Dante's Redemption

by Jaime Whitley

  Once we left the office, the guy from the night before was standing waiting for me. He was introduced to me as my boss, Terrance. Caston shook my hand and smacked me on the back welcoming me to the Black Hollywood family. The smile on my face was huge. If the guys in college could see me now.

  When I turned back to Terrance, my smile dissipated. He grunted and nodded his head for me to follow him. Taking off down the hall, it took me a second to catch up. He informed me that we were heading to HR to sign all the appropriate paperwork. Stopping short in front of a door, I almost ran into his back. His face told me he wasn’t pleased. Terrance scanned me from head to toe. He informed me to acquire a suit, in black, white shirts, preferably with cuff links, and plain black ties. What is this, Men in Black? I chuckled to myself, but quickly straightened up when Terrance shifted his eyes at my amusement. Gathering the essentials from the woman in HR, I started sifting through the paperwork. She handed over an envelope filled with cash, more than I had in my bank account, and the name of a tailor. I looked over to Terrance with a raised eyebrow. “Mr. Black requires his employees to be impeccably dressed. Please use this to purchase the items you will need.”

  After a few months of training and doing odd jobs, I got my first official job detail from Mr. Black. Terrance walked me through the building showing me this and that, along with my binder of protocol, which now balances my coffee table. Getting to the end of the corridor, he stopped and opened the door to a building I’d never seen before.

  “What’s this place?” I asked walking into the vacant, warehouse type building.

  “Your new station. This is where you will work five nights a week,” he said as he walked ahead of me turning on the lights. As the lights began to illuminate the area, I knew it wasn’t a warehouse after all. It was some sort of club. It had multiple levels around the exterior walls. The middle was all open with a dance floor, DJ booth, and poles. Yeah, that caught my eyes immediately.

  I quickly caught up to him. “Right, I get that. But what is this?”

  “It’s the sex club.”

  Choking on my spit, I cough out, “Sex—What?”

  He stops mid-step and turns around to face me. Crossing his arms across his chest he grits his teeth, “Sex club. Mr. Black assigned you to security at the club. Did he not tell you all of this?”

  “Well, yes, but by club I assumed it was a dance club.”

  “Well, you assumed wrong. Is there a problem?”

  I take in my surroundings. I didn’t want to seem like a pussy, “No, sir.”

  My position in the company kept moving up. I proved myself over and over with different jobs and tasks. When I received my orders to go to Vegas to head security detail for Caston and Sabrina, since Terrance couldn’t accompany them, I knew I was finally where I belonged. That trip went well and I was given the opportunity to take lead security when Terrance couldn’t be there.

  The best day of my job was during the trip I was assigned to head security for Sabrina, Sara, her soon to be sister-in-law, and Beth, her best friend whom I hadn’t met yet. Originally, I was upset I was being pulled from my undercover gig following Sabrina’s ex, but I reluctantly agreed.

  The morning that plane landed in Mexico and the doors opened, my heart soared in my chest. She walked out of the door and the sun fell behind her illuminating her like an angel. Golden hair, long toned legs, a smile that made me want to melt into a puddle. My God, I had never seen such beauty before.

  We were introduced and I knew I needed to have her. Elizabeth. Beth for short. Her smile made my insides twist and I longed to taste her plump lips. The first night we hooked up, I was a goner. I fell. Hard. The next morning after a misunderstanding with Sabrina, Beth curled into me, looking to me for comfort and all was right with the world. My heart was whole again, the void was filled.

  When we got back home, we kept hooking up. The talks we had . . . it felt like we’d known each other forever. Even though she kept telling me that she couldn’t fall in love, I knew it was just fear. Beth wouldn’t tell me why. I asked, God, did I ask many times, but she would change the subject. I didn’t press her though. She wanted to be friends with benefits, and I’d wait for her no matter how long it took.

  Before Caston and Sabrina’s wedding, we thought Beth was pregnant. I was nervous, but secretly ecstatic. I loved Beth and even though she wouldn’t admit it, I knew she loved me, too. I’d urged her to get rid of her place and just move in with me, but we fought. She left. I didn’t understand. Ultimately she wasn’t pregnant. Even though I was a little relieved, I couldn’t help but picture her carrying my baby . . . a life that we created together.

  We were apart for about five months. It was torture for me. I’d see her at events that Sabrina and Caston held. She always looked so happy, but I knew it was an act. I’d keep my eye on her and found her crying in the corner on more than one occasion. What hurt the worst was her avoiding me when I’d find her miserable.

  Christmas arrived and with it came the Black Hollywood Christmas party. I had one goal the evening I left for the party—get Beth back no matter what. We were miserable without each other. I saw my girl grinding up on another asshole and saw red. Fuck no. I swept her up and worshiped her body until she submitted to me again. She was reluctant to begin dating again, but I agreed to remain friends with benefits even though we were more in my eyes. I’d call it whatever she wanted as long as we were together again. She still wouldn’t call us a couple which was comical to all our friends.

  The guys have ragged on me for a while to just put a ring on her finger and to stop the charade, but they have no idea the demons that Beth is living with. Fuck, I still don’t for that matter.

  I take the last swig of beer and set the bottle down on the table next to me. What a crazy few years it’s been. My life should be a book. I scrub my hands down my face and blow out a big breath when I hear the door to this tiny place shut and keys hit the floor.

  “Damn it! Jake, can you help me?” her voice yells out to me.

  I jump up and jog over to her, grabbing the groceries from her hands before they hit the ground. I place a quick kiss on her lips. It’s just so natural.

  “Why didn’t you call up? I would have come down to help you,” I yell over my shoulder as I take the bags to the kitchen.

  She takes off her coat and joins me in the cramped kitchen to put things away. Her long blonde hair is tied up in a messy ponytail. She is dressed in her work garb from the studio; damn she looks downright fuckable. Beth is a natural blonde with the eyes like the Caribbean Sea, and the fairest, porcelain skin I’ve ever seen. She is about five foot six inches, and I love that when she wraps her arms around me, she is the perfect height for me to rest my chin on her head.

  We both back up, running into each other and let out a grunt. “Ugh, Jake, I’m so tired of moving around like this in here.”

  “Let’s move. Someplace bigger and ours,” I shrug. Honestly, it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, but haven’t brought it up to her.

  Beth grabs the chips out of my hand a little roughly and shoves them in the cupboard. “Not ours, yours and let’s be realistic, that can’t happen.”

  She continues to put things away with loud bangs and slams. I cringe with every sound.

  “Why not?”

  Turning to face me, her hands fall to her sides and she opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She takes a deep breath, shakes her head and walks out of the kitchen to our room slamming the door behind her.

  I brace myself on the counter. When will she realize I’m not like the rest?

  Stay Tuned for More

  Give Me All of You

  By: FL Jacob

  March 16, 2015

  More books by F.L. Jacob

  A special sneak peek at The Only Way by Magan Vernon

  Summary: William "Tripp" Chapman has always been the black sheep of his family's political dynasty.

  His oldest brother has a six-figure income
, his youngest-groomed for the senate. And Tripp is the brother known for wrecking his Porsche after a drinking bender and winding up in rehab.

  On the night of his father's presidential election he takes a detour and meets a waitress at a local hole-in-the wall. Samantha "Sam" Green is just as broken as he is, but covers it up with enough snark so no one tries to get too close.

  When Sam gets kicked out of her apartment, Tripp agrees that she can crash on his couch until she gets on her feet. But as they grow closer physically, the ghosts of their past threaten to burden their new relationship

  The Only Way they can overcome their demons is to face them instead of running. Can Sam help Tripp find his way or will their own battles bury them?

  Chapter 1

  One pill. Two pill. Red pill. Blue pill.

  All my life I’ve lived a beautiful lie. The governor’s son with the bright future set for him. The middle child. The one who no one knew how bad he was suffering until it made the nightly news.

  “Are you ready, Mr. Chapman?”

  The all-too-chipper nurse stared at me from the doorway. It was the day I was leaving rehab. It hadn’t been the regulated thirty days that I was supposed to spend there, but with Dad’s presidential election that night, they were all too eager to get me out of there so we could have some sort of united front for the public.

  Slowly I stood up and adjusted my cufflinks. They probably cost more than the poor nurse’s salary. I wondered if she was secretly smiling at my faults. She was at the other end of the coin. The gatekeeper. The one who got to inject me with a needle if I got out of hand.

  Now I was leaving the place I’d called home for the past month to be shoved out to the real world and learn to fend for myself.

  Again.

  “Ready as ever.” I forced a smile just like I had to do so many times before.

  I followed the nurse down the stark white hallway as a few drugged eyes stared at me. I couldn’t look back. I couldn’t acknowledge their presence. There was something about doing it that made me feel like I’d never escape. That I’d always be one of the hopeless.

  A shiny black sedan sat idling at the front of the building, a stark contrast to the broken cobblestone path and too green lawn.

  Awesome. A driver. I couldn’t tell if I was happy that someone who wasn’t a family member got to see me fresh out of rehab or disappointed that everyone was too busy for me. The latest dose of anti-depressants had me in too much of a fog to think too much.

  I cocked an eyebrow, staring at the older mustached gentleman who opened the back door for me.

  “Mr. Chapman. Your father sent me.”

  I nodded. “Then you did your job. You picked up the kid from rehab.”

  I understood that he couldn’t take the time out of his day to get me with it being one of the biggest nights of his career and the presidential election. But I had two other brothers. Trey visited me almost every other day when I was in rehab.

  But he has his own family.

  A pregnant girlfriend to be exact. Okay, technically fiancée. They were the scandal that overshadowed my own during the election.

  Though crashing my Porsche Spyder wasn’t too bad either.

  The only problem was that I didn’t remember much of it. I remembered taking some Oxy to try and block out another one of my dad’s phone calls. Then of course there was some bourbon.

  I woke up in the hospital and was sent to rehab instead of jail. The usual amount of time in a rehab program is ninety days, but my family couldn’t have that with Dad’s election looming. I guess Dad’s lawyer worked out a good enough deal with thirty days of rehab and outpatient counseling the next sixty days. But for the past thirty days I had been in a place where people kept trying to figure me out. I wished them all good luck because I didn’t even know who the hell I was.

  I’m sure half the nurses just thought I was some spoiled little prick with a large trust fund. But they didn’t know the half of it. The struggle with trying to be the model son and failing so completely at it that I had nowhere else to go but down.

  Even though I wanted to say fuck it all and walk back in the rehab center, throw some chairs, maybe have a cigarette and wait for another shrink to give me some meds to make me pass out, I decided to get in the car. Something about family pride, maybe.

  Or maybe I just wanted to see what the hell the outside world looked like. Maybe the zombie apocalypse started while I was inside. Not likely, but a guy could dream.

  The driver didn’t say another word to me as he got in and pulled away from the palatial rehab center. I think they tried to make it look like some grand plantation home so that all of us fucked up kids could feel like we weren’t in an institution and our family members could pretend their spawn were on vacation instead of highly medicated and staring at a television screen.

  I stared out the window, watching the world go by. A world I’d been so far from the last month. The only bit of any news I had was when Trey came by to see me. Otherwise we didn’t have television or the newspaper. Hell, my cell service barely came in and I think they meant it to be that way. They wanted to keep us from the “evil” of the outside world.

  Which only left us alone with our own demons.

  As the country setting went from oak trees with their orange and gold leaves to the urban cityscape, I knew that I was really leaving my little bubble in rehab and going back to the real world. To the world where my dad was running for president. Tonight would decide how the rest of our lives played out.

  Sure, there had been other elections. Before he was governor of Illinois he was a senator, councilman and a slew of other things. But this was bigger. And this was the first time I’d be sober for one of these political gatherings.

  If I couldn’t drink or get high, I needed something to calm my nerves.

  “Hey, driver man, do you think you can take the next exit to Fullerton?” I yelled, even though I was only a few feet from the driver and pretty sure he could hear me.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Chapman?” He stared at me in the rearview mirror.

  “I want to stop for a quick bite before we head to Navy Pier. The food they served in that place was shit.”

  The driver nodded solemnly. I’m sure we could do that. We do have some time to spare. I’ll let your brothers know.

  “Yeah, okay, just take this exit and head toward Belmont. It’s The Pancake House.”

  I didn’t want to discuss him talking to my brothers like I was some sort of child that needed to be guarded on his every move.

  The driver raised his eyebrow. “The Pancake House?”

  “Yeah. Heard of it?”

  “I have, sir. It just doesn’t seem like the type of place many people would want to eat at. Or go to before an election.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. I know it’s a stoner hangout, but they also have some great ass pancakes, believe it or not, so can you please take me there?”

  He nodded again. “As you wish, sir.”

  The Pancake House may have been a decent place at one point but now it looked like it was a rundown homage to its former self. The neon sign was only half lit, so it said “TH AKE HO” with the man flipping the pancake next to it shorting out every few seconds, so it looked more like an electric man having a seizure than cooking. The red awning was more orange and faded than anything and in-between an adult toy store and a head shop.

  Perfect for the horny stoner to get some eats. Or the guy who just needed to get out of his head for a while.

  The driver pulled up to the building and a few guys out front smoking stared at the luxury vehicle.

  I opened the door and looked up at the driver. “You coming in, Jeeves?” I didn’t know if that was his actual name, but it sounded good.

  “No, sir. I’m not awfully hungry. I’ll just wait for you out here.”

  I shrugged and climbed out of the car. “Suit yourself, man.”

  The only reason people actually came into the place was because they were s
toned out of their fucking mind and needed some carbs. I was not messed up and wondered if the pancakes would actually still be decent when I was sober.

  I took a booth near the front of the restaurant. The walls were blue tiled with black and white photos of a different era in Chicago. A time where prohibition was a thing and the Mafia ran the town. Now, sometimes I wondered how clean the politicians were. Even my dad. The guy said he wanted what was best for the people, but I always thought he was just another puppet for the Republican Party.

  “You look like you could use a drink or a tall stack,” a smoky voice said.

  My eyes trailed up the high top black Chuck Taylors and even farther to a black rockabilly-style waitress dress complete with red buttons up the front and a wide red color that showed off the extensive ink that scrawled along her chest and arms.

  “Look, I see you staring at my tits, or lack of them, but I’m not interested in fucking you so you can either order or get the hell out,” she said, chomping at her gum.

  I shook my head and smiled, finally meeting her eyes, which were definitely caked with too much makeup. But she had a fucking amazing pair of green eyes hidden behind the smudged black stuff. “No, I wasn’t staring at your tits, I was actually admiring the artwork.” I nodded toward the design that snaked up from her wrist.

  “Oh.” Her red lips formed a perfect ‘O’ as she stared down at the tattoo as if she’d never seen it before. “Yeah. Sorry, I just get a little on the defensive with all the fucked up tweakers in here that are trying to score.”