by Tijan
See…I get that I wasn’t being normal.
I’m young. I’m new to this world, and this town, and I was still just starting out on the exploratory trek of finding what the hell I wanted to do in the world, but the usual roles that I should be portraying, the ones that spoke of my background and upbringing, I wasn’t. I wasn’t new, or innocent, or eager. I wasn’t ambitious. I wasn’t hopeful.
I was jaded.
I was tired.
Give me a fight to break up and I’d wade in without a second thought; that was the world I was comfortable in. If she was hoping to get a new recruit, someone ready to ask how high when told to jump—I needed to make sure she was disappointed from the very start. That was me. That was who I was. Doing my thing.
“You don’t say much.”
I cracked a grin at that. “My brother’s the charming one.”
She leaned back in her chair slowly. The papers were pushed back, and she moved her chair to face me more fully. The way she was looking at me, I had a feeling she was about to lay some ground-moving shit out there. Or it would be in her opinion.
I wasn’t holding my breath for it.
She raised her chin up, just slightly. “Can you type?”
“Graduated school.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Can you keep shit quiet?”
“Only telling you my name because I have to.”
Her mouth flattened a second. She pushed forward, resting her elbows on her knees. That same surveying look didn’t waver. “Can you fight?”
“Yes.”
“You in school?”
“No.”
“You want to go to school?”
“I’m here first.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What does that even mean?”
I tipped my chin up this time, my tone a little cooler. I’d just been rock steady before. “Means that’s my personal business and not yours.” The truth is that I didn’t know what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go. But who was she for me to explain all of that to? I took a breath. “My brother wouldn’t want me to come in here and be disrespectful, I have to add on, ‘no offense.’” I turned up one corner of my own mouth, letting it fall the next beat. “You want to know about me? I’m a fighter. I ain’t no bounty hunter. Never shot a gun, wore a vest, used a Taser, and honestly, never wanted to do or use any of those. But your people found me in a job that I didn’t like being in, and I’m here for the next four years, at least. I need to do something. I need to make money. Somehow my brother thought this would work for me. If you know my brother, people tend to trust him. I guess this is me trusting him.”
Her eyes inched closed the more and more I spoke.
At the end, she held her head up, straightening back as if she thought I was a snake about to strike. “I don’t know your brother, but I’ve heard his reputation. I’m trying to assess if you’re going to be a gigantic pain in my ass or not.”
“No.”
She didn’t flinch. “Then I’m also trying to determine if you’ll be a danger to my people or not.”
I flinched on the inside. “No.”
I had a bit more bite in my tone.
Her eyes opened wider, just a centimeter. She heard that, too. “You didn’t like that, huh?”
I didn’t respond.
She didn’t look like she thought I was going to respond and, chewing on the inside of her cheek for a moment, she let out a sigh. Reaching behind her, she grabbed the papers and handed them to me. “Fill those out. Come back tomorrow at five, dress in all black.”
I grabbed the papers and stood. “Five in the afternoon?”
She shook her head, a smile starting. “Nope.” She was almost beaming when I turned to go. “Hey, Bren.”
I looked back.
The smile was gone. In its place was something dark, so dark that her face didn’t show it. I only knew it was there because I felt it deep inside of me. “No matter the job description on paper, you’ll be going on ride-alongs. If you remain here, you’ll progress. You might even want to take the test in the future. Either way, you’ll be in dangerous situations alongside my people. If you do anything stupid to put them in danger, you’re out. I don’t give a rat’s ass about what connections you might be bringing to my family. You got me?”
I didn’t respond. I got her, and she saw that I got her. No words needed.
I opened the door, papers in hand, and I left.
FROM: Brenners
TO: Tazsters
SUBJECT:
Typing this as I’m waiting for your brother. Tell me what’s new with you?
FROM: Tazsters
TO: Brenners
SUBJECT: OMG!!!!!
OMG! HOW ARE YOU? I’VE MISSED YOU GUYS SO MUCH!
Things are good here. I’m LOVING my roommate, but I think she’s got a thing for Race. She told me she like boxers A LOT and then looked right at Race. It got uncomfortable as fuck, and I’m not down with it.
I miss you guys so much.
Have you seen Blaise much? I talk to him.
Okay. I have a late class so I have to go.
LOVE YOU SO MUCH!
—The Best Twin
BREN
I was sitting in my truck, parked outside Cain University’s gymnasium. The windows were down. A slight breeze wafting through, mixing with a slight mingling smell of someone’s bonfire, sweat, and garbage. I glanced over. The dumpster in the corner of the lot was overfilling. My guess, it hadn’t been picked up on last week’s rotation. Or maybe over the last month. Either that or there’d been a party in the parking lot over the weekend.
Option two was more viable, now that I thought about it. Knowing the students on this campus and what they were capable of, definitely option two.
“What’s up, Brennie Bren?”
I had not even one second to swear, raise the window, or just simply have a knife ready and poised. Not that I needed it, but I wanted it, solely on the principle that Zeke Allen was annoying AF and also, that he snuck up on me. Dammit.
I had to settle with looking over at him, and hoping my glare of death suddenly had Reaper magic.
It didn’t.
His assholish smirk was still there.
I shifted in the seat, moving an inch away, again on the principle of it alone. “Still as repulsive as ever, Allen.” And he was. A professional douchebag, fraternity brother by career, and loaded up the ass with privilege and wealth. Unfortunately, we were stuck with him because he was also Cross’ brother’s best friend.
See. We were all doomed.
I added before he said anything else that would make me want to vomit, “I heard that we came close to not having you grace our presence at Cain.” And he continuously looked like he was enjoying himself. I said further, “That’s too bad. For real. Way. Way. Way. Too bad.”
He moved in, positioning to rest a hand on my door, over the opened window, and he laughed. “There you go, being funny. And no one said Bren Monroe has a funny personality. Personality, yes. You know the kind…dull, gloomy, dark, death, but comedic, I never would’ve believed if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. Tell me the truth, Bren. You lie at night thinking of ways to brighten my day, don’t you? Don’t be shy. You can share your feelings for me. I know you have dirty thoughts about me when you’re in the shower.”
I was gritting my teeth, and I hated to admit this, but he was starting to boil my blood.
In the murdering way.
I shot back, “You know what’s actually funny? You don’t say any of this shit when your boy’s standing in front of you.”
That smirk immediately vanished.
Got you.
He didn’t like me talking about his best friend. Then, point taken, that’s all I was going to talk about. I positioned myself a bit more, facing him, tilting my head to the side. “You’re nice and quiet whenever Blaise is around. Why is that? Hmm? Oh, and I didn’t just hear about how you might not have come to Cain, that your daddy got mad at you.” I wa
ited a beat. He didn’t like knowing that I knew any of these things. I had to add, “And guess who told us all that information?”
“There you go, trying to be a comedian. I lied before.” He snapped forward, baring his teeth. “You ain’t no comedian.” His eyes widened and he leaned back. “Wait a minute. What do you do? I was going to say don’t quit your day job, but you don’t have one of those anymore. You ain’t a college student. You got no career. I’m at a loss. I mean, how do I even know how to insult you if you aren’t doing anything productive with yourself?”
“Zeke!” A bark came from just in front of the truck.
We both turned.
Zeke cursed under his breath, stepping back.
Like two marauding golden twins, Blaise and Cross were heading right for us. Blaise had his soccer bag in one hand, still dressed in his uniform. He must’ve had a game. Cross was eyeing him from the side, angling his body so it looked as if he hadn’t come with Blaise, more like both of them converging on the truck at the same time. Cross had been working out, lifting weights with Jordan, but I didn’t see our other crew member coming with him.
Blaise and Cross weren’t actual twins. The twins were Cross and Tasmin, his sister, and she was going to college about four hours away from us at Grant West University. But even though none of them knew about the other growing up, the results were the same. Cross and Blaise, though different moms, looked eerily similar.
They were coming in both hot and ready to handle whatever was going on.
I knew Blaise was coming in to back his boy up.
Cross was coming to either back me up or make sure I hadn’t murdered Zeke. Judging by how he gave Zeke a once-over, then eased back, it was the latter. His eyes met mine, those tawny, gorgeous, and smoldering eyes, and I caught a flash of amusement.
I scowled at him.
He thought this was funny?
His mouth only twitched again.
Oh yeah. He thought this was funny.
Then again, anytime I came across Zeke Allen, Cross enjoyed watching me at work. He told me later that seeing me do my thing was ‘fucking hot when you tear him down.’ Those were his words, not mine. But now that I was thinking about it, that’s all I wanted to do: tear Zeke down.
“The fuck?” Blaise was there in an eyeblink, and he was moving between us, pushing Zeke backwards, but looking over his shoulder at me and frowning. Cross had decided he wasn’t needed. He tossed his workout bag in the back and got in next to me. He leaned over, kissing me and saying, “You okay?” His words were so quiet, and they gave me a thrill like always. Or maybe that was the kiss, or how he ran his hand down the side of my face before leaning back, giving me a closer and more intimate look. Whatever he saw must’ve reassured him that everything was definitely okay. He nodded and pulled back, his thumb tweaking over my bottom lip in a flirtatious touch.
Hiding a small grin, he angled his body, turning toward me. One elbow rested on the dashboard and he spoke to Zeke, sounding almost bored, “I get that you’re obsessed with my brother, but do you have to be obsessed with my woman, too? Get one of your own.”
Blaise paused, sending his brother a chilling glare.
Yeah. Those two had so not walked out together, side by side.
Blaise must’ve come from the soccer field. It was just past the gym.
“Okay. Let’s all shut the fuck up.” Blaise sent everyone a cold look before turning to his best friend. He began pushing him back even farther.
Zeke wasn’t moving. Well, he was, but not willingly. Blaise was mostly pushing him without making it look like he was shoving him.
Zeke kept glaring at me over Blaise’s shoulder.
I smiled and leaned out my window, raising my voice. “I don’t know why you have such a hard-on for me, but it’s time to let those feelings go.” I nodded to Cross. “Let it go for our boys, hmmm?”
Cross leaned back in his seat, his hand coming to my leg. “Blaise will keep him under wraps.”
I watched them go, saw how Blaise’s head ducked down and he was keeping a hand at Zeke’s chest, as he continued to walk him across the lot.
Yeah. I hadn’t wanted to talk to Allen, but I had to admit that I got a rise whenever some of my own insults pierced him. Reaching over, turning the engine on, I raised my window.
Cross did his at the same time. “We gotta hold up. Jordan was getting a girl’s number. He should be out in a few minutes.”
With that, all thoughts of Blaise and Zeke Allen were gone.
I shook my head. “The amount of girls he has coming through the house is setting records. I don’t know what records, but there must be some form of record he’s breaking. He had two girls at the house last night. One left just before midnight, and the other one showed up after one. He drove her home at five. I know all of this because I was up.”
Cross grinned at me before looking, and both of us saw the gym’s door open. Jordan came out, a bag over one shoulder and a girl walking on his other side.
I said, “She’s pretty.”
Cross snorted. “They’re all pretty.”
I shot him a look. “Really? Tell me more.”
He shot me a look right back. “You know what I’m saying.”
I laughed. I did. Jordan wouldn’t give them the time of day if they weren’t.
I nodded at them. “Ten bucks says she spends the night tonight.”
Cross groaned, shaking his head. “I can’t take that bet. I know he has a study group coming to the house, and there’s a girl there he’s interested in, so this one won’t be his flavor for the night.”
“Why wouldn’t you take that bet? Easy money for you.”
“Because you would’ve found out I knew, and you would’ve kicked my ass later.”
All true.
My man knew me.
Just then, Jordan gave the girl a hug before heading our way. She lingered, waving, and he glanced back over his shoulder. When he turned to us, a cocky smirk was on his face. He flashed us a grin, tossing his bag in the back. “I promised some people food. Can we stop at the grocery store quick?”
He didn’t wait for a response because he knew the answer, jumping into the back, and then we were off the next second.
This was what we did for each other.
Rides. Helped with food. I mean, those were the easy things we did for each other, but there was more. Ride or die. It’s how we always had been, and driving through Cain, easing into the grocery store parking lot and parking, I took a beat to appreciate them. Jordan headed in first.
Cross was right behind him, giving me a look.
I gave him a nod, indicating he should go ahead, and with a small frown, he did, but I knew he’d ask what was up with me later.
And there was something up with me, but it was nothing bad. It was just the opposite.
My biggest plight in life was finding my place. With all the bad that had happened in my life, my mom dying, getting assaulted, my dad going to prison, and so many other things, this, being here with them, was the easiest to handle of them all. It was also the most uncomfortable.
What I said to Hawk hadn’t been a lie. I meant every word.
I was a fighter. That’s what I did in life. It’s who I became. It’s who I was. It’s just how I was. I fought and I survived. The girl whom Jordan just got a number from, or the girl waiting at the house for him, those were normal girls.
Since he had broken up with Tabatha, since those girls started showing up, I hadn’t judged. I hadn’t been unfriendly. They mostly stayed away, knowing I was one of Jordan’s ‘family,’ that’s how he introduced all of us, and when they saw I was with Cross, I either got looks of envy or looks of relief. But my point is that I listened to them. I heard how they spoke, the words they used, what their hopes were, what their concerns were. Getting good grades. Passing a class. Losing ten or twenty pounds. Getting invited to certain parties, depending on who threw it, and the reasons for why hadn’t they been invited and others had, e
tc.
They liked makeup, dressing sexy.
A few girls came over who cared about getting a good job one day. They knew the hours of the library versus how some knew the best hour to show up at a fraternity party. Jordan wasn’t being picky, but even with the more studious girls, I still felt it.
It was just there.
A feeling. An underlying dynamic that bristled against me. It was like an allergy, working against me, and that no matter what, I wasn’t like those girls. But Hawk. The girl with the warrior braids, smoky-eye makeup, who sat in a room and talked to me about not being a liability to her family, that girl…she was like me.
She gave me heat, but I shot it back, but even then, I knew that I was like her.
We defied society rules. We fought and survived in the darkness, and somehow, we thrived among it.
Watching Jordan, how he was handling life at college, watching Zellman, even watching Cross—they were happy. And I wasn’t saying that I was unhappy, but I was lost. We were crew, and because of that, they’d been in the darkness with me. We formed out of necessity, and then that bond strengthened into a vow of family. There was no crew system anymore, here or in Roussou. It’d been disbanded. The administration had won, so what did that make us?
We weren’t fighting anymore. That seemed childish, but that world of violence, it was in me.
I was realizing that a part of me needed it. Maybe that’s why Channing sent me to Coug r Lanes. He knew exactly what I would be needing?
Yet, I didn’t know, and stepping inside the grocery store, I didn’t think I’d have it figured it out by tonight.
Coming up behind Jordan and Cross, who were both in the meat section, I skimmed the cart. There was a box of tampons. The brand and size I used.
“B. You want chicken or steak tonight?” Jordan was the one who asked.
Cross was watching me, a bit more intently than normal. He knew I had deep thoughts flowing around in my head, but I replied, “Chicken.”
He grabbed four packages, hefting them into the cart. “You’re low, right?” He was indicating the tampons. I gauged him, but he wasn’t being sarcastic or teasing. It was as if he asked if I wanted to get bread. No big deal.