My first kiss.
She wished she had someone she could talk to about this. She didn’t have any friends outside of Boogie. Other girls had been hatin’ on her since she started going to school. For some reason, they just didn’t get along with her. She supposed she could tell her older sister, Audra, but they had such a love/hate relationship that there was no telling if she might ruin the moment for her. Besides, Audra was nosy and would for sure want to know which boy she had been kissing on. They went to the same school, and even though Audra was in the tenth grade, she wasn’t above doing the big sister thing and threatening the little boy to treat her sister right.
“Ms. Bishop, you’re wanted in the office.”
Sweetie blinked. She had been so into her thoughts that she hadn’t even realized the principal’s secretary had slid into the room and asked for her. Her brows pulled in as every kid in the class looked at her.
Quickly, she gathered her things and then followed behind Ms. Lisa toward the office. Their school had hardwood floors, and it always smelled like Pine-Sol in the hallways. At that moment, the citrusy smell made her sick. She had never been called to the principal’s office before. Sweetie was the quiet kid who stayed out of the way and got good grades.
When they entered the reception area, her heart dropped. Boogie sat in a chair just outside the principal’s office with his head hanging. Inside the office, she heard shouting.
“Oh, dear,” Ms. Lisa said. She must not have heard all the shouting before she came and got Sweetie. She glanced down at Sweetie and said, “Go ahead and take a seat. I need to call security.”
That thought churned Sweetie’s stomach as she slowly made her way over to Boogie, who now looked at her.
“I’m sorry, Sweetie. I really didn’t think anyone would see?—”
“See what?” she asked him with her heart thudding in her chest. “Are those our parents in there?”
Boogie nodded. “Someone saw the cement.” He hung his head again.
Sweetie felt like she wanted to cry, but she held it together. Her father was really passionate about his hate for Zander DeLuca. If he knew . . .
A loud thud followed by another broke her chain of thought. Both she and Boogie hopped up and exchanged worried glances as they looked at the closed door of the office. She could hear Principal Ethans trying to get the situation under control, but Sweetie worried that wouldn’t happen.
Security, who looked more like a SWAT team, stormed into the space and flung the door open. Because of who the parents of the students were, the school had a top-of-the-line security crew who knew how to eliminate any outside threat and, apparently, inside too. Within seconds, the chaos inside the office died down, save for two men shouting and two women trying to get their husbands under control.
“I don’t give a fuck! It was in my contract, damnit! My daughters were not to go here if anyone with the last name DeLuca went here. Are you incompetent? I’m suing all of you!” Vernon, Sweetie’s dad, raged.
“You always been so fuckin’ dramatic, you know that?” another man shouted. Sweetie assumed it was Boogie’s dad.
“I’m so sorry, sir. There must have been a mix-up. We didn’t know about that part of the contract?—”
Principal Ethans didn’t get to finish his sentence.
“How long? How long have they been going to this school together? Long enough to write their names in cement withhearts? Are we fuckin’ serious right now?” Vernon shouted. Sweetie could just make him out over all the security who held each of the men back. Her father looked angrier than she had ever seen him before.
“Since kindergarten, sir,” Principal Ethans finally muttered.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” Vernon turned his rage back on Zander. “Keep your fuckin’ kids away from mine.”
With that, he snatched away from security and marched out of the office.
“Can someone please pull Audra from class and bring her to the front?” Valarie, Sweetie’s mom, asked as she followed behind her husband.
When Vernon saw Sweetie and Boogie standing so close together, he snatched her by her elbow and dragged her out of the office.
“Get ya ass on, Sweetie.” The way he said her name made her feel like she was anything but his sweet girl.
Her parents claimed they named her Sweetie because she was the sweetest baby straight out the womb, and compared to Audra, she had been the easiest pregnancy.
At that moment, she felt like her dad looked at her like the damn devil. They’d never been super close, but he was always kind to her. That seemed to fly out the window.
Boogie lunged at Vernon when he snatched Sweetie up, but his father caught him. Sweetie glanced back and saw him struggling to get to her. She tried to commit his face to memory, because something in her heart told her it would be the last time she saw the first boy she ever loved.
Twenty years later . . .
Twirling her petite body around the pole every night was not how Sweetie thought her life would turn out, but she really wasn’t mad at it. Dancing was the only time she felt connected to others. It was the only time her introverted nature turned extroverted, and she loved being in the limelight. The only issue she had was the money was slow in this place.
