Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One) (9 page)

“
I was a little...taken aback by you...when
you mixed tonight. I...wouldn’t call it
‘infatuated’...but—”

I start laughing. “Are you going to tell
me you were idolizing me and couldn’t imagine ever matching your
lips to mine?”

“
That’s exactly what I was gonna
say.”

All time stops. The protective walls I’ve
erected around me crash. I process the statement, swallow
hard.

That’s exactly what I was gonna say...

“
Declan”—I feel my insecure lips
tremble—“I’m just a regular girl. You might get disappointed if you
put me up on a pedestal.”

“
I’m not disappointed yet. And FYI, I’m
also a coffee-first kind of guy...when I
have
to be...” he squeezes my hand harder.

“
What—”

“
Coffee?” A bubbly and happy Clarissa
arrives at our table, holding a pot of it. I nod, so does Declan.
She pours, then leaves.

“
What do you mean ‘when you have to
be’?”

“
Never mind, I don’t wanna scare you
off.”

I look up at him. All manner of intensity
rages in his aquatic eyes. I don’t pursue the last statement. All I
know is his gaze burns into me. My chest lights up. I feel the
scrim of sweat on my skin from last night’s party liven up again. I
imagine his lips on my skin—
Why!? The thought comes out of
nowhere!
—and realize I’d
probably taste like an athlete right about now.

So would he. And yet...the thought of his
briny flavor on my tongue is enough to make me shift in my
seat.

There’s only one explanation to this, of
course: I’m completely tired. I need to sleep and think straight
again.

Of course that’s what it is.

“
So why did you really stop dropping?” he
asks me.

I pause as an argument rages in my mind as
to whether or not I should answer
truthfully. Or should I pepper it, tell a
semi-truth, a lie that isn’t completely a lie? A “truthful” lie.
But a little voice in my head tells me not to, tells me that I
should be open with him, completely, and see where it
goes.

I say it quick:
“Friend of mine ODed.”
Jackhammer
hits me!
Savva’s face, on the ground, swollen eyes looking
up, fingers curled halfway...
“Can we change the subject?”

Silence. I sense that he knows that the
dead tree on my arm is because of that. “That’d do it,” he says.
And then he changes the subject. “So how long you been mixing
for?”

“
As long as I can remember. I got some
cheap-ass decks when a friend of ours moved back to Poland. I was
twelve then, but I’d been mixing at his place already since I was
eleven or so. Then I sold those and got some other decks off eBay.
The current ones I have were given to me by another friend who also
went to Poland. A...uhm...year ago. He DJed in his spare time.”
Patryk was never much of a DJ, but he was a big spender, always
liked getting the best gear even if he couldn’t afford
it.

Savva really liked that about
him...

“
Wow.” He says it slowly.
“Just...
wow
. So, that’s
what you do? I mean, mix full-time?”

“
Yeah...I try at least.”

He taps his finger on the table.
“Blaze.”

“
Yeah.”

“
You mesmerize me. And I know that’s
forward and all and maybe I’m stuck in the moment of heat, or maybe
I’m still ‘infatuated’ and all but...I need to kiss you again. I
mean,
need
to.”

I need it
too.
“Then kiss me.”

Electric sparks fly across our table. I
actually hear the crackle of static. Declan pays the bill. We stand
to leave but Clarissa grabs him by the wrist. She gives me a cold
look that says to me,
Gimme a minute, this is private!

I go and wait by the door. I overhear:
“Gina’s not doing so good, Deck. You need to go and see her. The
doctors think it’ll help. You know, her last touch with reality and
all...”

“
It’s not my business, Clarissa. She did
what—”

“
It
is
your
damn business. You owe it to her to—”

“
Clarissa, I don’t owe her shit. It was her
choice, and I tried to stop her.”

“
She would’ve walked to the depths of the
earth for you, Deck. And she followed you when you got into the
scene. Hell,
everyone
followed you in. You know everyone in school looked up to
you. You can’t make out like you didn’t know you had that kinda
influence over people.”

A pause. “I didn’t know back
then...but...it was still her choice.”

“
Fine, whatever. Look, that may be true.
But right now it is
your
choice. She
needs help. Go see her. Go—”

“
And take another beating from her brother
who thinks I’m the devil consummate?”

“
Maybe. But everyone knows you never put up
much of a fight on that one, Deck. You coulda taken him in two or
three punches. Something says to me you
wanted
to get beat on. Like that woulda make it OK
or
sumthin
.
You
know
Gina’s in
the shit she’s in in a large part because of you.”

“
Damn it. I don’t need to take this crap
from you. This was years back—”

“
Clarissa!” It’s Mr. De Luca to the
rescue.

Declan calls out to him. “Sorry, Mr. De
Luca. It was my fault. I was just catching up with Clarissa on some
old high school friends.”

“
OK, Deck. But she’s got work to
do.”

“
I understand, sir.” Then, to Clarissa:
“Look, I hear you. I gotta think on it.”

“
Think fast. Because time’s running
out.”

He exhales, exasperated. When he turns and
sees me, his eyes are a raging red. He catches himself short, as if
realizing where he is, and forces a smile at me. As if he’d been
dragged into the past by the conversation and was stuck there a
second.

I know the feeling.

Outside, I say to him, “Everything
OK?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Uhm,
yeah, yeah. Sorry about that. Old ghosts, you know?”

“
Yeah, I know about old ghosts.”

That gets a smile out of him. He eases his
left hand to my shaved hair, rubs it once, then moves it down to my
cheek. Instant heat slams me. “I like your hair.”

“The lack of it? Or the hair itself.”

As if checking, his right hand slides
under my full-length side. His hand is warm, and my eyelids wanna
close. He eases my head back. My chin moves up, my eyes close, then
open, my lips part...

I breath in expectantly. With half-closed
eyes, I see his own head move down to mine.

“
Both,” he says.
And then he kisses me.

I almost choke on some of my spit! I start
coughing, and he laughs, but he doesn’t let go of the back of my
head. My arms start moving on their own, my hands start wrapping
around his hard waist. He moves down again, lips and tongue to
mine, quietly, gently.

My nipples tighten. But then a gust of
cold air gets the better of us—and my whole body breaks into a
shiver.

I grab
his wrists and pull away, because not only do I want to
kiss him more. I want to lose myself completely in him.

And that can’t happen here...

It’s clear he wants to take me somewhere
quiet, but I can’t wait anymore. I want to feel that toxic blanket
again.
That...
bastid
. I wanna
be wrapped up and sleep in it. But whatever else, I need his tongue
on mine.

We get to his truck and
I push him against its door. And I do lose
myself in him. When he pushes me away and says, “We need to get out
of here,” I don’t listen. My lips hunt for his, and he gives
in.

Together, our body heat increases. When
his hand slides under my
sweater, on the back, and he pushes me firmly against his
solid manhood, I say, “I think you’re right.”

Letting him go
feels like stopping a train on a track.

Declan Cox

Her hand’s on my thigh as
I drive. We share nothing but
silence as I make my way from Prospect Park over to Bogart Street
in Bushwick. Her loft, she said.

There’s nothing but
velvety quiet between us. Until she says:
“You read much?” At my hesitation, she clarifies. “I think I saw an
e-reader in your glove compart—”

“
Oh, yeah, when I can.”

“
Mind if I look at it?”

I get a sudden insecure
feeling—
crazy, I know!
—like letting someone look at the literature I peruse would
be like letting them look deep into my soul.
And is that safe?
“S—sure, go ahead.”

I reach over to open the glove
compartment. “That’s cool. I got it.” She smiles while she says
that, and it breaks me apart.

She fiddles with the reader.
“Stephen King fan?”

Looking deep in the
soul...
“Uhm,
yeah.”

After a pause. “Does it sing to
you?”

“
Wh—what?”

“
King’s work. It sings, doesn’t
it?”

“
Like a screeching banshee.”

“
To the soul,” she murmurs. Then puts the
reader away.

A demented
and troubled
soul
. “You read much as
well?”

She smiles demurely. “Wait till you see my
place.”

I have to be careful with her, because
I
did
put her on a pedestal. And I
have to make sure I don’t treat this as some novelty—“screwing the
DJ” kind of thing. Because it isn’t. It so isn’t. I don’t know what
it is—some force or something; the alligator in the sewers,
maybe—that’s boggling my mind and turning my thoughts to mush. It
makes me think the weirdest shit about her. Makes me think stuff
like: Sitting on the grassy hills in Sunset Park with her, and
looking down over at Red Hook sprawling below. Makes me think of
sipping a cocktail at
The Ides
rooftop, watching the sun go down behind the city, with her
in my arms.

Why is this happening to me?

It’s clear. She
is
on a pedestal. I’ve put up an image of her in my
mind and am making my life fit around it. But I have to see her for
what she is: A girl I dig. Because I do. And, sure, it’s physical.
The green of her eyes, that crazy pink and blonde hairstyle. And
the ink...

Oh, damn, that ink.
First babe I ever saw to sport
so much of it. And it’s
hot
!

She squeezes my thigh and my thoughts
skyrocket.

She’s not helping.

And then there’s her voice, soft and
gentle. The way her gaze flickers when she tells a lie;
I stopped
rolling...just because enough was enough.

And her music. The pain betrayed by the
images on her arm...

No, it’s bullshit—this idea of putting her
on a pedestal. Because I do know her. I know she’s suffered. She’s
been talking to me all night, through her music. Soulful,
heart-wrenching music. I know that her grip on my leg is an
unconfident one, one that says,
I’m doing this, but I’m not sure
why...

We get to her place, a building right next
to a monster wallpiece of floating heads and wires.
Skate would like
this
, I think. Most of
the apartments on the left side—the apartment building across from
hers—look abandoned.

She hesitates
just before she opens the car door. I pick up on
her anxiety. “Blaze, I’m not expecting anything from you. Heck, I’m
not even normally like this. You’re more than a little interesting
to me. All I know is...something’s maybe happening here. And I’ll
be damned if I’m gonna let it go. I’m a good guy. You can call
Randy and check with him. You can trust me. You—”

She stops me short.
“I know.” The statement comes out as a
raspy whisper. “Just so long as you know that...I’m not—” She
laughs nervously.

“
You’re not a slut. I get it. I think I’ve
figured that out already. And I’m glad you’re not. Because I don’t
think we’d still be hanging out if you were.”

And I guess that statement pushes her over
the edge, because before I know it, she’s up on me, over the
gearshift, kissing me like her life rides on it. And I’m kissing
her back, fumbling on the seat and not knowing where to put my
hands and shit...

Hers
are all over my hair and mine don’t quite reach her own
hair but now I’m tugging at her tight sweater and—