by Mary Calmes
He shook his head. “You watch too much TV where everybody works and takes any death seriously. You have to realize, in the real world, with the way bodies pile up in any big city, no one is killing themselves to find out what happened to Benji.”
I nodded.
“If anything, they might go question Adrian if they can make the connection, but he’s careful, right? I mean, if anyone checks, you guys all work at his health club or some bullshit like that, right?”
“Yeah. Right.”
“So,” he shrugged. “Even if there is an investigation, you’ll never know.”
“I guess,” I said, then dropped it.
Talking to Benji’s father was exhausting, and when I finally got to put the nurse on the phone with him, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. I did not want to be the one to coordinate with the morgue or to figure out how Benji’s body would get back to Atlanta. It couldn’t be me, and I was relieved that it didn’t have to be.
“Kady should pay,” I told Conrad in the car as he drove me to my mother’s work later that day. I had to see her before she left for her trip; I wanted to give her some money. I had planned to stop at the bank, but Gabriel’s gift made that unnecessary. I had all the cash I needed on me. “He shouldn’t get away with torturing Benji.”
“No, he shouldn’t,” Conrad agreed. “But from what you told me, Gabriel was on his way to see Kady already. My guess is that whatever revenge you’re planning, Gabe’s gonna try.”
I looked out the window at the gray sky, the drizzle already beginning. “The doctor said he was stabbed and beaten, that it would have taken hours to inflict that kind of damage.”
“Sure.”
I turned to look at him. “If Gabriel can’t get to Kady, can you?”
It took several minutes for him to answer me. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
He cleared his throat. “Just so you know, it’s a big jump from defending yourself to killing someone. You’re talking about premeditation, right? That’s a whole other thing.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, taking a breath.
He cleared his throat. “Did Kady come on to you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I ain’t pretty enough for Ellis Kady, or white enough.”
He scoffed.
“What? I’m not,” I said, holding up my arm, pushing the sweater up so he could see my dark-bronze skin. “I’m darker than you, man.”
He grunted because that was a slight exaggeration.
“And you’re prettier than me,” I teased him. “And you’ve got the cool green eyes; mine are just boring-ass brown.”
Deep annoyed sigh, and I smiled just a little.
“I wonder why that is; your eyes, I mean. I bet there’s a white guy back in your family tree somewhere, huh?”
He was ignoring me.
“I should have the green eyes, since in with the Cuban, there’s Spanish and some German and some French too.”
“Are you still talking?”
“You know, if we were coffee, I’d be something with caramel in it and you’d be, like, a cafe mocha or some shit.”
“Please stop talking.”
I chuckled, turning back to my window, the raindrops hitting it hard now, blurring the world outside.
“Tell me the truth. Did Kady come on to you?”
I coughed softly. “Once.”
“And?”
“He wanted to see what a guy from the hood was like in bed.”
He scoffed.
I turned to look at his profile. “Why is that funny?”
“You? From the hood?” He snickered. “That’s good.”
I grunted because I knew it. My mother had married my father and they had moved to Troy, supposedly away from all the things that could hurt them. After my father was killed walking across the street on his way home, my mother went to work as an office manager for a man who owned a string of dry cleaning stores. She liked it, but it wasn’t enough to take care of her and my sister. So I helped out, putting my sister through college, helping my mother pay the mortgage and her bills, making sure that I stepped in where my father, Donald Bean, would have. I missed the man a lot.
Even after ten years, I still could have used his advice. Mostly I missed that he had never met Landry. I would have liked to see them sit together and talk. I had told him I was gay, and my dad had given me the nod and said okay. He wasn’t sure that I knew everything at fourteen, but he agreed that my sexual orientation was one of those things I could be sure of. He had been surprised but never judgmental or angry or anything. He was the sort of father every kid should have: kind, supportive, and loving.
“Are you listening to me?”
I hadn’t been, I realized. My mind was drifting instead of listening to Conrad. “No, man, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, but look, now, I need you to go into that glove compartment and get the gun there.”
I didn’t really want to, but what was I going to do if somebody broke in during the night? The bat I kept under my bed wouldn’t help if the guys invading my home were armed, and I had to be really close to use my butterfly knife.
“You need a gun.” Conrad shrugged. “The life you have, the life I can’t convince you to leave… you need one.”
“What’s with you and Gabe wanting me to open my restaurant now? You both know I don’t have enough, and I ain’t ready to go yet anyway. I figure three more years, maybe two, I’ll be done, but not right now. I only got sixty saved, man; I need more.”
“Landry can’t—”
“Landry’s money and mine don’t mix for dreams.”
“You used your money to get him started, and then he took out a loan for the rest.”
“Which he’s still paying off,” I told him. “Until what he sells completely covers his costs, all his profit has to go right back into his business. I mean, he’s close, you know. We go see the accountant together and I see his books, but there’s still a way to go.”
“It’s up to you.” He shrugged. “I just need you to understand that I don’t want to see you hurt. Gabe’s trying to get you out; that’s his idea of protection. Mine is a gun.”
“Okay.”
He nodded and tipped his head at the glove compartment. “Go ahead.”
I was expecting something out of The Matrix, of course, but what I got was a Glock 22. It was what most policemen carried, and basically once the safety was off, you aimed and pulled the trigger. Conrad promised to take me to his gun club on the weekend to show me how to shoot it properly, but until then, he wanted me to have it.
“Is it registered to you?” I asked him.
The look I got, like I was just so stupid, was one I actually deserved.
“Sorry. Do you have any guns that are actually registered to you?”
“Of course, just not one I would give you.”
“So what do I do if I’m being chased by a policeman?”
“Why are you suddenly contemplating a scenario where you would be chased by law enforcement?”
“It’s just a question.”
“Jesus,” he groaned.
“C?”
He growled at me. “If you’re being chased by cops, ditch the gun. If you’re being chased by some guys from the neighborhood or someone from Kady’s crew, shoot at them.”
“Cop, ditch; bad guy, shoot,” I teased him. “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”
“I will shoot you myself.”
I started laughing even though I shouldn’t have. He was very dangerous.
“You’re really a wiseass, you know that?”
I did know that, I thought, as some of the tension in my shoulders and neck finally started to dissipate.
“When we get out of the car, I’ll help you with the holster.”
And then it wasn’t funny anymore. “I wish Benji had had a gun.”
“Me too,” Conrad agreed. “At least that way it would’ve been over faster.”
“Why?”
/> “He would have shot at them, and they would have killed him right then.”
I shouldn’t have asked the question.
MY MOTHER was happy to see me. It was her last day of work, since she had asked off starting the following day, Wednesday, to go to Dallas to visit her sister, my Aunt Janet, who just had a baby. It was strange. Her sister was forty-three and having her first child, and my mother at just forty-six had been finished bearing children years ago. I was twenty-four and my sister was twenty-three. She’d had me at twenty-two, when she met and fell in love with my father. Everyone had said she was too young, but now, when she was still really young with no children in her house, she was free to do whatever she wanted.
“When are you going to take a real vacation?” I smiled at her from where I was leaning on the counter above her.
“After the first of the year,” she said softly, her eyes flicking up to me and then away. “Marissa and Clover and Patrice and Judy and I are going to Jamaica.”
I chuckled, and when she looked up, she was scowling.
“What?”
“You know what,” I teased her.
“No I do not, or I would not be asking.”
“It’s like that movie, How Stella Got Her Groove Back.”
She growled at me. “I’m gonna hit you.”
I smiled bigger and braced for the smack with her pen.
“You and I both know that a man for me is out of the question,” she assured me, making my knuckles sting where she hit them with the pen. “I won’t be—”
“Don’t say that,” I told her, reaching into the breast pocket of my coat. Gabriel had given me money, which had shortened the number of places I’d had to go. Not having to stop at the bank had been nice. I had separated the cash out in the car on my way over. “Here, this is for your trip and for the mortgage payment this month.”
She took the envelope and looked inside. “Trevan.” Her head snapped up, her dark brown eyes on mine. “There’s twenty-five hundred dollars here.”
“I know, but you might need to get Aunt Janet stuff, and you need to pay the mortgage, like I said. I was gonna come see you tonight, but my plans changed, so this is better. I wanted to hit you up before you left.”
“Honey, you have a restaurant to save up for and—”
“I know, Mom, but you need things too.”
She nodded. “Thank you, baby, this helps, and now I don’t have to owe Aunt Janet for the plane ticket. I felt bad about that.”
“There, see.”
She stood up, leaned forward, and kissed my cheek. “How’s Landry?”
“He’s fine,” I lied, realizing that I was more than tired and really not able to hold onto my good mood or my fake smile much longer. I loved her and I’d wanted to see her before she left, but I was beat. “I gotta go, though; he’s expecting me for dinner.”
“Of course, you go ahead and go.”
I smiled at her, my mother, Serena Bean. “You’re so beautiful.”
“You’re full of crap, but I love you.” She beamed at me. “Come around here and hug me proper and then get out.”
I did as she said, very careful not to let her put her arms anywhere but around my neck. All I needed was her bumping the gun. I would never hear the end of it, and the questions about the true nature of my business would be interminable. I was in no way prepared to get into that with her, and I didn’t want her getting on the plane tomorrow pissed off at me.
“When I get home, I want you and Landry to come for dinner. He wants to learn to make bouillabaisse, and I promised I’d teach him.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I smiled at her, squeezing her tight, unable to help myself.
“I love you,” she sighed, letting me go. “But these barrels in your ears are just—”
“Plugs, Mom,” I teased her. “Rico has barrels—they’re hollow—but I have plugs.”
She made a face. “Why you have to put those in your ears? You and your cousin? Why?”
“’Cause I like it,” I teased her. “Just like I like the huge-ass tattoo on my back and shoulders and arms that you hate.”
She had never wanted me to have the tattoo, but it had been for my father, to honor him and his belief in the afterlife, the wings around the cross to represent heaven, my testament on my flesh for him. It was enormous, covering my back, shoulders, biceps, and triceps, the lines tribal but intricate, done lovingly by my cousin Manuel, scrolling and delicate and thick and heavy, all of it flowing beautifully, seamlessly. It had taken a year for him to finish it all the way he wanted, his masterpiece. He appreciated me letting him take pictures of it to put in his book at his shop. When he had had to add onto it for Landry, finally putting color to my skin as well, he had been thrilled. I had never told him how necessary it was.
Outside on the street, I was surprised to see Conrad parked at the corner. When I reached the black SUV, the tinted black passenger-side window rolled down slowly.
“Why are you still here?”
“Because I want to drive you to Landry’s gallery, and then I won’t worry.”
I sighed heavily. “So can I go out? Can I go to a club, see a movie—I mean, seriously, how fucked am I?”
“You’re not. You don’t go near any casinos, any of your regulars, and if you see anyone out and they ask you anything, you say you ain’t working. But you do need to get out of town for maybe a week. Can Landry do that?”
I suddenly thought of his brother Chris. “Maybe. You wanna hear something funny?”
“Yeah, funny would be good. Get in the car.”
As he drove me to Landry’s gallery, Asil, I explained about Landry’s brother showing up out of the blue.
“That’s fucked up.”
And I agreed that it was.
“You’re doing it again.”
I was snapped from my explanation. “Doing what?”
He smiled at me. “Whenever you’re worried, you either rub the top of your head or over your heart with your right hand.”
“I knew about rubbing my head, but I rub my chest?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh, I wonder why.”
“’Cause that’s where the L is.” He assured me.
ALONG with my entire back and shoulders being covered in a heavy black tribal tattoo, another design had been added above the cross: a ribbon that looked like it was laid over my skin. It spilled over my left shoulder, thickening and thinning down over my left pectoral and branching out, becoming roots over my heart where the Old English L was, entwined with roses and thorns. That was Landry, a rose with horrible, deadly, wicked, sharp thorns. He had nearly fainted when he saw it; he had needed it there, so ready to mark me himself if I had not asked Manuel to do it for me.
I never told anyone about waking in the night to him standing over me with a knife. It was small, one of my switchblades, chosen for carving, not stabbing, but still sharp, still able to kill me. He was breathing hard, stroking himself and looking at me with glazed eyes.
“Whatcha doin’, babe?” I asked him, voice calm, swallowing down my fear, reaching for him.
He didn’t even see me, intent on my chest, tugging and pulling on his hard, heavy cock, his breath catching, his body trembling.
I waited and he let go. His seeping dick twitched as he bent toward me, his slick left hand went down on my sternum, the other holding the knife like a scalpel.
“What’re you gonna do?” I asked, reaching for him, my fingers closing around his hard, wet length.
“Carve my name in your skin so everyone knows you’re mine.”
I squeezed and he hissed out his pleasure, head back, eyes closed, his intent to cut me forgotten as he moaned my name. Rolling out of bed, I went to my knees and took his cock down the back of my throat fast and hard, sucking violently so he could feel it even through the haze of whatever had come over him.
He palmed the back of my head, as there was no hair to grab hold of, and tried to push his way in even deeper. When I brushe
d his hand off and pulled back, he whimpered loudly.
“Are you awake?” I asked, licking from the base of his long, beautiful cock to the tip and back again, too turned on to worry about the fact that he still had a switchblade in his right hand. I fondled his heavy balls, loving the feel of them. “Baby?”
There was only gibberish coming from him, only sounds, no words, as I licked the glistening head before stretching my lips around it, taking the length of his thick, leaking erection back into my mouth.
“Trev,” he managed to get out as I sucked and nibbled and stroked, my cheeks hollowed out with the force, my tongue creating swirling pressure. “Gonna come… swallow it all… drink me.”
I moaned and he exploded in my mouth, hot semen hitting the back of my throat as I swallowed frantically, gulping, hearing him yell, one of his hands digging painfully into my shoulder as he fucked my mouth.
Knowing that he loved to see his spunk on my skin, I shoved him off me. He froze, standing there, letting cum spurt from the flared head as he shuddered through his climax. I watched and waited, and when he was done, still frozen, I watched thick wet semen slide back down his shaft to his balls. I saw some of it drip to the floor, and some of it was on me, on my collarbone, cooling on my skin. Only then, when he was shuddering with aftershocks, did his eyes flutter as he suddenly saw me.
“Trev?”
I squinted at him as I stood up, the two inches of height I had on him still enough to make his head tip back.
“Oh shit,” he gasped, realizing he had a knife in his hand, letting it drop open to the floor.
“Jesus, Landry,” I griped, jumping back. “You never drop an open knife.”
“What the fuck?”
I picked up the weapon, retracted the blade, and placed it on the nightstand.
“Trevan?”
“Were you sleepwalking?” I asked gently, turning back to him, putting my hands on his face. I knew he did that sometimes, having had entire conversations with him when he was not awake.
“No, I….” He shivered and moved closer to me, his hands sliding over my hips. “Your dick is hard.”
Of course it was. I had just given my boyfriend a blowjob. “Never mind, what were you doing?”
