Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One) (30 page)

What the fuck did you just say!?

My arm moves
—

If
Blaze hadn’t clutched my wrist the instant she felt it
move, it would currently be against this scumfuck’s cheek. And his
cheek would be on the ground. Mouth bleeding.

But she grabbed it.

Hard
.

“
Tolek! Enough!” She gets around me,
positions herself between me and him.

I don’t like
this
.
Get behind me,
Blaze
.

Playing the polite card, she sticks out
her hand and says, “Tolek, th—thank you...for the compliment. Yes,
I did have a good set.”

Her hand hangs there for a
decade.

By the time he’s grabbed it, three things
have already happened:

One. He’s smirked, again. And the glint in
his eyes made my heart turn to coal.

Two. Trev and Skate have stood up, standing
on either side of me.

Three. His own posse has made itself
visible outside the door. Three more guys. None very big, but their
hands in their pockets make me think they won’t be fighting with
their fists alone.

And if that shit’s gonna hit, we’re all
gonna be splattered.

“
Trev, Skate, it’s cool. Sit. We’re cool.”
I put my hands up in the air. I notice at the bar-counter next to
me that a buxom redhead has picked up on the static charge here
amongst us. I look at the three dudes by the door, blocking the
exit. “Trev? It’s cool. Really.”

Tolek the Twat here gives a winning smile.
He knows I’ve seen his gangbangers. Staring straight at me, he
says, “I want to talk to Błażej alone.”

She answers, because I’m too flabbergasted
at his fucking insolence to even get my lips moving! “Tolek, what
do you want?”

“
To talk, Błażej.” Suddenly he looks like a
puppy with a broken heart.
The most dangerous kind
. “Just talk. Please. Outside. You no accept my
Facebook Friend request. I just want be friend again.”

You’re kidding me...

It’s taking all the strength I have to
not
strangle him,
slowly, and painfully. But I manage not to.

“
We have nothing to say to each other. All
we ever had to say was said the day you left my
apartment.”

He chews on this a second. Very
literally.
(Either that,
or he’s got some bovine in him somewhere...)

He looks up at me. And, in a final
defense, points a finger at me. “Dis not over.” Then, finger back
down, he glares at Blaze. “And you and me
will
talk! I promise you!”

It feels
like I’m resisting a semi-truck going at a
hundred, not hitting this motherfucker this very second! And I
would take him down. Oh yes I would. And when his mates came in,
I’d go down fighting. And I wouldn’t care. Because
one
solid thwack to this dude’s
chops would be worth all the pain in the world.

One solid
crack
.

He turns and leaves. One of the
posse doormen waits longer then
all the rest, then slams a fist into an open palm.
Real
original
. Finally, he
disappears as well.

I put my hand on
Blaze’s petite shoulders. She’s
trembling.

I think t
he redhead chewing gum next to us sums it up best:
“What a fuckin
asshole
.”

Blaze might’ve tried to play it cool, but
I can tell the dude got
to her. Because she just about forgets to hook up with
that
Red
Lipstikk
singer,
Viktoriya—the whole reason we came to
Slambam
tonight in the first place.

The band has given way to a lesser known
act, and Viktoriya sits at a bo
oth with her band members, as well as one of the
secret-service types who is most definitely
not
a band member—black suit, huge round face, chest
nearly as large as Dwayne Johnson’s. If I didn’t know any better,
I’d think Viktoriya here was the First Daughter or
something.

We hang back while Blaze goes to her table
to exchange details. Viktoriya
stands when Blaze gets there, smiling widely. Then gives
Blaze a hug like they’ve known each other for years. She gestures
for Blaze to sit. Blaze shakes her head, points over at us. Blaze
takes her phone out, and types in what I presume is Viktoriya’s
number. The frazzled-haired blonde is really elated. She puts a
hand on Blaze’s shoulder, then looks over at me. Blaze laughs. The
blonde gives me a smirking
I’d-Do-You-Twice
look.

I look away.

Afterwards,
Trev drives us home because the rest of us have
too little blood left in the alcohol flowing through our veins
after all those beers. He takes us to Blaze’s place first because
it’s the closest to the bar. Outside her building, when I ask her
if she’d like me to spend the night, she says, hesitantly,
“Uhm—no—no.” She runs a hand through her hair. “Not
tonight.”

“
Was it this Tolek guy? I’d rather not
leave you alone—”

“
I’ve been alone for a year. Longer than
that, actually. I’ll survive.”

Cold wind whooshes around my ears. I hear
Trev turn off the engine. In the corner of the building, maybe I
see a shadow. But I’m seeing lots of shadows tonight.

And lots of threats.

“
I’m worried about you. Let me spend the
night. Please.”

“
Deck”—she rests a flat hand against my
chest—“I
need
to be
alone. Please. It has nothing to do with you. If you and I are more
than just the heat of the moment, one day, maybe, my ‘alone time’
will include you. But right now, we’re not. Tolek is someone from
my past. And one incident from the past has a habit of bringing up
all the others.

“
I don’t want to unload on you all the
time—”

“
I
want
you to unload on me! Blaze, please. I know this is all new
and—”

“
That’s right. It’s
new
! It’s...a fairy tale. Maybe. Look, Deck, please,
you see? I didn’t mean that. I
don’t
think it’s a fairy tale only, but I said it. Because I just
need some alone time. I can’t think now. I just. It’s all coming
back—”

She looks up, looks behind me.
At that
apartment
. Looks back
down again.

My hands fire to her shoulders. “Blaze,
what’s in that apartment!? Tell me! You’re always looking at
it—”

She turns, opens the door.
And the building swallows her
up.

“
Blaze!”

I step into the road and call up to her
place. “Blaze! BLAZE!”

A light from another apartment comes on. A
dude with a beard and a beanie comes out. Says, “Girl trouble,
man?”

I ignore him.

Blaze
’s light comes on.

“
BLAZE!”

Then the light goes off again.

And
I hear music.

Loud, t
humping, blaring music. Filling the whole
street.

Something tells me nobody on this street
is gonna sleep much tonight
.

Inside me, a volcano erupts. I
see red. And the red calls
me.

“
Wanna go get him?” Skate asks from the
backseat.

Jaw clenched, eyes focused on the misty
road. I say: “Damn right I do.”

We drive the streets for an hour, enough
to settle my rage. And I know that’s a good thing. Because, now
that I think about it, this would
have probably been an insanely bad
idea.

“
Let’s go home, dudes,” I say.

As if relieved of lifting the Titanic
itself, Trev says, “Thank fucking
god
!” He exhales. And, with it, come the unspoken
words:
Deck,
I’ll always be there for you, homes. But you put me in some
motherfucking bad situations sometimes!

“
Sorry, Trev. But you know you can always
back out of this shit.”

He throws an incredulous glance in my
direction. “And let you fuckers kill yourselves?” He faces the road
again. Then,
angry
, he shakes
his head. “Fuckin asshole. Like I’d ever let you face this shit
alone. I only wish you two fucks would
grow up
!”

When Trev’s older brother was
arrested
for pushing, I
was the only one who saw his tears.

When my mother passed, he saw mine.

When
Jacinta was given a blue eye by a punk she was seeing, me
and him paid that punk a visit together.

And Trev’s the one who pulled me
off
of pops before I
damn near killed the bastard.

In the nick of time.

Trev
got me out of there before dad’s squeeze could blow my head
off with her contraband nine-mil, a weapon she caresses as if it
were a stray puppy.
Or a fat hard-on.

There’s one thing Trev loves more than his
scholarship. One thing only.

And it ain’t football.

I love him as well.

Trev and Skate crash at my place. As tired
as I am, I can’t sleep. I open up the Google Play app on my phone
and put on Blaze’s mix that I uploaded onto there. Then I text
her:

Deck: Sleep well.
Sorry I
overreacted. I respect your need for alone time. And I understand
it. Wanna grab some coffee tomorrow morning? My only move is at
12
.

She doesn’t answer.

Tonight,
I have my recurring nightmare. The only one that
wakes me up in sweats and forces me to put the lights on. Some of
it based on fact, much of it not...

I walk into
pops’s apartment. Only, in
here, it’s not “his” apartment. It’s “ours.”

Mom’s and mine and
pops’s.

Something’s wrong. The
floorboards creak. And the apartment looks like...a house? I’m in
the entranceway. White moonlight shines in from windows in the
back. Stairs soar up to rooms upstairs that, in this world, I get
the feeling I should visit.

As if something’s there for me...

When I take
a step, I hear the sound of
cans. I look down, and it’s PBRs. Hundred of them. Everywhere. So
many that I can’t see the floor anymore. Not even my
feet.

One of them leaks beer onto the
ground with a
gulp-gulp-gulp
sound.

I realize I’m in
pajamas.
Light blue flannel. With flying elephants on them. The
elephants each have a feather in their trunks. And they’re
smiling.

“
Declan, that you?” Pops’s voice
feels like a scalpel down my chest. I also hear something
else:

Faint and mumbled, but
clearly there:
“Mmmmm. Oh. Yeah. Mmmmm. Umpf! Oh, god.”

“
Declan, that you?”

The cans clatter.
Gulp-gulp-gulp
.

“
Deck, what da fuck you makin’
all dat noise for?”

And the woman’s voice:
“Mmmmm. Oh. Yeah.
God yeah. God
yeah
!”

I turn my head into the tea
room (finding it odd that we actually have one of those.) I
see
her.
Golden skinned
with
thick
hair, tumbling and curly. Voluptuous. Bent over a couch. Ass so
wide I could be staring at a porno flick. Black lace
stockings.

And dad’s cock inside
her.

“
Oh,
yes
, Raymond. Motherfuck
dat is
good.”
Thick Hispanic accent. Seductive. Alluring.

Her groans bounce off the walls like they’re
coming out of speakers.

Who wouldn’t wanna fuck her? Of course dad
would be fucking her. Right?

Pops holds a
PBR in his hand
while he does her. He looks back at me while his pelvis pumps the
Madame below—
slap slap
slap
. Her
torn stockings seem oddly out-of-place in this otherwise Victorian
setting.

A tea room
of all places. Go figure.

Pops’s
ass sags. He’s still got his shirt
on. His pants are in a puddle by his feet.

There are red marks on his
white legs. Sores, maybe.

“
Mmmmmm!! GOD! RAYMOND BABY!
OOOH YEAH!”

“
Hey, son.” He looks back at me
and raises his beer—
slap
slap slap.
Takes a sip. Then puts it back down. He looks away, puts
both his hands on her generous ass. “Say hi to Catalina,
son.”