Chapter 23 #3
“Ex… Current. I don’t know what my sister has going on these days. She spends most of her time over here.” Pia sighed while also giving me a look. “But, yeah, that’s him.”
“Well, I love Pearla. I love all the girls.” I changed the subject.
Pearla has been giddy about one of the new boys, Price.
I had only seen Price on photo but hadn’t seen the other boy.
I’d heard them on the other side of the door plenty though.
Italian had only brought them down with my permission.
It didn’t matter to me if they were here or not.
I was locked behind a door. They couldn’t see me unless Italian granted them access.
“So, when you asked us if we were doing more than drinking that night at the studio, I guess you meant powda.”
“Mocha!” Jisei screamed.
Pia shook her head. “Mocha! Girl!”
“Really, Mocha?!” Scarlett said, sounding genuinely upset.
Everyone chastised her except Dasani, who was laughing really hard.
Chuckling, I picked lint off the pillow that was now in my lap. All eyes were on me, waiting for an answer, despite them telling Mocha off.
“Yes. I’m… I’m a adicta a la cocaína…” I corrected myself before they even asked. “Oo, sorry. Cocaine addict.”
That was the first time I’d admitted that out loud, and I felt lighter—lighter than I’d ever felt before.
“Damn, you so pretty. I would have never thought that about you. Shit, you even make being on powda sound sexy. Co-ky-eee-nahhh!” Mocha dragged out.
“Yeah, you may feel sexy while doing the drug, but it’s nothing sexy about it. I never looked at myself as an addict. It was just… Um, something to do to take my mind off my reality.”
I took a breath. If I were going to tell them about my addiction, I might as well have told them where it stemmed from.
“My father promised me to marry an evil man. An evil man who comes from an evil family. They are no good for my country. Drugs became an escape. I was on drugs before I was promised to Felipe. It got worse? I think that’s the word I’m looking for. Sometimes English and Espanola blur.”
Mocha grabbed a pillow and propped her chest on it. “That dude from the club? The fine one?”
I nodded. “As attractive as he may be, he is a very bad man. Still… I was willing to go with him. I never wanted to bring him to your doorstep. To Shio’s doorstep.” I swallowed.
“I was willing to go back home and face the consequences. I’m sorry, Jisei, for taking residence in your home.”
“Girl, please! Mi casa es su casa!”
I grinned. “Very good, Espanol.”
“Yeah, well don’t get to trying to speak it to me because that’s all I remember from taking it in college. But I don’t know if you know this or not, but not long ago… Not even a year ago, my husband was battling an addiction. Why do you think Shio had this room set up? It was for Ezio.”
Jisei tossed her silky tresses behind her shoulder and pulled on her halter top before continuing. “He stayed in this room until he was clean. It worked too. It worked, and now look at us. Happy ever after. A cute lil’ baby and everything.”
“My fat man so handsome!” Mocha cooed.
“I… I don’t know if that will be my ending. But I did not know Ezio battled addiction.”
“He did. He still does. He still craves a pill here and there, but he refrains. A bitch gotta thug it out when it’s that time of the month because I don’t even keep Tylenol in the house. At least not the pill version.” Jisei shuddered and then shook her head.
“You won’t have to worry about him, Solana—your fiancé. You also don’t have to worry ’bout nothing coming to our doorsteps. My husband ain’t gone let shit infiltrate what we’ve built. They so evil but them niggas have gone underground. They shook.”
Dasani shot the rest of the women a look, and that told me that there was more she could say, but she wouldn’t. At least she wouldn’t in my presence.
I sighed and changed the subject. “I have my days where I feel as though the drug will make me feel better, but I am happy the craving is no longer there. It’s a mental battle. A very hard one, but I am taking it day by day.”
“So… How long you gone be in this basement? I mean, it’s cute and cozy and all, but shit, we got malls to hit, couches to stand on, and mob niggas’ pockets to run!” Mocha wagged her tongue and bucked her hips.
“I… I don’t know. Italian and I just figured until I get over the craving.”
“So that’s the plan? Or what is the plan?”
“I guess so. But I do not know what my future holds. I do have dual citizenship. If I decide to stay, I will get a job so that I can support myself. I do not know if I want to be back in México.”
I was still upset with my father. There were so many lies that I didn’t know if I could ever trust him again.
He had played chess with my life, and it could have ended badly.
The Rinaldi Mob could have been just as dangerous as the Rodríguezes, but I knew no matter what he had said, he didn’t care anymore because he needed money.
It also made me think that Maura turning off my credit card wasn’t about punishment, but more likely because he couldn’t afford it anymore.
“Girl! You don’t have to get no fucking job!” Dasani looked at me as if I was loca (crazy).
“Dasani, Shio and I… We never…”
“Y’all never fucked?” Pia asked.
I grew coy. “No.”
“I just gotta know. You ever fucked your fine-ass, evil fiancé?”
Scarlett sighed. “Mocha!”
“What! Y’all know that Migo fine!”
“Mocha, I’ve never had sex with him.” I squeezed the pillow to my chest. “I never had sex with anyone.”
“What!” everyone screamed, except Pia, who jolted awake.
“You… a virgin?” Jisei asked.
“Bitch! Stop acting like you didn’t know!” Dasani yelled at Jisei.
She held her hands up. “I didn’t! I swear!”
“Yo’ talking-ass brother didn’t tell you that? Ha! I’m shocked.”
“Wait! You ain’t never had no dick, for real?” Pia squirmed around after falling asleep.
I shook my head no.
“Hell nawl!” Pia yelled.
Mocha laughed while the others said something, giving me looks of pity.
“That’s crazy!”
“Oh, wow, boo.”
“Um, um-um, um.”
With everyone’s attention on me, and me sitting in the center of the bed, I was completely exposed. My body was flushed with embarrassment but this was my truth.
“You was living in fine-ass Shio’s house and ain’t never gave him no coochie?”
“Si.”
“Si? Si, si a bitch like me would have bust it wide open. That’s why I’m a teen mom now.”
“Mocha, you grown now.” Jisei tittered while shaking her head.
“Yeah, I am now. But I wasn’t then. But, girl! A virgin! How the hell you taking cocaine up the nose but not dick up the ass?”
“Questions that need answers.” Pia yawned before trying to reach me with her hand to pat my arm but couldn’t. “Respectfully, of course.”
“No offense taken, ladies. But, yes, I am a virgin. My father wouldn’t have it any other way. I am to be pure. A pure bride meant better deals for the father handing me off.”
“That’s some bullshit!” Dasani grunted.
“It is our way. I’ve been arranged since I was a girl. That didn’t bother me. What bothered me was who I was being arranged to and the different adversaries I faced in my father’s household. That is a different story for another time.”
“Well, shit. How does it feel?”
Turning to Mocha, my brow rose in question. “To be a virgin?”
“Yeah. I lost my shit so long ago, it seems that I can’t remember life before King Dingaling.”
“Ha! You stupid.” Pia cackled.
Mocha shrugged. “I’m for real, Pia.”
I pondered before I shook my head. “It feels… normal? Yes… normal. You can’t miss… what you haven’t had, I guess.”
The swipe of Shio’s tongue on my bud and him sucking me into his mouth flashed across my mind, causing a shockwave in my underwear. I swallowed down my desire, not wanting to share the intimacy we shared with the girls.
Dasani rubbed her forehead. “See, I’m too damn drunk for this shit.”
“I most definitely had one too many.” Scarlett plopped back on the bed, chest facing the ceiling.
Mocha kissed her teeth with a grin. “A whole-ass virgin. No wonder Shio put yo’ ass in here. He ain’t studying no damn cocaine. He wants to lock you away. You a diamond, boo. Nah, fuck that! You a unicorn. My daddy would be so proud if I was a virgin at this big ole age.”
“Nah, because LJ wouldn’t be here. Don’t try to wish my nephew into nonexistence.” Jisei chastised.
“Okay…” Pia rolled more on her side and rubbed her protruding belly.
“Do you want to wait until marriage is the question. Not what your daddy wants but what you want? You’re way in another country.
You ain’t gotta do shit he says. And I know right now you battling addiction, one that you will overcome, so leave that out of your response and thinking process. ”
I panted softly. My mind was languid and without hope. Shio had come over, and he’d made me feel good—really good. But he was back to not responding to my texts. He had not made any effort to show the intimacy he’d shown me when he came here.
My head shot up in the direction of where the camera was.
A towel hung from it, and the burn in my chest returned.
How dare he? How dare he watch me and never respond to my messages?
That was a violation of my privacy, and I was pissed at myself for not feeling as violated and turned off as I should’ve.
“I don’t want to wait until marriage.”
“But I would,” Scarlett stated. “You’ve waited all this time. What’s the rush, Solana? Me… I sold my virginity.”
I looked up into Scarlett’s pretty face and then grabbed her hands. “I’m so sorry.”