51. Bay
FIFTY-ONE
bay
Graffiti of all colors decorates the walls, currently being pounded on by the bass of “ Bussin’” by Nicki Minaj. The basement hangout is packed with people, strobe lights ping-ponging through every inch of the large space as Nessa and I hold up our red Solo cups, dancing with half a buzz on.
Levi, Juice, and Hot Rod have also joined in Nessa’s birthday festivities, and all she wants to do is dance. Meanwhile, the boys have been flocked by any bitch in a short skirt and any liquid courage to see if they can get one of them to take them home tonight.
They’re already fucked up, doing shots of Jack before getting here, and it’s the first time I’ve seen Levi without a honing glare in the last week. He’s let himself go tonight for the first time in forever, which makes me less anxious.
Turning to Nessa, she’s shaking her ass. Long blonde hair swaying with his roll of her hips as she gains the attention of a few dudes watching her move.
My brain instantly flicks onto Reeve and Torin.
How observant and focused their eyes are when I’m around. The calculation—regardless of the difference behind that variability of why—it’s familiar.
It’s almost become routine to the point where I’m used to their stares, their touches, and how they accept as truth that they have every right to.
Things are getting distorted and, the more I reminisce about it, the more it eats at me and sends me into this parallel universe where I start thinking about a future.
A very distant one.
There are too many unknowns. There’s Emilio Wildes, who wants me to become involved to where it will affect their livelihood because I’m not loyal to them.
And they’re not loyal to me.
My family resides in South Shore, my best friend heads it, my friends need to be protected, and no amount of good dick is going to get me to purge that fact. I’ve had my life experience of praise, where I believed I was different, someone who presided over anyone else in the eyes of the man I thought to be a hundred for me.
He wasn’t.
He almost broke me to the point of no return.
I almost left behind my family because the mental aftermath was too much to bear. My heart felt as though it would never, ever beat the same again, because Matteo De Leon is my real nightmare.
Torin and Reeve—no matter how different they might react to things—they’re still part of a gang. They still need and want to preserve their power. They want a Titan seat.
They act as though they want me.
But for how fucking long?
Until they believed they’ve gotten everything out of me?
That I’m magically going to spill all of Levi’s secrets so they can storm our town. I’d never betray Levi in the sense that I’d open my mouth about anything vitally important that could hurt us.
But you’re hanging out with them behind his back. Same thing, right?
Fucking wrong.
Because maybe I can turn the tables and get something from them.
Maybe I can prove they’re not with Emilio Wildes.
Maybe I can see the truth for what it is and rid myself of them once and for all.
Regardless, there’s something that tugs us forward and, while Reeve might not mind it, Torin and I are cut from the same cloth. We don’t enjoy our power being stripped from us. We hold steadfast to our pride with tight fists.
But there are these moments…the ones when we drop everything.
Call it severe magnetism between two people, but I’m not about to ride this Romeo and Juliet shit into the ground with him.
And he’s aware of that.
I also don’t think he’s completely made up his mind about me either, because neither of us will keep repeating the same fucking thing.
Nessa points behind me, still dancing as she draws my attention to Levi getting grinded on by some brunette.
And not well, I might add.
“I think our boy needs some help.”
Levi currently has both his hands up like he has a gun pointed at him, watching her hunch down on her white heels and come back up to where she bumps Levi’s body with her ass.
My lips draw in an exaggerated smile that he’s probably hating this right now. “I’ll be right back.”
Striding through the small space to where I can see my best friend’s being—we wouldn’t even call it grinding at this point, because I don’t think there’s a name for this—I stand in front of her and receive an immediate glower.
“ Move .” I snap my fingers, just because she decided to hit me with a shitty-ass attitude and pushes strands of light brown hair from her face.
“No,” she says simply, pulling at the hem of her tight pink skirt. “I got him first.”
I cock my head. “Did you, though?”
“ Yes .” Her eyes fall down the length of me as if that’s going to do anything.
As if she’s going to do something.
“Bay,” Levi warns from behind her, not receiving my attention because I’m not going to do anything-ish.
“Honey, I’m not sure what you’re doing”—I extend my index fingers off my Solo cup and drag it down what the hell she was just attempting to pull off—“but this needs to stop. You’re a walking car crash waiting to happen.”
Her palms bulldoze into my shoulders then, causing me to take two steps back before Levi’s in between us.
“That’s enough,” he order-slurs. “You two knock it?—”
“Don’t insult me,” I muse over the music through knitted brows as I peer up at him. “This is seriously nothing.”
“Yeah, bitch,” she agrees through a sneer. “You can’t just waltz around and start taking people?—”
“I can with this one,” I leer back. “This is my man.”
Man, best friend, childhood pain in the ass…he’s a bunch of things with a various amount of job descriptions. Plus, I might need to keep with my bullshit story in case the boys have spies up my ass somewhere.
The chick glances up at said all of the above and points at me with disbelief. “This is your chick?”
Levi shrugs with indifference. “I guess so.”
My God…
Stepping forward, I accidentally knock into his balls, hearing the hiss through his teeth as I come head-to-head with Miss I Don’t Want To Fuck Off Just Yet .
“Do you know who this is?” I jerk my thumb to Levi and stare back at the bitch who wants to get smacked tonight.
She quirks a brow. “No?”
That causes me to frown and a load of bigger and better questions to skate through my head.
How does she not know he’s the…
Gripping onto Levi’s forearm, I heave him forward to follow me, striding to the flight of stairs that lead upstairs and hoping the music isn’t too loud there.
When we’re close enough to where it’s the amount of relief from the bass of the current song playing, I turn to face him.
“Levi…how did I not know you were sitting on a Titan seat?”
Both his brows raise, too half in the bag to even form a glare at me asking more questions of things I didn’t know about or that reached my ears. “What do you mean? I thought we’ve had this conversation?”
Okay…we’re going to need to use simpler terms here.
“How long have you been King of South Shore?”
“Almost two years, I think.”
“And how is that not public knowledge?”
“It is.” He brings his Solo cup to his lips and takes a giant sip from it, still not answering my last two questions.
“But I didn’t know about it,” I counter.
“And you study gang politics, Bay?” He glances down, green eyes examining the amount of liquor left in his cup and, clearly, he’s not interested in this conversation.
“No, but I’m not deaf either.”
“You know how South Shore is.” He lifts his wide shoulders. “They don’t gossip. We keep our inner workings pretty tight-lipped.”
“Did you tell people not to tell me?”
He shakes his head, which surprises me. “I didn’t need to. They all assumed you knew since we’re so close. Why wouldn’t you know?”
“Because you’re an asshole.” None of the tattoos along his fingers tightly clutch his cup at my arguing.
I need to get him fucked up more often during difficult conversations. Especially before the one we have about my being Emilio Wildes’s daughter.
“But you love me, Astor. Get over it.” His green eyes slice up to mine. “Just like how I had to get over my best friend making out with my enemy.”
His words cut even though there’s no malice or irritation behind them.
He’s right, I did.
And he still doesn’t know half the story when he should. I don’t want to be like him and hold things that may hurt him.
Except easier said than done.
How do you even start that topic? How do you prepare yourself for something that may change everything?
“Chin up.” Levi cranes my head up with the crook of his finger. “We don’t look depressed in corners when you’re South Shore and you’re hangin’ with the king.”
“Mhm…” I bring my own drink to my lips. “Have you met you?”
“I see myself every day in the mirror. I’m pretty bomb.”
“No, you look pretty bomb. Big difference.”
Levi chuckles. It’s barely audible, but I’d recognize it anywhere because it’s been meager at best lately. “What’s up with you walkin’ around, tellin’ girls I’m your man?”
“You are,” I retort with a wrinkled nose. “You’re my homeboy, my home skillet, my brother from another mother.”
“Please don’t get gossip started that we’re fucking,” Levi drones, running an inked hand down the stubble of his face. “I get enough bullshit from Juice and Rod. They think I’m screwing Mrs. Keystone down the street.”
“What would give them that idea?”
“I helped her carry her fucking groceries in the house and?—”
“She’s, like, forty,” I counter through curious and slitted eyes. “Did she break a hand or something?”
“Why does someone have to have something?—”
“Ohhhh…” I burst of laughter breaks through my throat because he is so lying right now. “You did.”
Levi’s brows clench and there’s that famous as fuck glower. “You guys are fucking stupid.”
“Damn, bruh,” I jeer on, enjoying how I just saw him guiltily shift his weight. “You banged Mrs. Keystone? Her husband is going to kill you.”
“Her husband is never around ,” he rebukes as if that comment helps his argument. I don’t know the Keystones well, but I do know what the Misses has done as of late.
“Right…” I push my lips out. “And you know that you’d never be aware of that fact if you weren’t screwing her.”
“Bay…”
“Yes?” I bat my eyelashes innocently, knowing I have him cornered and there’s no fucking way he’s getting out of this now.
I mean, when you’re handed such a golden opportunity to fuck with your friend, you just don’t pass those up.
His large palm skews up my hair, jacking it all up in the process like a dickhead. “Go fuck yourself.”
“And why would I need to do that when you’re my man?”
He rolls his eyes. “Stop it.”
“You’re the one who keeps callin’ you mine when it comes to Torin and the boys.”
“Because you are,” he retorts with pinched brows. “No one is going to fuck with you when I’m around. I need a full background check. I’m going to require a lot of money, no baby mamas, and someone with half a brain. I need a prince.”
I skew my face up. “Ew, no. That’s too much.”
“That’s what you’re gonna get.”
I tsk. “Yeah, okay.”
“Don’t tell me that you’re gonna wanna settle down with some low-life like me?”
“You’re not a low-life,” I carp back with narrowed brows.
You’re everything.
This man is my entire world. And I’m lying to him.
“I’m not a baller either.”
“I don’t need you to be a baller,” I retort. “Do you see how much fun you and I have? We’ve been together for more than half our lives and we still haven’t killed each other.”
He inhales deeply. “It’s taken some effort, but yeah, I haven’t wrung your neck yet. Even though I’ve wanted to on several occasions.”
“You wouldn’t kill me.” And I’m not sure if I’m saying that more for myself or to have it confirmed. “You’d be bored.”
“Apparently. I must be a machinist for annoyance.”
I chuckle. “I’m the best thing you’ve ever had.”
Levi reaches out and wraps an arm around my shoulder to pull me into his body. “I could never deny that, Astor.”