Chapter 38 #2
He came toward me, looking worried. I tried leaning in to kiss him again, but he turned his head.
“It’s not a reproach but a confirmation. You’ve crazy about him,” he articulated, his voice cracking.
“Blaze.”
“I don’t play second fiddle to anyone, Jax.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re in love with him. You just don’t want to admit it.”
I started scraping the broken glass strewn on the floor with the tip of my Jordans. “I’m not in love with anyone. I’m just confused, okay? I’m not even sure that—”
Blaze burst out laughing in my face.
Maybe he was sure about what he felt and what he wanted. I wasn’t.
“When’s the last time you kissed a girl? The last time you liked a girl?”
“It’s not that easy, you can’t just test me.”
“No, Jax. They’re just questions to make you face the truth. It’s all a lot easier than you think, because you don’t seem to have any problem showing him affection.”
Affection? Is that what you wanted from me, Blaze?
“No. He’s a friend and he brings out my protective side, that’s all.”
“That asshole?” He scowled.
I straightened my back, and Blaze suddenly seemed much shorter than me.
“Don’t talk about him like that.”
“You’d never defend me like that,” he concluded before turning away. I tried to block him at the door before he could leave for real.
“Because he’s my friend, but you—”
“I what, Jax?”
“I already told you, you’re not my friend.”
Blaze narrowed his eyes like he wanted to understand what I was saying better.
“I can’t resist you, damn it, don’t you get it?” I moaned, slamming my hand on the door.
“That’s it? You want to satisfy a whim with me?”
His voice seemed broken with emotion. I couldn’t bear this side of him.
It made him vulnerable and made me feel weak.
If there was one thing I was convinced of, it was that there was a chemistry too strong to control between me and Blaze.
It was impossible to ignore, and I was terrified that the more I tried to hide it, the more the situation would blow up in my face.
Everyone would find out. They’d call me a liar because I’d been pretending.
“If that doesn’t work for you, don’t come looking for me anymore,” I told him. I stopped breathing when I met his eyes. I needed to get out of there. Now. “Fuck you, Blaze.”
I left.
None of my friends were inside Tropical anymore, so I left to get some air.
“Where the fuck did you go? We wanted to head out!” Marvin was waving his arms around next to the black Mustang.
“You wanted to leave,” clarified James, sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Thanks for waiting for me.”
When I got into the passenger seat, James gave me a tired and anything-but-cheerful look.
I only wanted one thing—to spend the night talking to him.
But Marvin’s cousin joined us, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what was going to happen next.
They say to keep your friends close and enemies closer.
And James seemed to follow that to the letter because we always ended up at Club Zero, a nightclub managed by criminals turned millionaires from drugs, racing, illegal boxing, and gambling.
Marvin loved that place because it was a strip club, where girls waited on people half naked.
William couldn’t live without going there, especially when there were races or poker games, while James did every aforementioned activity.
“Are you competing?”
“Not tonight.”
Marvin’s cousin was clingier than ever. We’d barely found seats before she climbed in James’s lap and put her arms around his neck. James looked at her, irritated, which made me laugh because I knew how much it bothered him to be chased like that by someone he barely knew.
“So is it true what they say about you?” I heard her whisper.
“What are they saying?” he asked, curling his lips into a mischievous smirk.
“That you’re a god in bed.”
“Um, I don’t know. You’d have to find out.” He caressed her bare thigh as he threw his head back every time she tried to kiss him. But this game of making her chase him ended fast; soon after, he opened his mouth and stuck his tongue down the girl’s throat.
I had to turn around.
“Let’s go,” I heard him say over the blaring music.
“Great, go test her theory in real time,” I muttered, irritated.
I chugged the drink that James left and then looked around. What a shithole.
“You’re not gonna fucking say anything?” I asked Marvin, who didn’t even know where he was after smoking a joint.
“What should I say?” he snapped, sprawled on the couch.
“James is gonna turn your cousin inside out like a glove.”
“Why would I give a shit?”
Marvin wasn’t remotely paying attention to me. He was too focused on the scantily clad women sashaying between tables. I turned around to William, who was lost in thought.
“You really like June, huh?” I teased him when I caught him laughing at his phone.
“I’m crazy about her.”
His na?ve expression was endearing, but Will fell in love easily. How could he be that crazy about someone he’d just met a few weeks ago?
“Do you go out often?”
“No, but it doesn’t take ten dates for me to understand that she’s incredible,” he answered, his eyes glued to the screen.
“All right, suit yourself.” I patted his shoulder and headed to the bathroom. I’d had too much to drink, and I was starting to feel it. In the bathroom, I heard a murmur come from the other stall, but with my foggy brain and the blaring music, I didn’t pay attention.
“Fuck, go gently.”
My eyes widened when I heard that familiar voice. The music changed from electronic pop to instrumental, and I indistinctly heard noise. I unzipped my pants and as soon as I turned toward the wall on my right, I heard rhythmic banging that got louder and closer.
A few feminine moans mingled with raspy, aroused grunts.
Distressed, I put both hands on my face and heard “James,” repeated so many times that there was no doubt who it was. There were louder thuds and then everything stopped.
“Here,” James said after a while.
“Do you really think I had sex with you for drugs?” she exclaimed, horrified.
“Isn’t that what all of you want?”
From the gap in the door, I saw them go to the sinks together.
I hid as much as possible as I watched their reflections in the mirror through the gap.
James’s cheeks were flushed, and he had messy hair. He washed his hands, then bent down to the sink to snort some powder.
“You always like to overdo it, don’t you?” the girl asked him, running her hand over his back.
He didn’t answer. He lifted his head, staring at her vacantly. When she held out her hand to touch his face, James moved back.
“I’m so sorry for you.”
“I don’t want anyone’s pity, especially not yours, because you don’t know shit about me.”
“Deep down you’re a good guy, you just need someone who’ll take care of you.”
“Don’t touch me,” he snarled when she tried to caress his hand.
“James . . .”
He walked out, leaving her alone and confused.
>> <<
“Where is he?”
I went back to Marvin and Will, who were playing pool and too focused on the game to listen to me.
“I dunno.”
A waitress approached me to whisper something in my ear, but I couldn’t hear her over the blaring music.
I grabbed a drink from the tray in her hands and went outside.
When they held races, the place always filled up quickly. But when there weren’t any events, the outside was deserted. It really did look abandoned.
“You’re here.”
James was slouched over an arcade game, probably a ten-year-old pinball machine.
“Everything okay?”
He didn’t nod. He kept vaping, his face illuminated by the purple neon light.
“Can that thing hold your weight?”
“It certainly doesn’t hold two of me,” he snapped before slipping down to the dusty ground.
He gave me a lost look. I wanna hug him, I thought. No, I couldn’t. I crossed my legs and sat down next to him.
I wondered what Will would’ve done in this predicament. He would’ve joked around to put him in a good mood again. And Marvin? He would’ve asked him how his cousin was in bed. Dick.
I wanted to be like them, but I wasn’t. I was myself and that sucked.
I saw him lower his chin, like he was hiding his face in his jacket collar. Fuck it, I’ll hug him. I put my arm around him and squeezed him toward me.
“I’m here if you need me,” I whispered an inch away from his flushed cheek.
“You’re the only one who understands me, Jax.”
“At least I try to.”
James turned his head. His pupils were enormous, dilated, and watery. I could see myself in them. “Do you want to stick your tongue down my throat?” he joked.
“What the fuck do you mean?” I cleared my throat and backed away instantly. “What’s wrong, James?”
“Everything’s great,” he answered, biting the inside of his cheek.
“You get laid every night, what are you whining about?” I gave him a pat on the arm affectionately.
That’s something else Marvin would say. James didn’t laugh; he just shrugged.
“I could do without it. I just wanna get out of this shit. Austin’s got me by the balls.”
Just the name of that criminal made me shudder. Of course, the issue wasn’t Ethan Austin. It was his dad, the guy who controlled organized crime in Los Angeles.
“Do you still owe him a lot?”
“It’s not about the money,” he said as I took another sip of my drink.
“Come on, tell me.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to tell you, Jax?” He put his soft lips on the vape pen mouthpiece and turned it on, lighting up the dark.
“I want you to tell me what’s going on.”
He closed his eyes to savor that poison better, then looked up at the sky.
“I don’t feel like complaining. Everything’s fine,” James said.
“Jamie . . .” I demanded, using the term of endearment that the girls often called him.
“You really wanna know? Buckle up because it’s a long story.
Taylor is breathing down my neck because if her dad finds out about the pistol, he’ll kill her.
I have to keep coming here every night to sell this shit, but I take more than I sell.
I have to keep an eye on Will because he’s home alone and his parents aren’t there.
My dad is a pain in the ass, and as if that isn’t enough, I won’t graduate if I don’t keep studying. And then, I never see my brother . . .”
He stopped to take a deep drag from his vape pen.
“God, do you see what a fucking whiner I’ve become?” he added reluctantly as the smoke came out of his lips.
“Can’t you offer Austin money in exchange for the pistol? Can’t you ask your dad?”
I tried to find the most obvious solution.
“What if he asks who I owe such money to? What do I tell him? The truth?”
“Shit, no.”
“Besides, Austin and his family don’t give a fuck about money. They want to be sure that I keep my mouth shut. That’s why they’ll never leave me alone.”
“We should’ve never asked for help from people like them,” I complained, as James started to bite his index fingernail with his incisors.
“No.”
“But it was Will. You weren’t even the one to call him, James.”
“We were together.”
“Yeah, but you did it for them, and now you’re the only one paying the consequences.” I passed him my drink, which he quickly grabbed.
“The only positive thing is that the asshole principal is doing what we ask him to do. Do you think Blaze suspects anything?”
I shook my head hurriedly. “The principal knows we attacked him but doesn’t understand why.”
“How do you know?”
“I know, and that’s all. Wanna go back inside, James?” I cut him off to shut the conversation down.
“Marvin was drooling over every waitress that passed us by, and all Will did was stare at his phone. Does it look like I wanna go back inside?” He passed me the drink, and we started laughing.