by Mj Fields
“I haven’t danced in—”
“I know how your body moves, Ray; you can dance. I’ll help you get your rhythm.” He grips my hips and sways them back and forth. “Close your eyes and feel it, Ray.” When I roll my eyes, he pouts out his bottom lip. “Please? For me?”
Before I can say a thing, he twirls me so my back is to him, and I close my eyes and let him lead me.
When I look back, he’s staring at my ass, his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes heavy and filled with lust. That’s when I decide I could probably give him something more to look at.
I place my hands over his and begin moving on my own. I shake my ass, the one genetics graced me with and my mom taught me how to move.
“Fuck, Ray,” he groans, encouraging me.
When the chorus begins, I step forward, bend slightly, and twerk a bit while slowly running my hands to the beat up my sides while dancing in a small circle to face him.
“The fuck?” he growls.
I shrug. “My mom was a dancer.”
“Show me what you got, but no promises I will be able to keep my hands to myself.”
I put my hands on his hips. “I’ll teach you some moves that white boys just can’t seem to master.”
He laughs. “Ray, you fucking know better.”
I wink. “Follow along, your highness.”
“Finesse” by Bruno Mars starts, and I poke him in the chest. “Can you do this?” I shake my hips in double-time as I turn in an exaggerated circle and pop my ass back into him. Then I look over my shoulder. “Well?”
“Ray, that’s child’s play.” He laughs and does the same thing.
Gaw … he’s so damn hot.
“How about this?” I put my hands above my head, one hand gripping the opposite wrist. Then I shake my ass as I drop it down really low and bounce a bit.
His jaw comes unhinged a bit, and then he grabs my hands, pulls me up, throws me over his shoulder, and starts toward the door.
Lou yells, “Bring my girl back here, Cohen!”
He turns around, and I swear he’s going to drop me. I can’t stop laughing.
When my ass hits the bar, I look up, still laughing.
“You’re double-fucked tonight, Ray; you hear me? Double-fucked.”
An arm is wrapped around me from behind, and then someone pulls me back.
“No asses on the bar!”
I spin around and hop down.
One dance and I go from band geek to prom queen. All the girls who like to rub up and down on the boy now want to be my friend, but I have no damn time for friends.
When I roll my eyes at the them, Lou whispers, “Those girls bring the guys who bring the money. Would it kill you to be nice?”
“I am nice, Lou,” I defend, mixing up some drinks for my new fan club.
He laughs. “Try harder, would ya, kid?”
One of the girls yells to me, “Come dance with us!”
Lou nudges me, and I shoot him daggers.
He scowls back. “Play nice.”
“They think I’m an in.”
“So use it.” He holds up a card. “This one has Daddy’s black card and is buying a round for the bar.” He points to a sign, but I don’t have time to sound out all the letters.
“I’m here to mix drinks, Lou, not read.”
“Twenty percent tip added to all credit card orders,” he tells me. “That’s a big damn tip by the end of the night, Keeka. Not asking you to let her cop a feel, but a damn dance won’t kill you.”
“Fine, Lou, but—”
He swings the end of the bar up and shoves me lightly like I did to Trucker. “Go dance.”
Jason Derulo’s “In My Head” is playing, and the white girls with no rhythm are dancing. And then, then there is me.
I feel someone behind me, dancing with me. Then he says, “Nice pooper.”
I turn around and glare at … Logan.
His eyes pop out. “I didn’t fucking mean that.”
I make the sign of a zipper across my lips.
“Trucker!” he yells.
The next person dancing behind me, I know … intimately, by smell, by touch, and well … intimately.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, placing a hand on my hip.
I look up. “Lou’s making me dance with the girl who has a black card. He’s whoring me out.”
He makes his brows jump. “Is that so?”
I turn and shrug. “I don’t like girls, and I have no idea what the hell a black card is, but he’s Lou, so I do what I have to do—what he tells me to.”
He smirks and shakes his head. “You’re fucking beautiful, Ray.”
When he leans in to kiss me, I lean back, still dancing, still shaking it. He smirks and takes a drink.
I turn around, my back to him, and do as Jason says, I break it down.
As we are cleaning up, Lou is in his office with Mitch, the DD for tonight, and Logan and Trucker, the … not so sober guest bartenders, while the rest of the guys who are riding with Logan are drinking water, I can’t help listening in on their conversation. They are talking about the bright futures their captains are sure to have with admiration.
One of them laughs. “But Trucker will be the one to throw it all away by falling for some piece of ass like bar titties over there. He’ll get her knocked up, and she’ll take him for all he’s worth.”
They all laugh.
“Links will be a fucking star. He has his dad’s connections, so he’ll skate through regardless. He’ll be the Hugh Hefner of the NFL.”
So much for admiration, assholes.
“Let’s roll,” Mitch booms, and they all get up and head toward the door.
Logan turns and looks at me. “Cat’s out of the bag now, Keeks. Might as well drive his ass home and stay.”
When he walks out, I look at the floor. I don’t want to stay. I don’t want those assholes talking about Trucker that way. If I hear them do it again, I may knock their teeth out.
“You gonna take me home and take advantage of me, Ray?”
I look up and see Trucker yawn as he reaches his hand out to give me the keys.
“Get him home, Keeka.” Lou laughs. “He needs his beauty sleep. He’s gonna present a five-thousand-dollar check to the hospital, live on the news tomorrow.”
Outside, I am the one opening the door for Trucker and making sure he’s buckled in as he tries to feel me up. Luckily, he’s so drunk it doesn’t take much to get him to behave. If he wasn’t, I would let him do whatever he wanted to me.
I get in the truck and start it up.
“No chick has every driven Boom. Take it easy on her, Ray.”
“Wait. Your dick and your truck have the same name?”
He grins a sloppy yet sexy, drunken grin. “They sure do.”
I put the truck in drive and ease out onto the road.
“You’re doing great, Ray.”
At the stop light, he leans over and kisses me. And of course, I kiss him back.
When the light turns green, I take my foot off the brake and hit the gas.
I glance over as he kisses my hand. He looks up and his face illuminates, angelic.
“Ray!” he screams, and then I hear metal on metal and feel the door slam into me as the vehicle gets shoved sideways.
“Fuck, fuck! Ray, are you okay?” He grabs my face, and I nod. “I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.”
He swings his door open, and I fear what he said will come true.
“Trucker!” I yell, and he stops and looks back as I fumble with the seatbelt.
He leans in and unbuckles it before helping me over the console.
Once out of the truck, he holds me. “You okay?”
I hear sirens and look up at him. “I’m fine.”
I hear Reda yelling, “Are you two okay?”
I look up at Trucker. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good. Fucking sober now, too.”
“Lou’s calling an ambulance,” Reda pants out. “Cops
are on their way.”
“Cops?” I ask, suddenly terrified.
“Good thing you didn’t drive, Trucker.” She shakes her head. “You’d be in a world of shit.”
Think, I scream in my head. Think!
“Reda, I had a couple of drinks. My license is expired. My—”
“Then, why the fuck you driving my truck?” Trucker’s shocked.
“Hey, you two, no need to fight. I haven’t had a drop and my license is clean. I was driving tonight, okay?” Reda hugs me as I shake. “It’s okay.”
Trucker looks at me and shakes his head. “That was fucking stupid shit, Ray. Real fucking stupid.”
I stand back as the police talk to Reda and Trucker. I watch as the driver of the black car is given a sobriety test, and then he is cuffed and put in the police car.
Trucker walks over to me. “That could have been you tonight. Don’t you ever pull that shit again, ever.”
I nod my head up and down. “Okay. Never. I promise.”
“You need a ride home, Trucker?”
“That would be great, Lou.”
“Let me grab my car.”
He turns back and looks at me. “Why did you not tell me you were drinking?”
I shrug and look down.
“Look at me, Ray.”
I look up.
“When did you drink?”
When I look left, he snaps, “Truth.”
I feel my chin begin to quiver. “I didn’t.”
“So, it was the expired license?”
I nod.
“Do you know how fucked I’d be if Reda didn’t cover for your ass?”
I shake my head and swallow hard.
“I built that truck. Took me four fucking years and every dime I had extra of went into it. Someone without a license drives it and gets in a wreck, doesn’t matter whose fucking fault it is, I lose. Me, Ray, not you!”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Jesus, Ray, Logan’s truck. You fucking drove his, too. Was your license expired then?”
I can’t even look at him. I can’t allow another lie to come between us.
“It’s fake,” I whisper as a tear falls.
“What the fuck? Are you serious?”
I nod.
“Why the fuck do you have a fake ID?”
I can’t look at him, can’t breathe, can’t move.
“Holy shit, Ray, holy fucking shit.”
I see Lou’s car coming toward us. “Please don’t tell him, Trucker. I need this job.”
“How fucking old are you?” he whisper-hisses.
Again, I avert my eyes, and this time, he grabs my chin and forces me to look at him.
“Answer the fucking question, Ray.”
“Eighteen”—I swallow hard—“in two months.”
I watch his face turn from shock to disgust.
“You stay the fuck away from me, you lying little …” He stops, and now he looks hurt, and it’s my fault.
I feel a sharp pain in my chest. I think my heart is breaking.
“Stay away from me.”
I nod. “Okay.” Tears fall down my face as I say it again, “Okay.”
Walking up the stairs to my apartment after an undetermined amount of time, I close the door and lock it behind me. Then I drop the keys on the floor and walk into the bathroom, where I lean over the sink and prepare to throw up.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Under
Trucker
I did the fucking fundraiser bullshit, came home, and crashed. I hated that I looked at my phone a million times, practically willing her to send me the sun so I could tell her she could shove it up her seventeen-year-old ass.
Logan keeps asking me what’s up, but I told him it was a hangover and Boom. Funny how double-edged that fucking statement is, too. Hungover as fuck from drinking the Keeka Kool-Aid for over five fucking months, Boom the truck being totaled, and Boom my cock trying to crawl up inside itself because of the shame of where it had been …
The kiddy pool.
I wish I liked hairy asses, because I would jump ship right now and mow down on a big, hairy asshole, because women are a bunch of lying bitches.
Next time I got a hard-on, I was going to fuck my hand and pretend it’s Meryl Streep or some shit.
I look down at my hand and shake my head.
I hear a knock on my door and look up. Logan.
“Got a minute?”
“Yeah.” I sit up.
“You’ve been out of touch lately, so I thought I’d tell you … Ava’s dating T.”
“T? As in, the drummer for Burning Souls?”
He nods.
“I always thought Luke Lane and her—”
“Me, too. But yeah, since Christmas.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Pisses me off. She’s like family.
“Bro, you’ve been practically living with Keeks since then.” He shrugs.
“I didn’t live with her,” I snap.
He looks at me like I have lost my shit then nods. “I get it now.”
“What do you get?” I ask defensively.
“You’re pissed she had Reda drive you home?”
“No,” I say in a voice that resembles my puberty years.
He gives me the look, the one that’s always followed by, “I call bullshit.”
I get up and shut my bedroom door. “This is between you and me. No one else. Got it?”
“Do you even have to fucking start with that? It’s always you and me. I don’t spill your shit to anyone.”
“She was driving …” I sigh, close my eyes, and continue, “She gets out and tells me that she’s been drinking. Then she tells me her license is expired.”
“Ouch.” He sighs.
“Then Reda comes out and says she’ll say she was driving.”
“That’s a friend, man.”
I nod. “Then I see bullshit, so I call it.”
“Go on.”
“She didn’t drink a drop.” I flop back on my bed.
“So, it was the license thing?”
I look at him and take a deep breath. “She doesn’t have a fucking license, so I lit into her about that. She drove Boom and Black Betty; how fucked up is that?”
“Fucked up, but it all worked out, so get over it, man. She’s cool as shit.”
I sit up and lean in to tell him, “She’s seventeen years old, Logan.”
Silence. Dead fucking silence.
“You’ve been eye-fucking London Fields for a good year now and—”
“I have not,” he snaps.
“Bullshit. And I’m not bringing it up to rub your damn nose in it, Logan. I’m bringing it up because you haven’t even attempted to tap that ass. So, here I am, doing—”
“London will be eighteen in a couple weeks, and I’m still not gonna try to tap it.”
“Well, thanks for making me feel even worse, asshole. Forget I said a thing. Just … I need to be alone.”
“You need to be alone, cool. But that’s not why I mentioned it. London’s a kid. Keeks doesn’t seem like a kid.” He pauses. “Well, except the whole I-don’t-know-how-to-read thing.”
“She can fucking read now—” I stop when I realize I’m defending her. “Still not the point. She could ruin everything I have … we have worked for.”
“I get that, but that’s where it seems like she’s older than London. She doesn’t strike me as the kind to fuck that up for you. But I’d make damn sure she didn’t.”
“How the fuck do I do that?” I huff.
“You end shit nice and neatly.”
“Fuck that. She lied.”
He scratches his head as he thinks. “Then tell her you’ll tell Lou.”
“She’d lose her job.” I sigh. “She has no one. She has nothing.”
“And what will you have if she runs her mouth?”
I nod. “Exactly.”
“End it nicely, Trucker, and hope to hell it works.”
“If
it doesn’t?”
“It’s her word against yours, and you, my brother, have me. I’ll be your alibi. Hell, we raised money for sick kids. They’ll buy that we were helping her learn to read.” He laughs. “Shit, we’re even doing a fundraiser at Lou’s for that shit.”
“Wasn’t because of her I wanted to do it.”
He laughs. “Bullshit.”
I look him in the eyes. “Was because of my issues, too.”
He nods. “Issues you worked through. And look at you now. No way you’ve come through all that to end up smelling like shit when you didn’t even know you were rolling in it.”
No moon last night, no sun this morning, and because I fucked with my schedule to go along with hers, I had today off.
I have Logan’s truck to deal with insurance, the police reports, and hopefully getting a new ride. When I dropped him off, he told me to deal with the Keeka issue today and offered to go with me after class.
I have no intention of waiting.
I let myself in the door to the stairs because I have the fucking key. I want to walk in the damn apartment door, too, just to show her I can, but that’s stupid shit and I know it.
When I knock on the door, I hear her feet hit the floor.
As she’s unlocking the door, she says, “Reda, I’m fine. I have ice—” She stops when she sees me, her eyes immediately misting over.
“No need to play the fucking victim, Keeka. We both know it’s bullshit.” I try to step inside, but she doesn’t move.
“I don’t think you should be here.”
“Why? You have another guy filling the void already?” I ask, stepping forward again.
This time, she backs up. “I just … I don’t … I-I-I—”
“So, you stutter, too? Or is that another fucking lie, lie, lie?” I roll my eyes.
Tears immediately fall down her cheeks, and I look away. Fucking sorcery.
“I-I-I—”
I can’t even look at her. “I-I-I need to talk to you.”
Jesus Christ, what the fuck am I doing! I curse at myself as I look down at her again. “Five fucking minutes. Seventeen at most.”
I can’t fucking control my emotions, and I’m fucking this up in a big way.
She wipes her nose with her sleeve then takes a big, deep breath. “Okay.”
I walk in and see nothing has changed. Then I remind myself that it’s only been a fucking day. One fucking day.
