“Black,” he finishes my sentence. “And you think you might be blind until you pinch your eyes shut for a good two seconds and open them back up?—”
“And everything rushes back to you all at once, and you get dizzy.”
We laugh together.
We laugh so hard that I pinch my eyes shut and take the biggest deep breath I’ve taken since I came home. When I open my eyes, his shoulders stop bouncing, and his laugh simmers into a quiet chuckle until the glimmer of amusement disappears from his eyes in a slow, hypnotizing way, and that russet color I love turns coal black.
“You know I’m gon’ kill him, right?” he asks, smiling.
Kill?
I belt out another laugh because good weed made me forget that Tony and AJ had turned that word into something else for me. It’s funny now—like one of those silly words you giggle at as soon as you say it. I wait for Rich to laugh at it too, but he doesn’t.
I snort. “Wha—Who’re you talking about? Kill? Kill who? Kill Jay?”
“AJ.”
Now I’m so high I think I’m hearing things that were never said—like AJ’s name coming out of Rich’s mouth.
“What did you say?” I ask.
He reaches out, gripping my neck again and pulling me toward him until my hot middle presses against his bare abdomen. “I said I’m gon’ kill AJ.”
“Wh…who told you his name?”
“You.” He tilts his head, finally reaching out and tugging my left bra strap down with his free hand.
My other breast pops out, but he keeps his eyes on mine.
“I…I never told you his name.”
“But you told me everything I needed to know to find it.”
“But…but you told me you wouldn’t do anything like that to anybody.”
He dips down, coming face to face with both nipples. He looks from them to me, and his eyebrows wrinkle.
“You said you wouldn’t do that—not in Beatrice’s backyard or at Lucky’s or anywhere.” I breathe out. “You said you would never kill anybody.”
I chase his hard, dark eyes, but they’re too preoccupied with my nipples.
“Rich…look at me.”
His eyes dart up and meet mine.
“You told me you wouldn’t do that… ever.”
“I won’t, baby. I’m just talkin shit. You know I wouldn’t do that. I know how you feel about that,” he coos out with an eerie saccharine smirk that makes me feel too good.
It’s the sexiest smirk I’ve ever seen on a man and that clusterfuck of emotions he usually helps me wade through gets all tangled up again.
“I don’t wanna argue,” he says. “What I tell you about arguing?”
“Tha…that you only like arguing over shit that matters.”
“And does AJ matter anymore?”
“No.”
