Chapter 1 #4
He was relieved that she opted to be outside. Her place made his chest tight, like he couldn’t quite breathe amongst her organized chaos. He watched her grab the source of her music and then she led her way outside.
Demi followed her out onto the balcony and somehow the mess outside felt like an oasis.
She had plants everywhere, a boho rug covered the floor and a pallet bed rested in the corner with plush designer pillows on top of it.
White Christmas lights were strung above their heads and around the railings and a bookshelf had been affixed to the brick of the building.
“It looks like a chapter from your mind out here, Bird,” he said.
“We sticking with this bird thing, huh?” she asked.
He snickered.
“Charlie,” he corrected as he leaned against her door, propping one foot behind him. She sat on the bed and reached for the bottle, pouring two glasses.
“Bird is fine,” she smiled. “And… yeah. My mind looks something like this on the inside.” She noticed he was still standing.
“Are you going to stand there all night?” she asked, snickering a bit. “You’re very serious, aren’t you?”
“Nah, man, I be cooling,” he said, opting for the chair facing her.
She passed him his drink.
“So, where are you from? You said not around here, so where?” Charlie asked.
“Cali raised me; the D pays me, though, so I’m around that way for now. I’m just in Flint handling some business,” he said.
“You look like you’re too good for us Flint folk.
Giving off real big energy, Demi,” she said, chuckling, eyes sparkling in a way he didn’t realize dark eyes could.
They were so dark they were almost black.
They sparkled like she was always on the verge of crying, only her smile told him she wasn’t.
Emotion just lived in her. It filled her home so much so that she expressed it through painting and crystals and shit.
He wondered why she was so full-on feelings and if they were good ones or bad.
“Say, man, you wild,” Demi answered, blushing. Demi didn’t smile but the nigga was showing teeth as he chuckled at her.
“To the big business that lured you to town. Lucky me,” she said, holding up her glass. He tapped hers.
“If I knew Flint made ‘em like you, I would have come sooner,” he answered.
“Oh, that’s good. That one right there is the one, my nigga!
” she laughed as she sipped her drink. He laughed.
It felt so foreign. Demitrius Sky was deadly.
It was known that life didn’t live in him.
It ended in his presence, but she was pulling his baritone out of his closet and filling the air with it like he didn’t have skeletons in there with it. Who the fuck was this girl?
He sipped his drink. “Did you always want to be a singer?” he asked.
“Who said I wanted to be a singer? I sing. It’s in me, not on me.
I can’t wish to be that because I’m already that.
I’ve been a singer since I was a kid. I just love it.
Love hearing a song that describes exactly how I feel and making it my own.
I don’t give a fuck about nobody else feeling it or liking it. Attention is never the goal.”
He nodded. “That’s real shit. Most women crave that shit. Attention.”
“I’m not most women,” she said, taking another sip.
“I believe that,” he said, nodding and loosening up as he drank too. The song played in the background. He found it odd that it was on repeat, but it was her house. House rules applied. If she wanted to listen to it on a loop, then that would be the soundtrack for the night.
“Even if you didn’t, it would still be true,” she said, shrugging.
Demi’s dick jumped. She was so sure of herself. The confidence was phenomenal. It wasn’t just a stage persona. It poured out of her.
“What do you do? What’s your passion?” she asked.
“I get by,” he said.
“In other words, mind my business. Noted,” she said.
He wasn’t a giver of information. He made people earn it, but after the way she had dug deep with her reply, he felt like he was robbing her.
Demi had walls. Rules. Lots of them. Letting people in wasn’t something he did often but he could tell she was offended.
“I made some money in the streets, invested it in a few businesses. One of which is a record label. I’m a silent partner in Dynasty Music Group,” he said.
“Dynasty Music?” she questioned in shock. “You own it?”
“It ain’t a big deal. Just an investment, but I know some people who would love to get they hands on a voice like yours. You ain’t on no autotune shit, you’re fucking gorgeous,” he said.
“Am I?” she asked, genuinely stunned at his description.
“You questioning it?” he asked, snickering.
“I mean, I’ve just never heard anybody say it like that,” she whispered.
“I’m not like… normal. Niggas like you usually see the girls with the man-made bodies, the lace fronts.
Me and my little locs ain’t pulling nothing.
I’m legit the awkward black girl. I like my weed, my plants are my best friends and my books.
I love a good book. Niggas don’t be checking for girls like me. ”
Demi licked his lips. If only she knew the way her entire aura pulled at his dick.
His manhood was begging him to take her down.
She was stunning. Her skin glowed in a way he had never seen.
She was luminating from her hair to her nude toes.
His attraction to her was more organic than any bad bitch had ever been able to produce.
“Sound like peace to me, but no lie, you on that stage is masterful. You don’t got to do nothing else. No dancing. No fucking naked-ass costumes and shit. No backup. Just sing. That shit transported me to a whole ‘nother world,” he admitted. “Ain’t nothing awkward about that shit.”
She was breathless at the way he spoke about her. There was appreciation in his tone, like he had discovered a piece of art that moved his insides around.
“So, if you want to sing, like for real, I can make a call,” he said.
“I don’t want that, but thank you,” she answered.
He nodded and lifted out of his seat a bit to go into his back pocket. He pulled out a card. “If you ever change your mind.”
She took it and placed it on her windowsill.
“I won’t, but I might use the number still,” she replied.
“Yo, anytime you feel like singing a nigga a song, you put that number to use,” he said.
“You know I legit never invite anybody on my balcony. Not even Stassi’s ass because she talks too much and she be fucking up my vibe,” Charlie said. “But you’re amazing company. You made a bad night better.”
“Why was it bad?” he asked.
“Long story,” she whispered, turning solemn. He saw her light dim as she finished the drink and looked out at the courtyard below them.
“The sun don’t rise for four more hours. We ain’t got nothing but time,” he said. What the entire fuck? He had somewhere to be and here he was committing hours to a girl he’d just met.
She looked up at him, stunned. “Morning? You think I’m letting you stay ‘til morning? A man who just told me he all up and through the streets. You think you resting your head at my house?”
“It ain’t like that, man,” he said, scoffing, dismissing the kingpin fantasy she was building in her head, but fantasy was reality when it came to Demi.
He was getting major paper, both legally and illegally.
One hustle financing the other and that hustle legitimizing it all. She didn’t need to know that, though.
“So, you really think I’m a one-night stand type of girl?” she asked, laughing. She was fake offended because the way her pussy was pulsing in his presence, she knew all he had to do was say the right thing and that’s the exact type of girl she would become.
“I ain’t say that,” he said. “Girls like you, with your sage and your whole earthy shit you got going...”
“Earthy?” she snickered.
“Yeah, the whole, natural, Erykah Badu vibe you got. Women like that ain’t on no one-night shit. You gon’ make a nigga earn it.”
She fought her smile. All this damn smiling. Him. Her. Just a level of comfort two strangers shouldn’t feel.
“What’s your favorite color, Bird?” he asked.
“So, we’re back in the safe zone, asking shit that don’t matter? Okay, I’ll play,” she said. “Blue.”
“Blue?” he frowned.
“What’s wrong with blue?” she laughed, hitting her vape pen.
“What’s right about it?” he asked, frowning.
“It’s the color of the sky,” she said. “So, I get like anxious and my whole body just kind of betrays me sometimes. I start overthinking, I have a hard time breathing, and I just kind of lose it a little. When I get like that, I smoke, and I put in headphones. I go outside and find grass. Doesn’t matter where I am.
I take off my shoes so I can feel the ground beneath me, you know?
Then I lay down and I look up at the sky and it’s so blue.
It’s like the prettiest blue ever. And I sing and I feel better. So, blue is my fav.”
“Damn, blue it is,” he conceded.
“What’s your favorite color?” she asked.
“Blue,” he answered, licking his lips and lifting the Hennessey to his mouth to hide his amusement.
“Seriously?” she laughed. “You’re impossible.” She shook her head. “Making fun of me and shit.”
“Nah, I wouldn’t do that. You cool as fuck. Like the most interesting mu’fucka I don’ met in a long time,” he admitted.
“Same,” she replied. They stared at one another, but awkwardness tore their gaze apart and Charlie looked down. “So, you’re favorite color?”
“Blue, nigga,” he answered. “I like what you like. Whatever you like.”
“Niggas be so full of shit,” she cackled.
The song she was playing restarted and he pointed to the speaker. “How many times you gon’ listen to this song?”
“Probably for a few days straight,” she admitted.
Anybody else I’d be gone by now
Does it really matter, all that really matters
Second I’m with you, all my love pour out
“Who is it?” Demi asked.
“Alina Baraz,” Charlie answered.
He nodded, pulling out his phone and adding the song to his library. She hummed the words and pointed at him.
“Don’t do that,” he groaned.
She laughed. “Sing to you?”
“That shit, man, you’re dangerous,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“All that really matters is youuu keeppp showingggg uppp,” she sang, moving toward him and touching his face.
Demi tensed, grabbing her wrists so tightly that Charlie’s eyes widened, and her breath hitched. She pulled her wrists from his grasp, standing to her feet and looking at him in confusion.
“What just happened?” she asked, alarmed, her heart racing.
Demi stood too, overwhelmed. “My bad. I ain’t mean to grab you like that. I just don’t... the touching. I don’t like to be touched.”
Charlie blinked a confused stare at him as her face scrunched. “Like, ever?” she asked. “What do you mean you don’t like to be touched?”
She was so confused. Charlie was the most touchy-feely person in the world. It was her love language. She had to feel shit. To be visceral. Even in school when she had a hard time comprehending, she had to create visual models of math problems and shit to make sure she could understand them.
“I just don’t,” he stopped, knowing it sounded odd. He hated to be the weird nigga. With his rules. With his restrictions, but she had touched his face and it felt like he wanted to scrub his shit off. “I just don’t like the shit, man.”
Charlie squinted so hard at him while shaking her head then she snickered a bit. “That kind of makes me want to touch you more.”
She reached for him and he moved his head. “Don’t play, man,” he said.
“Wow,” she said, laughing. “This is really a thing. Like, OCD?”
Demi sucked his teeth and looked off to the side because he was annoyed that she was amused. She was playing in his face and another thing she didn’t know was that he had a temper problem. She was flirting with it.
“I just ain’t with the touching and I like shit a certain way,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, eyes sparkling with something like she was fucking blazing his ass inside her head. He could see the jokes she was withholding as she tried her hardest to be respectful.
“Ain’t nobody say shit about your looney-ass talking about taking off your shoes and laying in the grass,” he said defensively, face twisted up. He was salty and Charlie had to fold her lips to stop from laughing. She was a natural antagonist. A fucking Leo.
“Yup, you right. We all got our quirks,” she said. She lifted her hands. “I won’t touch.” She moved back to the bed. “You want to come over here? Promise to keep my hands to myself. I want to show you something.”
He was stubborn, so he stayed where he was for a few minutes as silence enveloped him.
“Please,” she added.
He moved then, joining her on the bed.
Charlie laid down. “Lie next to me,” she instructed. He repositioned himself and laid back. Side by side they stared at the sky. The moon glowed over them and Charlie reached one manicured hand to the sky, spreading her fingers. “It feels so close but it’s literally millions of miles away.”
“Yo, this shit is wild,” he said, noticing her view. The entire sky lit up with stars.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Too bad you don’t like to be touched. I would have fucked you out here.”
He laughed so hard that it infected her and then they settled into a comfortable silence.
He laid there until her breathing was so peaceful, he was sure she was asleep. He thought about leaving but laid there, looking at the stars and breathing to the beat of her heart for another two hours before he lifted from the air mattress.
He grabbed the throw blanket and placed it over her. She was fucking beautiful. He turned the volume down on her speaker and paused, looking at her for another beat before leaving.
Demi opened his phone and pressed play. The song Charlie had played on repeat oozed through his speakers.
He pulled his pistol from beneath his seat, placing it in his lap, and pulled off.
He was four hours late, distracted, and completely thrown off by the incidental vibe he had stumbled upon, but business was still business.
It couldn’t be completely derailed. What could have been taken care of hours ago, would now be handled in the middle of the night.
He had never allowed himself to become so distracted.
He put his head back in the game, turned the radio off, and restored his gangster, a bit relieved that his interaction with Charlie was over.