I snort. “She thought I was gonna rape her.”
Jermaine bursts out into laughter and I grunt in amusement alongside him.
“I can only imagine the stories those rich pricks tell their daughters so they’ll stay away from the likes of us.”
“Bro, you scared the shit out of her, handing her around like cattle. She didn’t need any stories from her daddy, that shit was all you.”
A wicked smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I could feel her trembling beside me. I bet she would’ve been as tight as fuck, I should’ve kept her for myself. She certainly looked untouched compared to that whore she calls a friend.”
Sometimes I wonder if his hatred for women will ever soften. His Ma fucked him up before he reached his third birthday and the only reason we made friends was because I laughed when he pushed over Diesel Blake in the school playground. He liked that I found his temper funny. It shouldn’t have been the foundation our friendship was built on, but shit worked for us.
“Like you would’ve touched her.”
“True.”
Jermaine has no time for the opposite sex. He doesn’t trust them, doesn’t like them, doesn’t even use them to get his dick wet. He’s the only twenty-two-year-old virgin I know and still be able to hold his reputation. He once paid a whore to suck his dickbut before she could lick her lips, he vomited and ran. He never goes into detail about his childhood, but I have a pretty good idea. As soon as one of his Ma’s boyfriends slammed the door on his way out, another guy was walking in. None of them should’ve been allowed near children. His Ma never protected him, she barely knew where he was most of the time. But I saw the cuts and bruises covering his body as he would quickly change for P.E. at school. More often than not, he’d have an arm in plaster. The only thing I know for sure about his childhood is how he got the scar around his eye. One of the many boyfriends caught him pinching five dollars from his mom to get some food. He pinned him down and sliced him with a boxcutter. That was when he was fourteen. It was the last time a grown man laid a hand on him. It was days after, his wound beginning to heal, when he came to me and asked if I had his back. There was no question about it. No hesitation before my answer. I was down for whatever he needed. That boyfriend was the first man he killed. He had it all planned before he had approached me. We waited for him to come home from the bar, strapped with beaten-up baseball bats we’d stolen from the local youth centre. We stood either side of the front door and waited. It felt like an age but as he stumbled into the house, so drunk he forgot to close the door after him, he barely registered our presence behind him. I waited for Jermaine to swing first and when he did, the fucker spun on his unsteady feet and hit the dirty carpet. I don’t remember how long it lasted, but I do remember that every time my bat landed on his ribs, I craved to land harder hits. I wanted him to die for what he had done to my friend. Once we were done, he was unrecognisable and dead. We shared a look that screamed in silence that we were now family. We were brothers who held an unimaginable secret, and we both knew neither of us would ever breathe a word of what happened. His body was never found and to this day, he still rots six feet down in the ground by the oldtrain tracks where the homeless have set up camps. Bones carpet this city, he was one of many.
“Come on, let’s get back inside,” I say, hauling my ass up from the curb.
The rottweilers have settled down and I relax knowing trouble isn’t close by… for now.
Stepping inside, the music covers everyone’s conversations and I fall into the chair in the corner of the living room. Clare is dancing on top of the coffee table, swaying her hips in her short shorts, that don’t showcase a firm round booty, but a flat, bony ass.
Her tits are just as flat. There’s nothing about her that even gives me a twitch. Sure she’s wearing the designer shit, and her hair is glossy and probably only washed at a high-end salon, but in my eyes, there’s nothing special about her. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and Tariq must see something I don’t.
If she were just a fuck, I could understand. Shit, I’ve seen some of the women he’s been with, and Clare most certainly isn’t the worst. Still, I have no idea what he sees in her to keep her around. Unless it’s the money. Fucking hell, it has to be the money. A beer is thrust toward me, and I look up to see Maggie. A regular fuck. I take the beer, and she falls onto my lap. Usually, I’d wrap my arm around her waist, enjoy her company until we’d disappear up to a room and I’d fuck the shit out of her. But there’s only one girl I’m thinking about and she’s pure as driven snow. I wonder how she’d sound as I pounded into her from behind. I bet she’d feel real soft underneath me and taste even sweeter on my lips. Her perfume was intoxicating as I breathed her in as she got into the cab, and it wasn’t just money that oozed from her. She was beautiful and with everything holding beauty in this world, it’ll always be out of my reach.
“How about we go upstairs?” Maggie leans closer and purrs.
Lazily sliding my eyes across to hers, I have no urge to go anywhere with her, even though I know it feels real good to be inside her.
“Not tonight.”
“You sure? I’m not wearing any panties, wouldn’t take no time to get inside me.”
Still, there is no twitch. Nothing. I like Maggie. She’s a good girl who knows her place. She doesn’t latch on after a night together and need the relationship status all girls want, but it’s not what I’m looking for tonight.
“I’m good.”
Releasing a short huff, she slides off my lap and disappears into the kitchen. Tipping my head back, I close my eyes and imagine, that for one night, what it would be like to be with a girl from the rich side without any consequences.
3
Amelia
I’ve already checked my phone twice for a message or missed call from Clare and nothing. After waking up this morning, last night’s party is a blur. I know I was there, I remember how it went down, but it’s like I watched it in a movie.
As I jog downstairs, I call my best friend until it rings out and I get her voicemail.
“Clare, call me back, I’m getting worried.”
In the kitchen, the smell of pancakes and muffins fills the air, and I smile at Catherine. She’s our housekeeper and like a second mom to me. Hell, she may as well be my mom. Rachel Haynes isn’t what you would call a doting, affectionate mother. She spends most of her time jet setting here, there, and everywhere. I don’t doubt she loved my dad at one time but where he knows where his priorities are, she doesn’t care to remember hers. She had me young and she’s terrified of missing out while she’s still young enough to entice fancy men behind my dad’s back.
I asked him once why he’s still married to her, and his reply was it worked out cheaper to stay married to her than divorce.
“Happy birthday, darling,” the man himself beams from the head of the kitchen table. He stands and envelopes me in his arms and I sink into his embrace.
At least he remembered, mom hasn’t shown her face in six weeks, and I don’t have high hopes she’ll return just because it’s my birthday. Even for my eighteenth.
