Motown Throwdown (15 page)

Freestyling to add that I’d claw her eyes out and pull her hair would ruin the point so when I skipped to the chorus again I was floored when the audience joined in. Finishing on,
just call my name, I'll be there

I was caught off-guard when the place went nuts. Looking around for Venessa to pass the mic over, I was about to set it down when a man walked on stage, whispered in my ear and walked back off.

“This song is from Jason to Melanie,” I explain sitting down on the vacant stool. For them I sang,
Just the way you are
by Bruno Mars and watched as they danced like they were the only two people in the bar. When I wasn’t watching them, I watched Rome watch me. Before I could leave the stage people were handing me slips of paper and walking away. Looking over at Venessa, she nods with pleading eyes that I continue. Quite frankly, if I didn’t the crowd might riot.

Shit.

Opening another slip I read the dedication and started to sing. An hour passed then two. Venessa brought me a bottle of water and each song that was requested I sang only for Rome. Rome that was currently front row with his arms over his chest looking unhappy. Opening what I decided would be the last slip I let out a giggle. “Okay guys I don’t know how I’ll swing this one but, I’ll try.” Clearing my throat I draw the lyrics out to keep it slow and under control.

When the cheers startled me I decided fuck it, I was going to have some fun. I wanted to show him I could move, a promise of what was waiting for him later. Standing up I worked the small stage and my body to the best of my ability hoping he liked it. He looked less than pleased at my performance so I slowed it back down and when a guy next to him started screaming for me to shake my fat ass, without hesitation he knocked him out and time stopped.

Tossing the mic, Bishop catches me when I drop from the stage and run over to Rome. Standing directly in front of him to get his attention I could see he wanted to continue beating on the guy but stopped because I put myself in the way. The crowd parted quickly for the scuffle and then Jules was there. She and Bishop took care of crowd control while instructing me to take Rome to the locker room to cool off.

Once inside he punches the locker and then falls to the bench. Coming over to stand in front of him, I rest my hands on his shoulders and he wraps his arms around my middle resting his head on my belly.

“Rome, what just happened?”

“Why’d you do it?” he asks clutching me.

“Why did I do what?”

Looking up at me, he has the meanest look on his face, like I betrayed him in the worst way. “Stop singing for me and start shaking your ass for them.  You like the attention, Doc?”

Rome called me Doc when he was desperate or when he was pissy. This was the latter and I didn’t appreciate it. “Any shaking of my ass was for you. It’s a shame you didn’t pick up on that.”

“Fuck that,” he growls pushing me away then turning to point at me. “You are
my
God damn secret!”

Backing away further because that fucking stung, I wrap my arms around myself in defense of his words. “I shouldn’t be a secret at all,” I whisper.

“You don’t fucking get it,” he says punching another locker.

“Go home, Kandy Kane,” says Jules entering with Bishop. “Rome, get in my office.”

“We got shit to talk about, Boss,” he says glaring at me.

“Correction,
we
as in you and me have shit to talk about.”

“I’ll be by after work,” he says staring me down. As for me, I was hoping he would show so we could clear the air.

He didn’t.

I was losing her. Not that I ever really had her, but the news of my latest stunt reached her and she shut down on me. We’ve been hanging out regularly until this bullshit and now she wants no part of me. She was the first person, the only person I wanted to explain myself to. I needed her to understand that some shit was out of my control and that I couldn’t stop it.

On Friday, a video of a three-way I participated in went fucking live on the internet. The school’s student forum to be exact. If I could take it back, I would. I don’t know why I did it. Boredom, expectation, notoriety? Maybe all of the above, but the only thing I felt right now was shame. The thought of her seeing it made me sick. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t actually fuck anyone, that I just went through the motions. She would think I did and that’s what was killing me.

When she didn’t show for our session, I went to her complex and was lucky when a student let me in. Knocking on the door I could hear her moving around but she refused to answer.

“Let me explain!” I screamed at the door. Utter silence was my answer and I slid down landing on my ass. When she opened her door, looked down at me with pity and disappointment, I lost the ability to bullshit her which was my plan.

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” she says bluntly. “Really Roman, when did you ever owe me anything?”

“I owe you the truth.”

“Were you drugged?”

“What?”

“Forced?”

“No.”

“Then it was a choice.”

Then she slammed that fucking door in my face. Banging my head against it I heard it when she said, “I’d give anything to see you make the right one.”

Being schooled by your boss is humiliating.

Getting lessons on being a grown ass man
by
a grown ass man is even worse. After Jules explained she’d handle it, she left me with a Bishop and a warning that my job was gone if I kept this up. Taking a seat next to me, he rests his elbows on his knees to get on my level. I didn’t want to be on the guy’s level, I wanted to see Kandace.

“What’s going on up there?” he asks looking at my head.

“Nothing good,” I tell him leaning back.

“Can’t imagine prison was easy, but that aggression you got has no place in this club,” he says in an even voice. “It really has no place on Kandace’s shoulders either. What made you snap?”

“Everyone looking at her,” I confess. “The guy talking shit, checking her out. Didn’t like it, never have liked it.”

“She’s a beautiful woman, Rome. People are going to notice her. Women notice you all the time, you think it’s cool if the doc goes around knocking people out for looking?”

“You didn’t hear what he fucking said,” he wouldn’t understand so I didn’t bother explaining.

“Don’t matter what he fucking said,” he laughs. “Kandace was up there putting a show for you, my man. No one else, just you. Remember that, should there be a next time.”

“I fucked her today,” I tell him, sick with myself.

“Yeah, homeboy, you did.”

“No, I mean I fucked her. On the floor in her place like she was a notch.”

“She see it that way?” he asks. But when I stay silent he continues. “Guessing not, considering she came here for you. Then you fucked her again. Betcha the first time was better for her than the last. You think she’s been innocent while you been gone? Look at her man, she is hands-down gorgeous. The woman is a doctor, she knows the human body better than most people and she wanted to get drilled into the floor ‘cause it was you doing the drilling. Stow the past you want to keep living in or it’s going to bury you.”

Slapping me on the back he exits the office and a minute after that, I did too. But I didn’t go to her place, I wasn’t ready. Walking into my grandma’s place I showed up looking for advice and wasn’t expecting to see two suitcases by the door. “Leaving?”

“My boy is home, he’s good,” she says setting her mail aside. “I’m not needed here, you’re getting settled. I was going to head back south for a few weeks.”

Feeling like she was casting me aside, which I knew she wasn’t, because she was the only one who aside from Kandace ever had my side, I walk over to give her a hug goodbye. “I’ll miss you,” I tell her quietly.

“You came for advice,” she says leading me to the couch. “What happened?”

So I told her.

How I wanted Kandace to belong to me and only me. That I was jealous, embarrassed and confused. I explained how she was my secret and how I didn’t want to share her with anyone. At that she shook her head, which meant I was being a fool. “Boy, a woman comes to sing to you for a reason. You two have history; some good, a lot of it bad, but still she sees something in you. You don’t keep something precious secret, you keep it close and protect it but never a secret. Are you ashamed of her?”

“No,”

“You think she’s ashamed of you then?”

“She tells me she’s proud but how proud can she be? I spent ten years in a cell.”

“There you go again. You’ve been home four months, baby. Not once have you let yourself forget where you spent those years. It sounds to me like your past doesn’t shame her so why are you letting it define you?”

“Met her parents,” I mumble. “They liked me.”

“Of course they did,” she says waving her hands. “You don’t see yourself like I see you, or Kandace and her parents do.”

“They said they never doubted my innocence.”

“Then listen when people speak the truth,” she says standing up. “Because I never doubted it either.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” she asks but then I drop my head in shame because I didn’t. I live in a constant state of doubt. I doubted I’d ever break free of that cell. I doubted that I’d ever amount to shit. I also doubted Kandace would give me another shot. “I leave in two days, I want to see her before I go.”

Without another word she kisses my forehead and goes back to packing. Showing myself out, I went home and down into the basement to train. I had to do something to get this rage out before I killed someone.

Despite all the drama and bullshit that came with spending time with Roman, there was something about him that resonated with me. Maybe some of it was jealousy. Roman did as he pleased consequences be damned and I wished I had just an ounce of that in me. But since the news of his draft, he’s become even more wild, more reckless. I was shocked he even bothered to show for our sessions at all.

Since he came to my apartment I found I didn’t have much to say. He excelled at being the bad boy, the star, and the guy I had known he could be if he just tried, was long gone. When I didn’t fall for his lame excuse that the orgy wasn’t his idea, he turned it into anger against me. His idea or not, he did in fact, participate; and no I didn’t see it. But I did hear about it, everyone with ears heard about it. Roman was given a gift, a gift he was squandering. Most of us dream of a natural-born talent like his and the only one who didn’t seem to recognize his good fortune would be remembered as the guy who fucked two girls on camera.

After his no-show Thursday night and no sight of him on Friday either, when my brother called to say he was in town for a few days I jumped at the chance to see him on Saturday. Picking me up at home, we head out to Hopcat to have a few drinks and catch up. Gage and I have an easy relationship, always have. Friends first, we talk about everything and like my dads he doesn’t judge. I was glad to hear business was good, that he was happy. There’s a darkness about my brother that he refuses to talk about, but I feel it. If I was forced to explain what he did for a living the most I can tell you is he takes the jobs no one else would take. Outside of that, he flat out refuses to give me the details for my own safety. His motto was the less I knew the better. But over the years I spent countless hours patching him up when he claimed going to a hospital was too risky. Because of Gage, my hands-on training started early and have only improved with time and training.

When he asked about me of course, the topic on my tongue was Rome. Gage knows who Rome is and never liked him much, okay fine, at all. We were in college together one year before he left and I had to beg my brother not to kill Rome on my behalf. Gage never had time for college drama but always had a way of finding things out. Bottom line, he didn’t like how his baby sister had been treated.

For at least an hour he let me get it out and when I was done all he said was, “You got it bad for the wrong guy.”