to start. Then I decided to take a seat on the small couch on the side of her desk. Instead of stretching out, I sat up, putting my elbows on my knees as I turned my cell phone over and over and over in my hands. Why was I so nervous?

  “I need to ask you something.”

  I could hear her drop the pen and turn my way. The chair creaked, too.

  “Okay…”

  It took a few seconds, but I finally went with, “When a boy—guy—goes down on you and makes you…” I tried explaining with my hands when my mouth went dry.

  “Orgasm? Have an orgasm?”

  My head bobbed so hard as I stared at her feet, my jaw hurt. “Yeah. That.”

  “What about it, Tori?”

  I took another deep breath and finally looked her in the face. “When he finishes, then jumps right into…” My hands were in the air again, flipping and curling. “Sex.”

  “Wait.” She stopped me. “Why did he finish or stop?” Her forehead was crazy wrinkled.

  My chest opened, stomach felt light, and for a quick second, I could feel him inside me again. I came so hard and for so long that it still scared me. Valentine’s Day would forever be a whole ass sensual vibe for me moving forward because of what we’d done in the morning and last night going into this morning. “Because I…finished.”

  “With that orgasm?”

  My head dropped. “I said that from the jump.”

  She blinked hard and fast as she nodded. “I just wanted to be sure.”

  I almost laughed, but wanted to get on with my question more. “So when he gets into it and—”

  “Penetration?” She lowered her chin.

  “Yeah, that.” This time, I did laugh a little, rolling my eyes. She was making this painful.

  “Okay. I just want to be sure you’re being taken care of.” She balled her mouth.

  “When he gets right into it…” I rolled my wrists to help describing it. “Penetration. And he’s not even into it long, and you do it again—I mean…it happens again.”

  Her eyes grew so big, it scared me. “Another orgasm?”

  I felt so drained about it all, I wanted to cry. Being separated from Ashton had been hard this semester. Yes, I’d been busy with boxing and my new classes, but not seeing him every day was messing with me. He was right. Ashton was dead serious about ruining my peace. It was my mental peace, specifically. He warned me to not sleep with him, and I had. A lot. And he did things to me I’d never imagined. Ashton made my body feel things I didn’t think were included in the act of sex. Orgasms felt good physically, but they also softened me emotionally. That was no good for me. I couldn’t be “soft.” Life hadn’t been soft for me in years. I needed to be strong to protect myself. My Margaret was no longer here to do it for me. Besides, I was grown now. I could do it for myself.

&
nbsp; Until Ashton Spencer…

  I managed to nod my head, biting my lip. “Yeah. And this one’s different from the first one. It felt like it happened in the same place, but a different way.” Her mouth dropped, making me look away. I felt naked, exposed from that. “Never mind.” I stood to go.

  “No.” Her voice was firm. “Sit down, Tori.”

  “I ain’t think it would be a big deal for me to ask you questions—”

  “It’s not. I swear, it really isn’t.” Her hands were in the air. “It’s totally cool for you to come and ask any questions you may have. It’s my job to be here for you.”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  “You’re right.” Her head dropped to her lap. “I didn’t mean it that way. I want to be here for you. I like you a lot, Tori; you know this.”

  “Then why are you acting like I did something wrong?”

  “I’m not! You didn’t!” She shook her head, eyes still big. “I was just caught off guard.”

  “Okay. So, can you now get over it and maybe answer my question?”

  “Right!” Her index finger bounced in the air. “I can do that.” Then she snapped her fingers. “It means your very talented…lover rendered you two awesome orgasms, and in short successions. There’s nothing wrong with you…or him, apparently.”

  “Then why did I feel so…crazy, out of control?”

  “Because orgasms are powerful sensations. Your heart rate, blood pressure, and lung activity increase during orgasms; it’s a huge physiological and emotional undertaking.” See! I knew it! I’m emotionally fucked. “And then when you have multiple and so close together, as you did, and you’re not prepared for them, it can take you on a head trip.”

  I panicked. “So, I’m crazy now?”

  “No!” Her hands shot into the air again and she mumbled, “Could’ve been after enduring all of that, but no.” Trish’s voice was clearer when she answered. “Your brain is still intact.”

  “How do you know?”

  Trisha sat back in her chair and bit her fingernail. “Because you came in here trying to make sense of it.” Her eyes returned to me. “You’re fine, Tori. Just tell me you’re protecting yourself.”

  “I am!”

  “Are you on birth control—”

  I jumped to my feet again and headed to the door. “Thanks for the chat, Trish.”

  As I closed the door behind me, I heard her return, “Bye, Tori.”

  “And I’m digging into those guts like Bubble Shooter,” Al murmured with a tense expression, reenacting it by thrusting his pelvis into the air. “She’s moaning, ‘Oh, big Al, your dick game. Your dick game!’ like a fucking porn star.” His eyes were closed, face tight.

  I sat on a bench in the weight room on a break from training, cracking the hell up. I came over to say whaddup to my old crew and, somehow, we found ourselves in a cipher, shooting the shit.

  “Get on with the story,” Ebony, a lady Panther on the basketball team, demanded. “You been telling this story for four minutes, and we know your ass don’t last that long.”

  I fell back into Dre behind me, howling.

  Al sucked his teeth, pausing in his sex position. “Shut the hell up, you girl. Anyway.” He continued air-humping. “So, I’m talking my shit. You like this big motherfucker, don’t you? She moaning hard. She tells me to go harder, and my ass give her what she asks for. Now, we both moaning. Then she scream my name, ‘Oh, Big Al! Oh, Big Al! Yes! Yes!’ Shit! Then I bust all up in her. When we were done, I fell out on the bed. Her ass rolled over to face me, and the bitch had the nerve to say, ‘You think I can get Ashton Spencer’s number now?’”

  “Ahhhhhhhhh!” the group responded at the same time, laughing.

  I grabbed my damn stomach, laughing so hard. Al loved promising girls a shot with me if they fucked him first.

  “You, too?” Dre asked. “I had this girl from back at home do the same fucking thing!”

  I couldn’t catch my breath, half my damn body hanging off the weight bench.

  “Y’all need to stop,” Ebony chastised, laughing her damn self.

  “Spencer!” My head whipped to one of the doors of the weight room. Standing in, midway through, was Trisha Gaskin. I tossed my chin her way, acknowledging her. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Oh shit, Spence!” Dre whispered. “The fuck you did now?”

  A few snickered.

  Al whistled. “Yo, she looking vexed as hell!”

  I chuckled as I stood and made my way over. “What’s up, Gaskin?”

  Using her head, she pointed down the hall. Without a word, I paced that way.

  “In Mark’s office,” she ordered randomly.

  I ambled inside and, behind me, she closed the door as I turned to face her.

  “Tori McNabb is important to this athletic program.”

  My face tightened, confused as fuck. “Okay.”

  “And her welfare here is largely my responsibility,” she continued.

  “Okay.” My chin met the top of my chest.

  “And you were asked to tutor last semester.”

  I spread my legs wide and folded my arms over my chest. “Did I not do that?”

  She scoffed, nose wide and forehead hiked. “Seems to me you were doing more than helping her learn about basic writing!”

  “So, there’s a problem with two athletes in this program—or two students at BSU—being friends?”

  “You have a girlfriend, Spencer.”

  This shit was getting annoying as fuck. “No, I do not. And even if I did, would that mean I can’t be friends with a peer?”

  She crossed her arms and shook her head. “Not the way you and Tori are!”

  My heart began to fucking pound. I couldn’t tell right away why, though.

  “Maybe we should call A. D. Jones in here for some interpretation, because I’m not getting the purpose of what I’m feeling like is a confrontation.” The bass in my voice couldn’t be helped. Fuck that. I didn’t answer to Trisha Gaskin! “What’s wrong with us being friends, Gaskin?”

  She stepped closer into my person, too boldly. “You’re fucking her. That’s what’s wrong, Ashton!”

  I hoped she didn’t sense my wincing. Trisha Gaskin gave me shit about Tori the beginning of last semester. I thought we were past that. This was the last thing I was expecting to hear. And for a moment, I was dazed as hell, unable to say shit. What the fuck had Tori said to her? I hadn’t seen her since the morning after Valentine’s Day, which was two days ago. She didn’t mention anything to me via BBM, neither had she called.

  “Ashton!” Her tone was more pleading than angry now. “She’s different.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  Trisha shook her head, waggling her index finger. “I’m a grown ass woman; not an adolescent child. You can’t get me with that weak ass ‘special’ category. Is she just as special as Aivery or a different type of ‘special’?”

  Way, way different! Different universe…

  “What do you want me to say, because I’m not answering shit about Aivery.”

  “Why, Ashton? Because that’s when it gets too personal? That’s when we get to see the gradient of ‘special’ in your mind?” Again, I was speechless. I didn’t owe Trisha Gaskin a tour of my personal life, but I respected her defense of Tori. “She’s innocent in more ways than even she realizes. The new designer wardrobe, hair, concert, flights home—”

  Air vacuumed from my damn lungs. “How do you know about…”

  Her switching weight on her hips, and maintaining that Black ass woman’s glare told me everything.

  “She’s been scared!”

  “Tori told you she’s scared of me?” I pointed to my chest.

  “It’s not you, per se. It’s her heart, her head, her future. She’s outside of her comfort level here at BSU. She doesn’t fit in with kids like you and Aivery.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “She has no safety net! Ther
e’s no trust fund beneath, waiting to catch her when or if she fails. The only thing she has as tools are the talent in her fists and a pure heart. So much damage can be done here on this campus, because she’s getting mixed up between two kids who’re on the cusp of adulthood, and with a cushion that can afford you to fail for the rest of your lives and you’d be fine. Don’t put her at risk of being hurt beyond repair just for something fun to do, or because her Cimmerian background is exotic to your curiosities.”

  My heart dropped to the floor. “Is that what you think?” I asked. “That Tori coming from a trailer park in nowhere South Jersey makes her an easy target for manipulation? I get off on underprivileged tomboys? Are you listening to yourself right now?”

  “What does she have in common with debutant Aivery?”

  “Not a fuckin’ thing!” Spit slung from my mouth as rage flared in my damn chest at that comparison. “You ever think the very thing that makes our friendship is that she’s nothing like I’ve seen or deserve?” Trisha’s mouth dropped, and my fucking anger increased at the fact that I’d just exposed myself to her. “She’s more than special. She’s rare, and so not like me. You think me giving her shit satisfies my ego? What if I can’t afford what can express my fuckin’ gratitude for her wanting to be my friend, Gaskin!” I barked.

  Her mouth closed and shoulders lifted and dropped as she stumbled backward. She was out of breath and still angry, but quiet. Her eyes eventually fell to the floor, bouncing left and right. “I guess I may not have fully understood the depth of your friendship.”

  “You’re not supposed to!” Her head swung up. “My friendship with Tori is between Tori and me only. Not only is it fuckin’ complicated, it’s precious to me. I can’t speak for her, but I’m aware of the position I’m in.”

  Aware that I’m about to embark on a future that wasn’t planned with her. And that shit scares me to fucking death! It’s even bad now, being on the same campus as her without seeing, speaking to, or touching her.