Juliet

Chapter 4 #2

I swipe my burning eyes with my forearm and glance around Rich’s bedroom for something to clean to say “Hey, I’ve been in here,” since he supposedly pays Aunt Faye, but there isn’t much.

There’s nothing for me to snap a picture of to show Aunt Faye later.

There are no dirty thongs, random wigs, or used condoms. There’s nothing scandalous to gossip about, and if I didn’t find all the stuff that makes a house a home hiding under a pile of tarps in one of the empty bedrooms, I’d swear nobody lived here.

The outside of the house doesn’t match the inside yet—especially Rich’s bedroom. It has modern, crisp white crown molding, engineered hardwood, and every crevice has a distinct mannish smell. It’s even buried in the fibers of his black comforter I smoothed the wrinkles out of.

I like his scent even though I shouldn’t.

He smells like Platinum égo?ste—like rosemary and oakmoss.

I doubt he even knows what any of that is, though.

There are no pictures of him or anybody hanging up around the house, so I make up his appearance in my head while I walk to his bed and grab the wife beater and Nike Tech fleece shorts he left lying out.

He’s probably huge.

I hold the wife beater up and tilt my head at the maroon splatters splayed across it until the oh yeah moment rings in my head and I remember that he’s a boxer… well, a fighter if he’s training with Uncle Kenny. Uncle Kenny always says there’s a big difference.

“Fighters know survival. Boxers know skill. I teach fighters skill.”

In Uncle Kenny’s eyes, fighters are the real menaces to society. They’re the guys born with so much toxic masculinity that it bleeds out of their hearts and onto the streets.

“Imagine seeing a man bury his fist so deep into another man’s side that his spleen ruptures and he shits himself right there in front of you.

That’s the type of stuff them fighters do.

I saw it with my own eyes when Chico dragged me in the garage bays at Lucky’s back in the day.

I ran out and threw up right outside the building.

” He guffawed while we watched that anniversary special about the sting at Lucky’s. “That aggression runs in their blood.”

I shudder as my eyes drag across the blood-stained wife-beater.

Jesus, his upper body is broad.

The wife-beater looks like it can swallow me.

I bet he has those working hands that Aunt Faye said she liked for her men to have before she met Uncle Kenny.

I saw the tiny imperfections throughout the house, like a crooked tile in the kitchen backsplash and missing caulk where some of the baseboards meet, and Aunt Faye said he could install a new AC unit at the gym.

Maybe he’s renovating the house himself.

“He’s probably got that 50 Cent mumble thing going on,” I snicker, remembering the pinched expression on Aunt Faye’s face this morning when she described how the doctor had wired Rich’s jaw shut to fix his fractured jaw after I asked her what happened to his mouth.

“Just men being men, you know?” She sighed and went right back to singing along to Mary J. Blige afterward.

I didn’t know, and I didn’t bother asking her to elaborate because it didn’t actually matter to me.

What matters is that it’s my second day of freedom and I’m breaking every one of AJ’s rules.

I’ve been outside twice to sweep another man’s porch so the sunrays can brush my skin.

I’ve been wandering around his house, and now I’m smelling his wife-beater.

I inhale so deeply that I can taste the rosemary and sweat. I don’t even remember putting the fabric up to my nose.

“Pick them cans up before Pup get home!” somebody yells from next door.

My hand jerks, and the wife-beater falls to the floor. I rush to pick it up and fold it into a neat square, then power-walk toward the empty laundry basket next to his dresser and drop it inside.

There isn’t any use in wasting his water to wash two pieces of clothing. Aunt Faye always taught me to let the laundry build a little—so that’s what I’ll do. I’ve never had anybody complain about two pieces of unwashed clothing.

I shrug and pull Yesenia’s old, cracked iPhone from my pocket to check the time.

Paco stares back at me with rosy cheeks and a gummy grin that makes my chest ache a little.

There’s a vague “almost done” text from Aunt Faye, and I kind of agree with Uncle Kenny for once.

It does feel weird being dropped off at some strange man’s house, but I need to get used to the strangeness.

I used to help Aunt Faye work all the time.

I slide the phone back into my pocket before walking back through Rich’s bare living room and into his kitchen. Somebody cranks up a speaker next door and the house’s walls shake from the bass. I guess they figure the rest of the street should be up by now.

Inside his pewter and white kitchen, I search for more “Hey, I’ve been here” tasks while bobbing my head along to the old-school mix they’re playing.

One of his cabinets sticks out like somebody didn’t push a dish back all the way, so I walk further into the kitchen and fling it open, coming face to face with a row of tacky, cheap plastic cups.

The music outside gets louder, the neighbors holler about those beer cans again, and I hum to myself while looking for the problematic dish.

They’re playing the song Aunt Faye plays when her and Uncle Kenny fight.

“Looks like another love TKO…” I sing to myself while snickering at the cups.

Every now and then I think there’s a woman putting up with Rich’s amateur boxing dreams and doing her best to make his little house cozy until I find things like plastic rainbow-colored Dollar Tree cups and a stuffed mason jar that dangles dangerously close to the cabinet’s edge.

“Hm.” I reach up and grab it, turning it over in my hands to study the big chunks of weed and money inside.

It’s more than enough weed for one person and too much money to keep inside a jar in his kitchen cabinet.

I scoff. “Some things never change—”

“You lost something?” a rugged voice booms over the music.

I gasp.

The jar falls from my hand in a slow tumble and shatters against the floor with a loud thud that makes my body jerk forward.

“Oh shit,” they mutter.

It’s him.

I don’t have to turn around to know it. So I stare at the shards of glass next to my foot instead.

Oh shit is right.

He doesn’t sound anything like 50 Cent.

“You straight, mama?” he asks.

He sounds good.

I can’t believe he’s been hiding his smoky voice from Uncle Kenny, but I doubt Uncle Kenny would even appreciate it as much as I am right now, even though I really shouldn’t be.

“You Faye’s niece, right?”

A lazy dip sits between each of his words and makes me want to groan in response to his questions.

Since I’ve been back home, I’ve realized that men don’t sound like him anymore.

They all have these generic accents that can blend in anywhere, but not him.

He sounds exactly like the men at home are supposed to sound.

“I ain’t know you was still gon’ be in my house.”

He still drags his words and talks in a slow cadence that probably makes women’s toes curl. All of his “ow’s” sound like “ah’s” and assure my overactive brain that it can finally relax because we actually made it. We’re back home—for real.

The glass crunches beneath his feet as he moves closer to me. Every time he takes a step forward, I take one too, because he’s still a fighter no matter how good he sounds. Uncle Kenny always says fighters have to be a little crazy because it’s the only way they can survive. It’s in their genes.

I can’t even turn around to face him.

I actually want to crawl inside his pewter cabinets.

I run my trembling hand across the drawer handles beneath the counter until I brush a drawer that I hope has silverware. I yank it open and find a handful of loose forks and knives.

Thank God.

I grab a fork out, whirling around with it, just in case, but as soon as I lay eyes on him, my stomach drops.

I pinch my eyes shut then open them back as if it’ll change the fact that he’s shirtless and looks nothing like the images my silly imagination conjured up.

He’s built like all of those dudes who showed up on our porch every now and then, but better. His limbs are as long as vines, and his body looks like it was sculpted out of hickory-colored concrete.

I feel like I’m back in anatomy and physiology at Lockwood.

I can see his pectoralis major, his biceps, his triceps…and his rectus abdominis.

I swallow a croak.

AJ has a six-pack too, but his came from four world-renowned trainers and a chef who tracks micronutrients in his sleep. Rich’s has to be homegrown.

A bead of sweat trickles between the hard lines in his stomach and makes a woozy feeling come over me because I’m breaking another one of AJ’s rules—I’m looking at another man.

I pinch my eyes together again and open them to focus. They trail back up his body, pausing at the diamond pendant that dangles from his neck: a paw print.

It’s real. I can tell by the diamonds’ luster. They cover each part of the paw. There isn’t a space that’s not sparkling underneath the recessed lights in his kitchen. The necklace looks dainty enough for a woman to wear, yet perfect for him. It’s quiet unlike the loud jewelry AJ wears.

I finally look away from it and glance up at his face.

He stares at the fork in my hand with low, bedroom eyes. One of them has a shiner like Uncle Kenny would say. It’s a perfect black ring I can clean up with some concealer if he needs me to.

His eyes veer toward the weed and money scattered across his kitchen floor, and his straight brows wrinkle. Words are forming in his head, but they won’t come out, and now I think I understand Uncle Kenny’s frustration because I think I want to hear him again…and maybe again.

He looks up at me.

There are no feminine curves or dips on his face—just pure masculinity.

I can hear Aunt Faye now, talking about what a shame it was that a man as nice looking as him would want to box for a living.

Really, it’s a shame she didn’t warn me he looked like this, but why would she?

I shouldn’t be looking at him in that way, anyway.

His face settles into a straight expression, and he nods toward the fork in my hand. “What you gon’ do with that, Slim?”

Slim?

Now he’s calling me whatever he wants because that’s what fighters do.

They’re cocky. Over the years, I’ve learned that cockiness is woven into their DNA.

It can’t be built. It’s why EJ did what he did, why Rich thinks he can call me “Slim,” and why Uncle Kenny’s always wasting his time with fighters no matter how many times they fuck us over.

Another shard of glass crunches beneath his foot as he steps closer to me. “You gon’ stab me for sneaking up on you?”

My palm sweats around the fork’s handle.

There’s no wild look in his russet-colored eyes, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s still bigger than me…taller than me…harder than me and now he’s standing right in front of me frowning.

His jaw that Aunt Faye gossiped about, bulges and makes his mouth hang open just enough for me to stick a finger inside.

I push my body closer into the sink, squeezing the fork. He raises his hand toward me, and I rush to cover my face, but he thwarts my attempt by wrapping his hard hand around my wrist. It’s calloused just like I expected and so big that my wrist disappears underneath it.

I try to close my eyes to prepare for what’s next, but they stay wide open, gaping at the look of betrayal on his face until he pulls my arm down.

“I don’t think you gon’ do no real damage with a fork, huh?” He snorts, thumping my hand like I’m a mischievous toddler who can’t be trusted alone.

It’s just a soft thump I should laugh at, but it makes heat creep onto my face instead. Now I look stupid with wide eyes and trembling hands because I’ve never had a man scold me in such a soft way. I don’t think I even know what soft is anymore.

“Gimme this.” He pries my fingers open and slides the fork out of my hand, being careful not to disturb my bandaged fingers.

I hear every breath I take, and I know he can too, but he doesn’t even mock me as he slams the fork on the counter behind us.

“Stay right here until I clean this glass u—”

Aunt Faye’s horn blares from outside, cutting right between his slurred words.

I pull my hand from his and take off, trampling over the broken glass, weed, and hundred-dollar bills. I run all the way through the foyer and out onto his porch.

“Oh my God…” I gasp out a painful breath while the afternoon sun brushes my skin and the loud music from next door pierces my ears.

I look so stupid.

Aunt Faye’s soft cackle floats out of her car that’s parked in front of the house.

She sits behind the steering wheel with her eyes shut and her head against the headrest while Ms. Vera’s voice blares through the car’s speakers.

Suddenly, she opens her eyes and stares right at me, then waves her hand at me to “come on” with a confused frown on her face.

I look over my shoulder and wait for Rich to come running out of his house to tell her what I did. Instead, a small gust of wind blows a leaf across his empty driveway.

“Domino, motherfucka!” somebody yells.

My eyes snap over to his neighbor’s house where a balding man slams a domino on the rickety card table they’re sitting at in the front yard.

Aunt Faye honks her horn again, and they turn to look at me. I look away as if they can see the embarrassment on my face while Aunt Faye motions toward Rich’s door and twists her hand.

“Lock his door and come on,” she mouths, rolling her eyes.

I whirl around and yank it closed without bothering to check the lock.

On my walk to the car, I make myself look forward, and as soon as I pull the passenger door open, Aunt Faye asks, “Where’s all my stuff at?”

“I…I uh. I forgot it in the living room—”

“Lord,” she grumbles. “I’ll just get it when I come back next week. Rich’ll put it up for me.”

I swallow to soothe my dry throat, then get inside.

Rich’s neighbors watch us while she pushes the car into drive.

She tosses a lazy wave at them and they all wave back.

I avoid their gazes for the second time and scour Rich’s driveway for any evidence he’d been parked there, but there’s nothing.

The driveway is still as spotless as his toilets were.

“So, how was it? Easy, right?” Aunt Faye asks, rolling to a stop at the stop sign on Joliet.

“Yeah. It…it was easy.”