Chapter 10
The mess begins.
When I approached him, he looked asleep on a blanket, wearing only basketball shorts, though a cap covered his face. Before I eased down next to him, I called his name. He sat up too quickly to have been asleep and looked away instead of acknowledging me.
“Is this a bad time?” I asked, sensing that it was and that I should leave, though my heart screamed no.
“Yeah,” he replied quietly, facing the beach.
The old me would have left before he grew annoyed or angry with me. The new me recognized that the worst he could do was be annoyed or angry with me. “I don’t have these big ears for nothing.” I pulled on my earlobes, which for years had been too big for my head.
He looked at my ears, and sadness etched lines on his forehead. Still, he teased, “They are dumbo-like.”
I popped him on his shoulder, and he chuckled. “Serious...I am a good listener. Why are you out here like this tonight?”
Carter took another deep, wordless sigh.
“I got just the trick.” I knelt behind him, the sand giving enough to spare my knees. “Let me braid your hair, and when you feel like talking, talk.”
“You braid?”
“I can do basic cornrows. Nothing fancier than that. I don’t have a comb to part it, but I think I can at least do four braids.
” I searched the sand from the few light poles on the highway and the moon for a stick.
“I can use this stick, and once we go inside, you can brush off any sand if there is any.”
“Go for it.” He shrugged.
His soft, springy hair was easy to part with my makeshift stick comb. “If someone told me a week ago, I would be braiding your hair on the beach at night, I would’ve thought they were crazy.”
“True. Never pictured that the smart, pretty girl with dimples would be down for me. Didn’t think you noticed me.”
“What? Didn’t think I noticed you?” I shrieked, and he looked back at me with a smirk. “You must like getting beat up.”
“Just don’t fuck my head up,” he replied softly. So seriously, I didn’t know if he meant his cornrows or his heart.
“I won’t,” I promised just as softly.
The crash of the waves was the only sound for a long time as I cornrowed his hair.
While he watched the waves, he finally admitted, “My little brother is back in the hospital. He’s sick, and I wanted to go home.
My mother is against it since every moment counts this year.
Practice like crazy. Must win every damn game.
Pressure on like a muthafucka. Dreams of a family on my back.
If I fail, it doesn’t just affect me. I’ve loved football most of my life, and I’m starting to hate it. Sometimes I want to quit and just be.”
I shifted to sit and wrapped my legs around him, and he leaned into me. “What’s going on with your brother?”
“You ever hear of sickle cell?”
“Yeah, my cousin has it. Sorry.”
“That’s the thing, he’s been in pain most of his life, and he’s not sorry at all.
He believes that God blessed him in other ways to compensate for the disease.
Like he can tear the house down when he sings, or that he could be the next big comedian.
Or that my mother is killing it as a stylist.” His voice caught.
“He considers me his biggest blessing. That my talent is like an exchange for his suffering. When I would give it all up for my brother to have one fucking year without pain.”
I allowed his words to soak in between us.
Carter looked down. “He had to get a blood transfusion today, barely making it, and I’m here living the life like I don’t give two fucks.”
I embraced him tightly from the back and soothed him. “Hey...hey...then be your best for him. If you’re his blessing, then be that.”
“What if I fail?” He asked.
“You won’t, and even if you do, something tells me your brother still believes you are his blessing.” I kissed the back of his neck. Holding, comforting, and being this way with him felt right. Natural.
Carter's hands rested on my arms as we held each other. After another moment of silence, Carter asked, “Is he home?”
“No.”
Somehow, Carter twisted me around until I straddled him from the front, and he opened my mouth with his tongue.
I eagerly kissed him and undulated against his erect manhood.
He was indeed well-endowed based on the part of him that I felt between my legs.
We kissed and kissed deliciously for what seemed like hours.
His mustache and goatee caused sweet, prickly sensations across my mouth and chin.
Carter pushed down my strapless dress and lifted my bikini top to suck on my breasts.
I flopped my head back, looking at the moon, as I delighted in the warmth and wetness of his mouth on my stiff buds as he bared my breasts for anyone who happened to see us making out on the beach.
I savored the wildness he evoked from me.
My desire pooled in my pussy, and I throbbed with insane want.
When his hands moved up my thighs underneath my dress to drag down my bikini bottom.
The reality that he fully expected us to have sex broke through the haze of lust, and I stilled his roaming hands.
“We need to stop.”
He lifted his head from my breasts, his dark, sexy gaze settling on my lips. “Why...when we want each other? This won’t be our last time if that’s what you’re worried about. I like spending time with you. I’m not about to hit it and quit it.”
“One, I doubt you have a condom, and two, he might see us from the balcony,” I improvised, sensing his growing frustration.
“Then let’s go back to my place. I have condoms.” He kissed me again with a moan. “I want to fuck you so bad in this dress. Need to release these emotions somehow.”
Before I could find another excuse, he rose, still holding me like I weighed nothing, and started for the condos. And I... I just held on and rested my head on his shoulder. My sexual fate is in his hands.