Birds in the Sky (Demi & Charlie #1)

Chapter 1

I am thinking of youuuuuuu

In my sleepless solitude tonight

If it’s wronggg to love youuuuu

Then my heart just won’t let me be right

Cause I’ve drowned in you

And I won’t pull through

Without you by my sideeeeeee

I give my alllllllllll

Demi looked up from the smoky table in the middle of the bar.

Past the people on the dance floor, past the beautiful, half-dressed, woman in front of him who was desperately sending “fuck me” vibes, through the haze of the club, until finally his eyes landed on the stage.

He didn’t frequent spots like this. A hole in the wall spot on Flint’s Northside but money lured him there.

He wondered what had lured her to a place so seedy.

It was beneath her. A voice like that, a face like that, one that he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from belonged in a stadium.

What the fuck was she doing in a crevice like this?

Fate intersected their paths in the underbelly of the ghetto, a place where most wouldn’t feel safe.

Hell, he didn’t feel safe, but she appeared so comfortable that Demi felt himself letting out a bit of discomfort in the form of a deep sigh.

Demi heard the conversation going on around him.

He was present in body only. His mind was on the girl with the burgundy lips on stage.

She sang with her eyes closed and it made him want to close his too, to meet her wherever she was disappearing to in the dark.

He would put every dollar he had on it that wherever she went, behind those closed lids, was peaceful.

The way her forehead relaxed, and her neck leaned to the right as she robbed the joint of their view of those dark eyes told him so.

She was exceptionally beautiful, but somehow ordinarily so.

The floor-length dress she wore matched her golden skin tone and he was offended by the way it surfed the waves of her petite frame.

She was thin, but graceful, like the ballerina he used to shake up in his snow globe as a kid.

Her blonde locs were shoulder-length and swept to one side.

If she wasn’t royal, it would be a shame because Demi just wanted to bend a knee to her. This honey-hued beauty was a queen.

I give my alllllllll to haveeeee,

just one more night with youuuuu.

Small woman, giant voice. She gave him chills.

“Demi, are you listening to me?”

Suddenly, the girl across from him was like the commercial that came on right when the show was getting good.

Nails to a chalkboard, his temple flexed but his gaze didn’t reveal his temperament.

Poker face. Poker champ. It was important to never wear his heart on his sleeve in his line of work.

An undetectable threat. No announcements, just action.

Demi was a mystery wrapped in Gucci denim and a five-hundred-dollar t-shirt.

He blended in well, too well, because he was a product of the ghetto too; not this one, but once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

“I missed that. You speaking good to me?” he asked, tearing his gaze from the stage and refocusing on the table.

“I want to do more than speak good to you,” she said, biting her lip.

Demi licked Hershey-colored lips, the kind of lips that smoked blunts daily and ate pussy to perfection, before giving up a faint smile. White-ass teeth between chocolate lips and wafer-colored skin. S’more-colored. The man looked edible and the woman was offering to swallow him whole.

“Is that right?” he asked.

She only smiled. Pretending. Feigning innocence because there was nothing shy about the foot she was caressing his dick with under the table. He reached beneath the table and tapped her foot discreetly. Feet on the floor was the silent direction.

“Why don’t you and your girl let us finish chopping up this bi’ness and I’ma get with you before I break out,” he said. He motioned for the waitress who attentively came to his side.

“You can put whatever they order on my tab,” he instructed. He pulled a Gucci money clip out his pocket and peeled off two hundred-dollar bills.

“I’ll keep ‘em real busy for you,” the waitress replied, leaning down, and touching his shoulder.

It was a small price to pay to move the women away from his table.

Disinterested. He was disinterested and tired of being polite.

That other side was begging to be set free and nobody wanted to see that side.

Plenty of good nights had gone bad for much less than irritation.

Demi grabbed her hand and moved it from his shoulder.

“I got a thing about people touching me, gorgeous, it’s not personal,” he said.

“Noted,” she said, smiling. Women always smiled around Demi and he didn’t know why because he rarely did. “Lots of looking, but no touching. Damn near impossible when a man like you walks up in here.”

“You know how to earn your tips, miss lady,” he said.

Again with the smiling before she walked away.

I’d risk my lifeeee to feellllll

Your body next to mine

There it was again. That voice. It was the vulnerability in her tone that hollowed him. Like the song hurt to even sing.

“About this business. Now, tell me why you needed me to come collect money your young hitters supposed to be collecting?” he asked.

“Club owner gave my people a hard time. Said he wasn’t paying shit. His exact words were ‘tell Demi to suck my dick. I don’t pay niggas I don’t know,’” the man said.

iiiii-eyeeeee-eeee give my alllll to loveeeee tonightttt

What the fuck, man? He thought, eyes pulling to the sound before cutting them away.

He wasn’t a man who lost focus easily. He forced himself to face his mans instead. Kirk sat stone-faced.

“Exact words, huh?” Demi asked.

“You know niggas hate to feel like they not running shit. My young gunner would have laid him down but you said you wanted to keep the club clean,” Kirk said. “Too much money being made to dirty it up, and I don’t really do the diplomatic approach, so I thought I’d let the boss handle it.”

Demi had been moving weight through this club for two years with no issues.

It wasn’t until the new owner stepped in did things begin to go awry.

There was always an issue. The money was always late or short, and this time it hadn’t been accounted for at all.

He didn’t get his hands dirty often but he didn’t do blatant disrespect.

“I’ll straighten it out. Your people won’t have no more problems with collecting from now on,” Demi said. “Take the nigga tongue out his mouth or something. Teach him a lesson.”

Demi lifted a bawled fist and Kirk tapped it with his own, knowing better than to expect a handshake. It wasn’t something Demi did. The touching rule went for everybody.

“You a nutty-ass mu’fucka, my nigga,” Kirk said, snickering and eliciting a smirk from Demi.

Kirk took both the women off Demi’s hands and Demi moved to the bar. The crowd was slowly growing scarce as patrons downed their last drinks. Demi’s eyes scanned the room.

The song ended and the lights came on, pulling groans from those who weren’t ready to go home.

The songstress spoke in the microphone.

“Y’all know the rules. You ain’t got to go home but you got to...”

“Get the hell out of here,” the crowd joined. Her voice surprised him. It was sultry. Warm. Like homemade biscuits on a Sunday morning. It didn’t match her at all. There was so much gravity in her tone for such a small woman. She was too thin to pull from such depths to produce that sound.

She probably say a nigga name real proper, he thought.

The club emptied and the band began to pack up, as waitresses cleaned around him.

“You know we’re closing,” the waitress who had served him said.

“What’s her name?” he asked, nodding toward the stage.

He was unfocused, a rarity for him, and he knew this was not what had brought him here.

He knew he was deviating from the plan, letting distraction pull him away from making this clean and swift.

Yet, he had to know. A name said so much about a person.

He wanted her name to speak to him. If it was Keisha or Tanisha or something he had heard before, he would be able to fill in the lines.

He would be able to assume some things; whether his assumptions be right or wrong, he would get the curiosity out of his head.

“Who? Charlie?” she asked.

He scoffed at the discovery of her name. Now that fit her fine, and just like that, he couldn’t assume shit. A pretty girl with a boy’s name. His intrigue grew.

“She always look that mean?” he asked.

The waitress glanced to the stage. “Pretty much.”

“You tell her to sing that song again and I’ll give her ten bands,” he said.

“You’ll give her what now?” the waitress asked.

He snickered at that, running his tongue on the inside of his jaw as he found amusement in her reaction. “I’ll make it worth your while too.”

“Consider it done,” she said. The waitress walked up to Charlie and Demi took a seat, knocking a fist against the bar subtly as the waitress whispered in Charlie’s ear. Her head snapped up, looking in his direction in astonishment.

Are you for sale, Ms. Charlie? He thought. She would be crazy to turn down the offer, but silently, he hoped she would. It was just like Demi to set unrealistic expectations on someone he didn’t even know.

“Hey, you, Mr. ATM by the bar! Can you come here for a minute?” she asked.

Demi swiped a hand down his goatee. It was lined so sharp it could have cut him. He hadn’t expected her to confront him, only to sing.

He approached her, scratching behind his ear in a spot that didn’t itch. He was nervous about her reaction and nervousness was a new friend; they weren’t well acquainted.