Chapter 1
I am thinking of youuuuuuu
In my sleepless solitude tonight
If it’s wronggg to love youuuuu
Then my heart just won’t let me be right
Cause I’ve drowned in you
And I won’t pull through
Without you by my sideeeeeee
I give my alllllllllll
Demi looked up from the smoky table in the middle of the bar. Past the people on the dance floor, past the beautiful, half-dressed, woman in front of him who was desperately sending “fuck me” vibes, through the haze of the club, until finally his eyes landed on the stage. He didn’t frequent spots like this. A hole in the wall spot on Flint’s Northside but money lured him there. He wondered what had lured her to a place so seedy. It was beneath her. A voice like that, a face like that, one that he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from belonged in a stadium. What the fuck was she doing in a crevice like this? Fate intersected their paths in the underbelly of the ghetto, a place where most wouldn’t feel safe. Hell, he didn’t feel safe, but she appeared so comfortable that Demi felt himself letting out a bit of discomfort in the form of a deep sigh. Demi heard the conversation going on around him. He was present in body only. His mind was on the girl with the burgundy lips on stage. She sang with her eyes closed and itmade him want to close his too, to meet her wherever she was disappearing to in the dark. He would put every dollar he had on it that wherever she went, behind those closed lids, was peaceful. The way her forehead relaxed, and her neck leaned to the right as she robbed the joint of their view of those dark eyes told him so. She was exceptionally beautiful, but somehow ordinarily so. The floor-length dress she wore matched her golden skin tone and he was offended by the way it surfed the waves of her petite frame. She was thin, but graceful, like the ballerina he used to shake up in his snow globe as a kid. Her blonde locs were shoulder-length and swept to one side. If she wasn’t royal, it would be a shame because Demi just wanted to bend a knee to her. This honey-hued beauty was a queen.
I give my alllllllll to haveeeee,
just one more night with youuuuu.
Small woman, giant voice. She gave him chills.
“Demi, are you listening to me?”
Suddenly, the girl across from him was like the commercial that came on right when the show was getting good. Nails to a chalkboard, his temple flexed but his gaze didn’t reveal his temperament. Poker face. Poker champ. It was important to never wear his heart on his sleeve in his line of work. An undetectable threat. No announcements, just action. Demi was a mystery wrapped in Gucci denim and a five-hundred-dollar t-shirt. He blended in well, too well, because he was a product of the ghetto too; not this one, but once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.
“I missed that. You speaking good to me?” he asked, tearing his gaze from the stage and refocusing on the table.
“I want to do more than speak good to you,” she said, biting her lip.
Demi licked Hershey-colored lips, the kind of lips that smoked blunts daily and ate pussy to perfection, before giving up a faint smile. White-ass teeth between chocolate lips and wafer-colored skin. S’more-colored. The man looked edible and the woman was offering to swallow him whole.
“Is that right?” he asked.
She only smiled. Pretending. Feigning innocence because there was nothing shy about the foot she was caressing his dick with under the table. He reached beneath the table and tapped her foot discreetly. Feet on the floor was the silent direction.
“Why don’t you and your girl let us finish chopping up this bi’ness and I’ma get with you before I break out,” he said. He motioned for the waitress who attentively came to his side.
“You can put whatever they order on my tab,” he instructed. He pulled a Gucci money clip out his pocket and peeled off two hundred-dollar bills.
“I’ll keep ‘em real busy for you,” the waitress replied, leaning down, and touching his shoulder. It was a small price to pay to move the women away from his table. Disinterested. He was disinterested and tired of being polite. That other side was begging to be set free and nobody wanted to see that side. Plenty of good nights had gone bad for much less than irritation. Demi grabbed her hand and moved it from his shoulder.
“I got a thing about people touching me, gorgeous, it’s not personal,” he said.
“Noted,” she said, smiling. Women always smiled around Demi and he didn’t know why because he rarely did. “Lots of looking, but no touching. Damn near impossible when a man like you walks up in here.”
“You know how to earn your tips, miss lady,” he said.
Again with the smiling before she walked away.
I’d risk my lifeeee to feellllll
Your body next to mine
There it was again. That voice. It was the vulnerability in her tone that hollowed him. Like the song hurt to even sing.
