Bad Boys of the Kingdom

by Rob Jones

  Ethan shrugged his shoulders and flashed a smile. Zoe quickly shifted her eyes toward the front.

  He was curious to know if she was looking at him because she saw him falling asleep or was she looking at him for another reason altogether? Surely it had to be the latter, he convinced himself. He wondered if he looked back would he catch her looking at him again. He turned his head slowly in an unassuming manner toward her. She was looking straight ahead. He was about to turn around until he saw her cutting her eyes at him to confiscate another glimpse.

  He had a sneaking suspicion that she was developing feelings for him, but she probably wouldn’t admit it to him or even herself. He believed that right now she was evaluating him, vetting him in her heart, probably even praying about him. If he looked back at her and she returned the favor that would verify his suspicion.

  He looked up and moved his head from side to side, playing it off as though he had a crick in his neck. When he turned back toward her again, they locked eyes. He smiled and mouthed to her, “You’re in love with me.”

  Color heated in her face, her lip curled up, and she rolled her eyes at him and mouthed back, “You’re pathetic.”

  He winked and gave her an arrogant nod.

  After church the congregation broke out in conversation. Some were making plans on where to go to eat, others talked about the sermon, while the older women were venting their disapproval about the tight and short dresses that the younger women were wearing.

  Ethan desperately tried to work his way toward Zoe, but she was constantly surrounded by male vultures pretending to be harmless doves, so he and Nana left the sanctuary and walked to his car.

  “Watch your head, Nana.” Ethan guided his grandmother into the passenger seat of the car then went around to the driver’s side to turn on the car and the air conditioner. “Could you give me a second, Nana? I have to go ask the pastor’s daughter something.” Seeing Zoe coming out of the church, he rushed toward her with an eager skip in his walk.

  “Hey, Zoe, could I talk to you for a minute please?”

  She stopped and turned around to meet him.

  “Wasn’t that an excellent sermon that Pastor Edwards preached? I especially liked it when he said that ‘our hearts are restless until it finds its rest in God.’ That really spoke to me.”

  “Really now? I didn’t think you were able to hear him with all that snoring you were doing during the sermon.” Zoe crossed her arms with a puzzled look on her face. “So disrespectful, so disrespectful.”

  “Well, I blame you for my lack of awareness and fatigue. I was up all night being distracted with thoughts of you, by how lovely and exquisite you are. It was beyond my control to quiet my heart, for it only beats for you, aches for you, bleeds for you. Can you hear it now, beating out your name, weeping for your heart to beat the same?”

  “You are so full of it, Ethan. I don’t believe for one second that you were up all night being bothered about me. Besides, I got the scoop on you, about your prowess as a womanizer.” She smirked. “This is nothing but a game that you are trying to run, and I am a woman who doesn’t participate in childish games. Your charms and flowery words have no influence here. Good try though.”

  “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait—first of all, I am being totally honest and sincere. I may be many things but a liar is not one of them. And if you don’t believe me, ask that person who has been giving you the so-called scoop on me. Secondly, I’m not a womanizer. It’s the women who pursue me with reckless vengeance. I’m an innocent victim here.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes, conveying disbelief.

  “I know that may sound arrogant and egotistical, and that you’re thinking that I am a narcissistic, male chauvinist pig.”

  “Yep.”

  “But I’m not like that at all. I rarely pursue ladies. And when I do, it’s all for show, to promote a specific image. To be totally honest with you, I don’t really have time for them personally. The only lady that I’m pursuing is music. She is the love of my life, she is my reason for living, and the only woman who will love me unconditionally, other than my grandmother. But now you came along and invaded the premises of my heart unannounced, so now I have to make room for you and your arresting smile.”

  “I have to go now. I told Tori that I would go out to lunch with her after church.” Zoe turned quickly to walk away.

  “Tori, huh? I guess she’s the reporter with the latest so-called scoop on me, right?”

  “She wasn’t gossiping about you or anything like that. She just was informing me about things around here.” She turned back around to meet his eyes.

  “So you were asking about me? I knew underneath all that fronting and protesting against me that you were cultivating feelings for me. You just need to come clean and make a formal confession about desiring me, Zoe.” Ethan folded his arms and smiled from ear to ear.

  “You’re right, Ethan, I am cultivating feelings for you, unpalatable, distasteful, and nauseating feelings for you and for your overinflated vanity. It’s sad to say but you are an empty man with nothing to offer a woman but a broken heart.”

  “Ah, there it is. Now I see, says the blind man. You’ve been in love before, probably a few times, and your heart has been hit with betrayal, lies, and pain, and left for dead, and now you don’t trust love or anything that reminds you of love. It all makes sense now.”

  “You don’t know anything about me or my heart, and you sure don’t know anything about love.” She started to walk away again. He reached for her arm.

  “I know enough, angel cake, and I understand the emotional fort that you’ve created around your heart. But trust me, I will infiltrate that fort, climb over it, and love you like my life depended on it, and you will fall in love with me and my so-called inflated vanity.”

  A beep, beep sounded behind him as his nana honked the horn.

  “Coming, Nana. We will reconvene again real soon, angel cake.”

  “The name is Zoe, not angel cake, and there will be no reconvening between you and me if the subject is about you and me.”

  “Ooh, a challenge! I do love a challenge.”

  “There is no challenge or a chance here, vanity fair,” Zoe replied.

  “Vanity fair? I’ve never been called that before. Is that our new pet name for me?” Ethan yelled while he walked back to the car. “I don’t think I like that one. You can do better than that, angel cake.” He blew her a kiss and beamed a smile.

  ***

  Zoe

  Zoe was so taken off guard by what she’d just experienced with Ethan that she became emotionally inebriated, so much so that her heart began to flutter and a warm, beautiful nervousness settled in the pit of her stomach that made her feel light-headed, elated, and rapturous. An uncontrollable smile that broke free from her lips could not be concealed, so she put her left hand up to her mouth. Even though he was somewhat pleasantly charming, she couldn’t help being frustrated by his arrogance and bumptiousness. One thing that she despised about people, especially guys, was a prideful disposition, and Ethan was the epitome of pride. But what frustrated her even more was that she was succumbing to him and that he knew it. Somehow he was able to read her like a book, that he could see right through her façade, and that somewhat frightened her, so she now had to try harder to camouflage her true emotion.

  Deep down she wanted to breakout of her shell and start dating, but it had to be with the right person, the right time. There were so many guys now trying to lure her, competing for her attention, and there were a few with potential who seemed to be exactly what she had been looking and praying for. But her thoughts defaulted back to Ethan, who was everything she wasn’t looking for but was drawn to. She knew there was a certain risk in playing it safe, and he was far from safe. But being safe was all that she knew. It was comfortable, practical, addictive. Perhaps she needed a new addiction, a new comfort, a new perspective: maybe he was the one who could provide that for her.

  Chapter Six

&nbs
p; Ethan

  “Say Daddy. Come on, you can do it, say Daddy, say Daddy,” Wes said, trying to get his ten-month-old son Vandrick to talk.

  “Let me give it a try. Say Daddy. Come on, you can do it.” Ethan bent down to Vandrick’s level, turned, and gave Wes a lazy grin, trying to get a rise out of him.

  “Ha, ha, I guess that was supposed to be funny?”

  “Da, da, da, da.”

  Ethan’s and Wes’s jaws dropped at Vandrick’s response.

  “I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about that, but I’m glad he said it. Good boy, Vandrick, you are so smart. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Daddy loves you so very much.” Wes picked him up and sat him on his knee. “You are going to do some amazing things when you grow up, like cure gout, or be the first to create an electronic umpire to call these horrible baseball games. I hope that you won’t do anything boring like becoming a stenographer, a wildlife photographer, or a horse exerciser, something lame like that. No, you’re going to be a game changer.”

  “Will you quit playing with Vandrick and go get me some cigarettes, please? I’ve asked you seven freaking times already and you haven’t moved your sorry can one inch. Ugh, you are dancing on my very last nerve,” his wife Keira said, standing with her hands on her hips.

  “Hi, Keira.” Ethan said, acknowledging her presence when she entered the room.

  “Hi, Ethan. Wes, I need those cigarettes like yesterday!”

  “Okay, okay, jeez, I’m going. Don’t get your grumpy bloomers in a bunch,” Wes responded. “Anything else I need to get you, your majesty?”

  “Yeah, while you’re out there, see if you can find me a real man with a real job making some real money. That would be much appreciated.”

  “Now, honey, that was uncalled for. There is no need for you to be ugly like that. I know things are getting tight money-wise, but I’m doing the best I can for our family. I’m working hard, we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and the bills are getting paid.”

  “Barely.”

  “Well, they are, so we should be thankful for what we have. Plus you are making some decent pocket change as well, and besides, it’s the struggle that makes a real man, babe.”

  “If you say so.” She turned up her nose at him.

  “I’ll be back with your cigarettes, babe. I love you.” He kissed Keira on the cheek.

  “Just get my cigarettes, please, and make sure they are Kool Filter Kings this time!”

  “Why are you yelling? I’m only three feet from you.” Wes snatched his keys off the kitchen table, opened the door with velocity, huffed, and walked out. Ethan followed after him without saying goodbye to Keira. When he got to the driveway, Wes was already inside the SUV with his forehead revealing traces of frustration.

  “Is it safe to get in?” Ethan joked and stepped in. “Well, that wasn’t awkward. Jeez. She may look cute as a kitten but she has the roar of a lion.”

  “Yeah, my wife is on one today. Man, tell me why did I ever get married?”

  “Probably because you were a lonely hopeless romantic.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “You know when they say that you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry? That same philosophy goes for love. You shouldn’t go shopping for it when you’re lonely, because you just might bring home something that you don’t need.” Ethan put his mirrored shades on.

  “I’m not exaggerating when I say this. It’s like beauty and the beast living within one person, and as of late it’s more beast than beauty.” Wes’s eyes grew hard. “When I first saw her I could have sworn that she stepped out of one of those fashion magazines. Allure, Vogue, or Cosmopolitan. She was so beautiful with her smoky black hair, narrow nose, misty dark sapphire eyes, and high cheekbones. Her legs were as long as the mighty oaks, and her rocking slender tight frame could have put to shame any of those models that graced those magazines. All I knew was that when I first beheld her I fell in love seven times over, I couldn’t get enough of her, and I still can’t get enough of her. But after two and a half years of marriage, one kid, and one argument after another, the girl of my dreams has turned into a living nightmare.”

  Ethan nodded his head in affirmation.

  “Ethan, I know that it has been a difficult transition for her because she had to drop out of the Art Institute of Tennessee and forfeit her dream of becoming a fashion designer and replace it with becoming a wife and mother, where changing diapers and breastfeeding are the highlights of her existence. I told her that she didn’t have to stop going to school, that she didn’t have to give up on her dream, but somewhere along the way life choked out her dream, so she folded it in. Being a manager at Abercrombie and Fitch and seeing the names of the people that she went to the institute with on the latest clothing lines are constant reminders of what could have been, what should have been.

  “I imagine that it would be like pouring salt on an open wound that never heals. To make matters worse, she sees me every day living and pursuing my rock-n-roll dream with our band while her dreams and hopes have withered into a frail memory of nothingness. No wonder she hates our so-called happily ever after.” He blew out a breath.

  “You guys are just going through a rough patch. All married couples have to serve time in that patch. You two will be okay. Just take it one day at a time and keep loving her, Wes. You are a great guy and she sees that. This will pass, brother, and if it doesn’t, I have a plethora of honeys you could choose from.”

  “I don’t know why I confide in you. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  They approached Main Street Liquors. Wes parked, sighed, and began to yell while beating the steering wheel with his fist, red-faced and teary-eyed. Ethan’s eyebrows ascended as he stared at him incredulously.

  “You okay, man? Because you’re kind of freaking me out over here.”

  Wes took a deep breath and checked himself in the rearview mirror, and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “I’m good, man. Sorry about the freak show. Let’s go in.”

  They both got out of the silver SUV and entered the liquor store.

  “Two packs of Kool Filter Kings and a fifth of Evan Williams, please?”

  “Looks like you got a heavy drinking night ahead of you, my man.” The cashier rang up his purchase.

  “Yes, I have to have the right state of mind before I go back home to the Mrs. and that state of mind is an inebriated mind.”

  ***

  Zoe

  “This mall is so ginormous, Zoe. Every store that you can imagine is here,” Roman said with a generous gaze and a smile.

  “Yes, this place is pretty incredible, and a little over stimulating,” Zoe commented. “You have a surplus of places to choose your birthday present from, but keep it reasonable, buddy.”

  “Let’s go to Game Stop first, I want to get the new Halo Infinite game for my Xbox One.”

  “Okay, you can get one game. I know how expensive those can be.”

  “And a pair of skinny jeans and a shirt? You know how fashion-conscious I am,” Roman added.

  “You’re pushing it, little bro.”

  “Please, please, with NutraSweet on top?”

  “You’re lucky that you are cute and I love you, even though you are a pain in the butt.” She laughed.

  “You are the coolest, sis.”

  The mall was littered with a vast array of people. Teenagers paraded their self-entitlements around with bags of items they purchased with their parents’ credit cards. They were loud, obnoxious and offensive, flashing dirty looks at those who were observing their behavior. Up ahead were husbands and fathers sitting on benches with hollow eyes, waiting impatiently for their families to release them from the purgatory of consumerism. A mall security guard was chasing down a man who had one Air Jordan shoe on and another one in his hand, pushing and running down whoever was in his path like he was Derrick Henry.

  “Now you don’t see that every day,” Zoe
commented.

  Zoe overheard a lady saying that there was a great sale, buy one and get the second item of equal value or less for half off at Abercrombie and Fitch.

  “We are so there, little brother, let’s go.” Arriving at their destination, Zoe began combing the bin of jeans for Roman to see if they had his size. She shifted her attention up.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is that who I think it is? Unbelievable.” She gasped. “Come on, Roman let’s go. There’s nothing decent here. Looks like it’s all been picked over and everyone has gotten all of the cool gear. Let us go to American Eagle. Better yet, let’s get that video game that you wanted.” With a quick pace, Zoe headed for the exit with her head lowered.

  “What, why? I like this store and I like these skinny jeans. They are ridiculously cool. Oh wow, is that Ethan? Hey, Ethan!” Roman waved with a booming smile on his face.

  “Oh Lord.” Zoe’s face was in full blush as Ethan approached her and Roman.

  “Hey there, rocker.” Ethan gave him a playful high five. “Loving those jeans you have right there, my man. Do you know about our sale?”

  “Wow, do you work here? Roman’s green eyes opened big as saucers.

  “Why yes, I do, I’m one of the managers here.”

  “That is so very cool. You guys have some tight gear here. And yes, we know about the awesome sale.”

  “Hello, Zoe. How is life treating you on this gorgeous day?” Ethan flashed a coy smile.

  “Very well, thank you. We were just about to leave.”

  “It’s my birthday today. Zoe is getting me some clothes and an Xbox game,” Roman chimed in.

  “Well, happy birthday, rocker. How old are you today?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Let me tell you what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to put those jeans and anything else that you want on my manager’s discount, and let me tell you it’s an awesome discount.”