Chapter 18 Mekhi
Sighing, I rubbed my temple as I listened to Tex. Nigga wasn’t saying shit I wanted to hear, but he had a point. It was two days after the break in at Farrah’s parents’ place and he still was at a loss when it came to “Trell.”
“I’m telling you. That nigga done set his sights on ya girl—”
“She’s not my girl.”
Nah, as much as I was starting to feel her, she wasn’t mine. I wasn’t even sure I needed that headache, anyway. Plus, that nigga Ron had claimed he was her boyfriend, and she hadn’t said anything about it. She still hadn’t–
“Well, that’s not how he’s thinking, Khi.” Tex’s voice brought me out of my thoughts. “He thinks he got the key to getting to you, and he gon’ keep coming for her until he gets her.”
I shook my head, denying that bullshit. “Nah. That’s not happening. He’s not gon’ touch her. I promised her.”
Tex was quiet for a minute. “You shouldn’t have told her that. She just needs to be by herself for a minute, like she was at the gas station. She might be our only way—”
“Find another way, Tex. I’m for real. I’m not leaving her by herself.”
“The license plate was the only lead we had, and it’s expired. It was last registered to a dead man.”
“You checking to see who he’s related to?” I asked.
“Of course. You know, for a girl that you claim ain’t yours, she shol’ got you going through hoops to protect her ass.”
Yeah, I was having the same thoughts, but I wasn’t about to admit it to him. “Just do what I said.”
This time he sighed. “Yeah, I hear you.”
I disconnected the phone before throwing it on the coffee table in frustration.
This nigga Trell was fucking with me, trying to show me he could get to me.
Fuck him for using the people around me, though.
He needed to come straight for me so I could settle this shit once and for all.
And the fact that he was threatening Farrah, I didn’t like that shit at all.
She might be a hard-headed little headache, but she was my headache and I had given her my word that I was going to protect her.
I just needed to figure out the best way to do that.
I was headed toward my kitchen when I heard the doorbell ring.
I didn’t even bother checking my phone. Instead, I made my way to the front door and looked out the peephole.
Farrah stood there, looking impatient as she waited.
I opened the door slowly and smiled down at her.
She rolled her eyes before pushing past me to walk into the house.
“Good evening to you, too,” I greeted sarcastically.
“Whatever. Have you found out anything about Trell?”
Her anxiety was still on one hundred. I wanted to tell her something to calm her high-strung ass down, but I didn’t have any news.
Trell was still missing in action despite Tex’s best efforts.
I shook my head quickly and watched the look of disappointment take over her pretty face.
She sighed before heading for the stairs, no doubt to disappear into her room for the rest of the night and worry.
I didn’t want her to go, but my next words still surprised me.
“Come help me cook dinner.”
Where the hell had that come from? She was obviously wondering the same thing as she turned and looked at me with her big, honey eyes. I waited for her to say no. We stood there for a moment, looking at each other. Finally, she nodded.
“I just—I need to change clothes,” she said.
I nodded. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
She joined me ten minutes later. I took a minute to look at her. She was cute in her little terrycloth dress with her furry slippers on. She fidgeted with the dress’s front zipper while I was looking at her. I could tell I was making her nervous.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Well, what are we making?”
“Just wings and fries.” I pointed to the mandolin and a few potatoes. “I need you to peel those potatoes and cut them into fries. I’ma work on the chicken.”
She nodded and washed her hands before picking up the vegetable peeler. She was quiet at first, her focus all on the potatoes. That didn’t last long. I felt her eyes on me, like she was thinking about asking me something.
“What?” I said, combining some butter, hot sauce, and a little honey in a saucepan.
“Do you cook a lot? I don’t know many single men with mandolins.”
I shrugged. “I mean, I guess. I have to eat, Farrah.”
“That just surprises me,” she murmured.
“How can anything about me surprise you, shorty? You don’t even know me well enough to know what I do or don’t do.”
“You just don’t… look like the cooking type.”
I stopped what I was doing to stare at her. “Oh, yeah? What type do I look like?”
She met my eyes for a moment before dropping her head. “I don’t know, Mekhi.”
“Nah, don’t get quiet on me now. You obviously got an opinion,” I said, opening the cabinet to replace the honey and hot sauce.
“I—oh! Is that some brownie mix?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Yeah. You wanna make them?”
“Yep. Take them down.”
I pulled the box down and set it on the cabinet.
“I didn’t forget that I asked you a question, though,” I said.
“I really don’t know—”
“Farrah.”
She sighed. “Fine. If I had to describe you, I’d say you’re mean and hood!”
I laughed at that. I wasn’t surprised at all, since that was how I treated her. She looked at me and rolled her eyes.
“You’re also quiet and smart and careful,” she said grudgingly.
“I’m not quiet. I just try not to talk unless I have shit that needs to be said. Anything else is a waste of time,” I countered.
“I guess that’s true. But the way you look at people…”
Her voice trailed off. I frowned, waiting for her to finish. She just stood there with a peeler in one hand and a potato in the other, like she was thinking hard.
“How do I look at people?”
“Like they’re something stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”
I shrugged. “’Cause most people full of shit, and I ain’t got the time or the patience for it.”
“You look at me like that, and I’m not full of shit.”
Stirring my wing sauce, I thought about how to respond to her.
“I just give back what you put out, shorty. You walk around with your nose in the air—”
“No, I don’t! Your image of me is so wrong! If you just… never mind!”
She went back to her potatoes, her pretty face frowned up. I watched her for a minute before speaking again.
“Why you get so mad over what I say? You shouldn’t give a damn about my opinion. I don’t mean shit to you.”
Her eyes flew to my face.
“Because it’s wrong and it’s not fair. You’re judging me based on some meeting years ago, and I don’t even know what I did!”
“Change my mind, then.”
“What?”
“Show me the real you.”
“If you’d pay attention instead of walking around with pre-conceived notions, you’d see the real me,” she mumbled.
“So, you not a bougie north end chick?”
I was fucking with her, but I couldn’t help it. She glared at me, her full lips damned near pouting.
“I might be those things, but I’m a lot more,” she argued.
“Like spoiled?”
She scoffed. “What?”
“Every time I tell you no or don’t do something, you got a million questions and an attitude. I can tell no one ever used those words with you.”
“My parents told me no a lot of times.”
I sucked my teeth as I looked at her.
“Okay, Little Thug.”
She finished the potatoes before whirling on me again. “Why don’t you try saying something nice about me, Mekhi? Would it kill you?”
I wasn’t one to stroke anybody’s ego, so I just looked at her. She stared back at me like she expected something. I shrugged.
“I mean, you got perfect dick-sucking lips,” I said.
I was fucking with her, but it wasn’t a lie. Farrah had full, sexy lips, set off by a little beauty mark. Her mouth fell open in shock. She glared at me before taking the bowl of fries over to the sink.
“You’re a jackass,” she muttered, rinsing the potatoes.
“Why? I’m sure your boyfriend already told you that.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“That’s not what—”
“We date occasionally, okay? He was just trying to protect me from you.”
I dropped the chicken in the fryer before turning to watch her. She had washed the potatoes and was drying them on sheets of paper towels. She looked so aggravated that I kind of felt bad for the half-assed compliment I gave her.
“What you want a nigga to say, Farrah? You already know you’re pretty and smart as fuck. Want me to act starstruck?”
“I don’t want anything from you, Mekhi. Where’s your vegetable oil?” she asked, picking up the brownie mix.
I watched as she preheated the oven and grabbed eggs as I got the oil from the lower cabinet. I got a bowl for her, too. She took it without saying anything and I smirked at her attitude.
“Give me the bowl when you finish.”
She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t say anything.
I liked her with an attitude—it made her even cuter.
While she stirred the brownies up, I got a pan and sprayed it before setting it down for her to use.
She searched through the utensils I kept in a caddy beside the stove until she found a spatula.
After she scraped the bowl, she handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
She turned around, her back pressed to the counter as she eyeballed me. “You shouldn’t taste that. The raw eggs—”
I didn’t want to hear that sermon. In fact, I didn’t want to talk at all after watching her pretty ass in action. I took the spatula and swiped chocolate across her bottom lip.
“Mekhi! What are you doing? Just because you want E. Coli or salmonella doesn’t mean—”
She stopped as I leaned forward and sucked her bottom lip into my mouth.
I swiped it clean with my tongue before letting go.
She was frozen in place, surprised by my actions.
Before she could move, I smeared a drop of the mix on her neck.
I set the bowl down, then pulled her closer to me.
My mouth went to the chocolate I’d left on her neck.
I licked it up before sucking on the soft spot. She moaned as her head fell back.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she stuttered again.
I didn’t answer her because I didn’t know.
Farrah worked my nerves, but something about her made my dick hard as fuck.
I let my kisses blaze a trail back to her lips, nipping them gently until her mouth opened for me.
I kissed her then, letting my tongue tease hers as she pressed her body against mine.
My hands circled her waist before easing down to grab that fat ass.
She gasped but didn’t break the kiss. Grabbing my shoulders, she lifted herself up on her tiptoes.
I slid my fingers to the hem of the short little dress and slowly eased them under.
She didn’t protest as I lifted the soft material over her thighs to bunch around her waist. I released her lips long enough to look down at her panties.
A pair of pink briefs edged in lace, they weren’t the most revealing I’d ever seen, but something about them on her made them sexy as fuck.
I couldn’t wait to slide my fingers beneath them and see how wet she was for me.
The timer on the wings sounded suddenly. Fuuuuck! I had forgotten I was even cooking. She pulled back, her eyes glued to my face. I rubbed a hand over my eyes and cursed before turning my attention to the deep fryer.
“We need to stop meeting in the kitchen,” she whispered, trying to make a joke.
I didn’t answer, watching, instead, as she opened the oven and slid the brownies in. She turned back to me slowly, silent as she tried to read my face. She must not have liked what she saw because she sighed deeply.
“What was that about?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Then why—”
“Ay, don’t overthink it, shorty. We just passed a little time while we were waiting.”
She shook her head before striding out of the kitchen. Good. She believed me.
Now I just had to convince myself.